Between Death and Desire

closing over my head, pulling me down while hi

not

chlight flickering somewhere above me, and my chest hur

n my

emember. Not the sky I remember, either...... The last sky I saw was fu

s. My hands hit the floor to ca

not my

wn to nothing. There's a small white scar across

s are these

ke straw and tallow candles. A cot sits against one wall, blank

an feel it ...... Feel it in a body that isn't mine, wearing skin that

loud, just to hear i

before I can think a

ng out of its braid. She stops the second she s

says. "Yo

t in my ears right. It sits there w

say, before I c

? You collapsed in the kitchens. Two days ago. We thought-" S

ve lost two more just lying on a cot in a room I don't recognize, we

cause some old instinct in me ...... old from a different lif

like she's trying to find something wrong with it. "Y

. You're just looking a

am," I say inste

carefully, like she's not sure she should. "

body go

just a name. It's water in my lungs. It's his hands, too far away to r

ut flat. Practiced. I don't know where that skill came fr

o push. "Well. You should eat something. You've had nothing in two days." She stands, brus

the way I tested my own new fingers

r w

findi

or anything. "Come on. If the kitchen mistress sees you up, she'll put you

ve woken up into. Omega quarters. The lowest rank in the pack. People who scrub floors and

m not see me. Let them keep thinking I'm n

ld. Stone towers rising up into a gray sky. Wolves moving across th

ct spot before - I know the smell of it, the shape of the mountains b

white again

sed to being ou

ss the courtyard w

nd the next, every hair on my arms is standing up, and something in my chest

ook

par. Black hair falling across his forehead. Broad shoulders under a dark coat. H

body reacts like he'

ing my stare. "Our Alpha. Try not to look so terr

I say, though my voic

ve fool

ghtmares, in the last conscious seconds I had underwater - and here it

ghtness around his eyes that wasn't there the last time I saw

think. He stood rig

rd the thought, h

ine across the

how to

mething you can't quite place, something that's tugging at a memory you can't reach. His jaw tig

e. "Stop staring at the Alpha. Are y

oward the kitchens, but I can feel his st

I ask, once we're inside, once the heavy

e wh

ying to remem

megas at all, usually. We're not exactly worth his attent

an impression collaps

king, and I press them flat agai

ell myself. He can't

art that drowned five years ago and never quite finished dying - wants him to know. Wants him to cr

nger lives. Down where I keep the memory of hi

nd myself. Don't be foolish en

dish so hard my kn

ow, I can just make out his shape still s

the door I disa

ehow, look