Chapter 3 Fever & Fang
Rhea POV
I woke up to the smell of smoke and the sound of somebody swearing about soup.
For a second, I thought I was back in the snow, half-dead and bleeding. Then the ceiling came into focus, it was rusted tin patched with spell paper. The rebellion’s finest architecture.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Maris muttered from across the room. She was elbow deep in a pot that smelled like burnt herbs and bad decisions. “You owe me a new med kit, Ghost. And probably an exorcist.”
“Put it on my tab.” My voice rasped out of me like gravel.
When I tried to sit up, every muscle screamed. My shoulder pulsed with slow heat, dull but constant, as if someone had hidden an ember under my skin. I peeled back the bandage. The bite mark was a pale crescent now, but faint lines of gold traced from it along my collarbone, veins that shouldn’t have been glowing.
Maris noticed and dropped the spoon. “That’s new.”
“Yeah,” I said, staring at it. “Maybe I’m turning into jewelry.”
“Maybe you’re turning into dead.”
She knelt beside me, pressing a cool palm to my forehead. “You’re running hot enough to cook rations on. Ghost, that’s not infection. That’s....”
“.....a miracle?” I tried.
“...a problem.”
Outside the safehouse, the wind howled through the ruins. Every gust carried the faraway echo of wolves. We’d built our safe house base inside the skeleton of an old church, its stained glass patched with tin, the altar replaced by weapons racks.
The irony wasn’t lost on me; once upon a time, people prayed here. Now we just reloaded.
“Did the others make it out?” I asked.
Maris nodded. “Half. The rest…” She didn’t finish. Didn’t need to. “Command wants to pull you off the line until we know what that bite did.”
I barked a laugh that turned into a cough. “Tell Command to file that order where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“You’re not invincible, Rhea.”
“Funny. The Alpha said the same thing before I stabbed him in the jaw.”
Her eyes went wide. “You stabbed him?”
“Technically. Briefly. It was an artistic choice.”
“Ghost...”
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t. The fever pulsed deeper, heartbeat and heat syncing until they blurred together. My vision swam, the world fading in and out between breaths. When I blinked, I saw flashes, silver snow melting into gold light, a pair of burning eyes watching from the trees, and the taste of iron and fire on my tongue.
Maris’s voice drifted through the haze. “Stay with me, okay? Whatever’s happening, we’ll figure it out.”
“Sure,” I murmured, forcing a smile. “If I start sprouting fur, shoot me.”
“No promises.”
The heat under my skin grew heavier, like molten metal spreading through my veins. Sweat clung to my neck despite the cold. My stomach rolled. The air tasted metallic, sharp, and wrong.
“Mar,” I rasped. “Something’s off.”
“I know.”
Then the floor tilted sideways. My vision narrowed. I caught a glimpse of Maris’s face, her expression cracking into fear, before the world went black.
I drifted in and out of awareness, fever, heat, and shivering. Someone shouted my name once, maybe twice. I heard water slosh, felt cloth against my skin. My body wouldn’t obey me. The pain came in waves, like something inside was trying to claw its way out but didn’t know the direction.
When the haze finally thinned, the world looked wrong. The candlelight was brighter and the air was sharper. I could hear everything, snow hitting the roof, rats skittering behind walls, Maris’s heartbeat fast and anxious.
“Still breathing,” I croaked.
She jumped. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry. Thought I’d try being dramatic.”
“You nearly died.”
“Nearly doesn’t count.”
Maris pressed a wet cloth to my forehead. “Whatever that bite was, it’s changing you.”
I met her eyes. “Then let’s hope it upgrades my sense of humor.”
Her hand lingered a second too long before she turned away. “Get some rest. Tomorrow, we find a healer who won’t sell us out.”
I nodded, pretending to relax. But when she left, I stared at my glowing veins and whispered, “I don’t think a healer’s what I need.”
Outside, wolves howled, long and mournful, calling out to something in the dark.
Something that shouldn’t have been listening.
__________________
Rhett POV
I stalked the halls of the mountain keep long after the fire died in the hearth.
The stone walls held the heat, but it didn’t reach me.
Nothing did.
My armor still carried the ghost of her scent, smoke, a hint of lavender, human blood, and something else I couldn’t name. I should have washed it away.
Instead, I wore it like punishment.
She should have been dead. No human survived a bite from me. Ever.
“Alpha?” Garran’s voice echoed through the corridor before he appeared in the doorway, careful not to meet my eyes. “The Ghost. We searched the ridge. Blood trail ends near the ravine. No body.”
I turned the glass in my hand, watching the firewine catch the light. “No body means she’s alive.”
He hesitated. “Do you want us to finish it?”
I looked up. “If she’s alive, you won’t find her. If she’s dead, I already failed.”
That confused him, but he didn’t ask. He bowed and left. The door shut, and the silence returned, thicker than before.
I poured more firewine. My hand shook. The wound at my ribs, the one she’d given me, still hadn’t closed. It pulsed like a second heartbeat. Every few breaths, I swore I could feel hers answering.
“Impossible,” I muttered.
I downed the drink, but the taste soured on my tongue. The pack called me unbreakable. They didn’t know that I’d been haunted ever since I looked into those defiant hazel eyes, and heard that ruined voice curse at me.
No one had ever fought me like that, not out of courage, but sheer spite.
Humans always screamed. She’d laughed.
I pressed my palm to my ribs. The warmth there wasn’t pain. It was… echo. When I closed my eyes, I could almost hear her heartbeat. Weak and distant, but alive.
I’d told Garran to leave it. I told myself it didn’t matter. But the truth clawed deeper, I wanted to see her again. To understand what the hell she was.
I stepped to the window. Below, the Wildlands sprawled beneath the moon. Beautiful silver plains, black forests, and rivers of mist. The Dominion Pact called it peace. I called it a fucking leash. Every pack, every city, every breath in this world belonged to the Pact. And somehow, a human woman had just bitten a hole through its order.
“Who are you, Ghost?” I whispered to the night.
The wind didn’t answer, but something inside my
chest did....a pulse that wasn’t mine.
_____________________
Rhea POV
When I woke again, dawn had turned the stained glass into muted gold and rose. The fever had broken, leaving me hollow and sore. Maris was asleep in a chair, her gun balanced on her lap. I sat up carefully, testing each muscle.
The pain was still there, but it wasn’t ordinary. It felt like my heartbeat had learned a new rhythm, one that didn’t even belong to me.
I brushed the bandage back. The bite mark had vanished, leaving faint gold veins that pulsed when I breathed. Tiny sparks flickered between my fingers when I reached for it, disappearing before I could blink.
“Right,” I whispered. “Because that’s normal.”
The air outside bit through the cracks in the wall. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled, a long, broken sound that made something deep in me twist in answer.
I pressed my palm against my chest until the feeling faded. “No,” I said aloud. “Not yours. Not ever.”
Maris stirred but didn’t wake. I looked down at my glowing veins one last time before I drifted back off.....and laughed softly.