Chapter Thirty-Three
Calista
For some reason, the raging blizzard outside made the hut feel smaller.
Snow hissed against the walls in hard, relentless sheets, and the wind worried the seams like it was trying to force its way in.
Every gust made the roof creak as if the whole structure might decide it had endured enough winters and finally give up.
Everest had coaxed the stove into a steady heat, but it didn’t reach far. Cold still clung in the corners, living in the old nets and the warped boards. It threaded under my shift and settled deep into my bones.
He held up a strip of linen like a peace offering. “To bandage your ankle. May I?” His question shouldn’t have felt like a touch, but it did. I nodded.
He sank to a knee in front of me, big hands surprisingly gentle. Cold cedar and frostmint drifted up as he positioned my ankle. I barely breathed. Heat flared where his fingers skimmed my bare skin, the calluses rasping lightly over my heel, then the delicate bone.
He looked up once, checking on me, not the ankle. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
“It’s not,” I lied, because the ache now had very little to do with pain.
Selraya, what was wrong with me?
I’d never had such a visceral reaction toward a male—any male.
A dark voice in the back of my mind called me a liar.
There had been a recent Wolvryn King who’d also elicited a strange reaction.
Perhaps, it was a wolf thing. Maybe that was why I’d never found any of the Hollowcrest males particularly appealing. I felt like a traitor just thinking it.
Everest wound the linen snug, measuring the support until it was taut.
Each pass slid higher, his knuckles ghosting the inside of my ankle and up the line of my calf.
My breath thinned at the touch. The cold of the hut vanished under the simple heat of him.
He tested the wrap with a slow press of his thumb, and the sound I made was embarrassingly soft.
“Good?” His voice roughened.
“Just keep going,” I managed. “I need to be able to run.”
A corner of his mouth tipped.
To distract myself, I started rambling. “Speaking of running… once, my sister Suri tried to prove she could outrun a storm.” I winced as he tightened the wrap, then laughed through it.
“She sprinted straight into the surf so the wind couldn’t grab her, came back soaked to the bone and declared herself victorious because the clouds moved on. ”
I glanced at his hands, focusing on the careful way he worked. “Ma made her sleep on the floor as punishment for two days, and Suri still swears the only thing that could beat her is my aunt’s glare.”
“Your sister sounds just like you.” He grinned then tied the knot low and neat, then steadied my foot in his palm. “Try to stand.” When I pushed myself off the bed, his other hand bracketed my knee, thumb drawing one thoughtless arc that sent sparks up my thigh and straight to my center.
Selraya save me. I swallowed hard. “Seems functional.” My tone was sharper by a few notches.
“Only functional?” He rose close enough that his chest brushed my knees. “I was aiming for better.”
“Don’t get cocky, Black Wolf.”
“Too late.” A ghost of satisfaction touched his mouth.
As I settled back onto the bed, he reached for our rations. Tearing off a strip of dried meat with his teeth, he handed me the smaller piece. I took it with a smile because my stomach was eating itself.
We ate in silence for a few moments, the only sounds the storm and the occasional pop of the stove. I hated how quiet it was. Quiet made too much room for thoughts.
For the Savage King.
For the crown waiting at the end of the Hunt like a noose dressed in gold.
For the three edicts that could change everything: one to end the wolfless’ exile, the second to protect my family absolutely, and the third to compel Lunaris to restore Hollowcrest.
Everest chewed slowly, eyes scanning the small space as if danger might creep in through the wood. His helm lay beside him on the floor. Without it, he looked more like a mortal and less like a storm made of shadows. Worse, he looked like a male who could be touched.
And frost take me, I wanted to touch him.
My throat tightened. I swallowed down the bite, then asked the question that had been clawing at me since he told me how Savage became the Alpha King. “How did Savage do it?”
Everest’s gaze slid to mine. “Do what?”
“Unite the twelve Courts,” I clarified. “From what I understand, Erik had only managed a few. How did he get the rest of Lunaris to fall under his rule? That doesn’t happen with pretty speeches.”
His mouth twitched. “No. It doesn’t.” He broke off another piece of ration, but he didn’t eat it.
He stared at it like it might answer for him.
“The first Courts followed because they’d been bound to Erik and they were tired,” he finally replied.
“Tired of bleeding for borders that shifted with every season. Tired of sending sons to die over salt and shoreline. They were offered structure and a law that would hold, backed by teeth.”
“And the ones who didn’t follow?” I asked quietly.
Everest’s eyes lifted, dark and steady. “They were given choices.”
I snorted. "Let me guess, join us or I'll wear your skin too?"
His smile turned wicked. "Something like that."
And yet, he never came to Hollowcrest Isle. Burying the spite fueled thought, I asked, "And if they refused?"
His jaw flexed. “They were shown what refusal meant.” The heat from the stove seemed to shrink, and my skin prickled.
“Brutally?”
“Yes,” he replied without flinching. “But only as a last resort.”
“Last resort,” I repeated. The words sounded noble, but they'd still left blood on the floor.
“The sea will soon turn black with sails, Calista. Uniting against our enemy is the only path forward.”
The storm raged against the hut, as if screaming its support for his claim. It wasn't just the freezing wind slipping between the cracks that sent a chill down my spine. "You really believe that the king did all that for the greater good? That he's not some—"
"He did not unite Lunaris for personal gain.” The surprising shout vibrated in my chest, sending blood thundering across my ears. Unease settled low in my belly as the hut quieted. How could I have forgotten? Everest was still the king’s trusted shadow. Always would be.
"I didn't mean to offend you."
He swallowed, the muscles in his throat rippling.
"I'm sorry. I just—" He ran a hand through his hair.
Frustrated. Tense. Loyal. "I would hate to think that any Wolvryn believed that of their king.
" His gaze met mine, and the hard set of his mouth softened into a faint smile.
A peace offering. It didn't quite meet his eyes though.
"Most wouldn't dare insult him to my face.
" He seemed so honest, so genuinely frustrated.
"I suppose I’m not like most.”
“No, you’re certainly not.” A rueful smile.
“If you say the king did it to protect the realm, then I will take you at your word, Everest. You know him far better than I do."
His eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn't name. “Unity is defense. Against raiders. Against the beasts in the north. Against hunger. Against everything that waits for us to splinter.”
“And against the starved gods,” I teased, because I needed the edge off the heaviness. “Right? The little hungry things in the aurora ribbons.”
Everest’s gaze didn’t soften. It only sharpened. “Them too.” His somber tone was enough to turn my joke into ash.
My smile faltered.
Outside, the wind still howled like a throat being torn open.
I licked my lips and forced myself to breathe. “So the north…believes it. Really believes in the starved gods?”
“Frostcrag does.” He nodded once. “Just like we believe in Selraya’s curse. But not all Wolvryn agree, which is another matter entirely.”
“So do all the Courts that follow the king agree with his beliefs?”
Everest’s expression went unreadable. “No.”
I shifted on the bed, the thin mattress creaking. “In Hollowcrest, we whisper about Selraya’s curse like it’s a punishment. Like you were bound to it because someone broke an oath.”
Somehow, we were spared and yet we weren’t at all.
“Yes, Selraya’s full face forces the beast out of us as a consequence. As a reminder for our disobedience.” His expression darkened.
“And why does the south consider it a blessing?”
“They believe summoning their Wolvryn is power and freedom. They wish to be able to transform whenever they choose. They dislike being stripped away of their choice.”
My fingers tightened around the ration strip. It was a concept I was all too familiar with. And yet, I could understand both sides. A blessing and a curse.
“In the north,” Everest continued, quieter now, “we pray for restraint. For Sel. For steadiness. We build our lives around the moon because we have to. We plan routes, hunts, births and battles based on her face.”
“And in the south, they want the beast without the cost.”
He nodded.
“That sounds like arrogance,” I murmured.
“It is.”
“But what does it matter in the end? There’s nothing they can do to change the goddess’s curse, right?”
Everest’s mouth twisted, something unreadable flashing across the depths of those sparkling blue orbs.
The hair on my nape rose, and this time it wasn’t just the cold. It was the look in his eyes. The weight of it.
No one had the power of the gods. No one could change the way of our world…
His gaze snapped to me. “You’re shivering.” He crossed the hut in two steps, closing the space between us. His hand landed on my wrist, warm and firm.
My breath caught at the contact. I hated that it always did.
“Get in the bed,” he ordered.
I blinked. “What?”
“Now.” His tone allowed no further debate, which only rankled my nerves.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I snapped.
“You’re losing too much heat.”
“I’m not—”
“Calista.” That single word, my name, was a warning and a plea in one. It made my stomach dip. “Do you want this crown or not? Do you want to make it back to Frostcrag alive and earn the crown and the edicts you’ve fought so hard for?”
With a huff of resignation, I slid farther onto the narrow mattress, easing back until my shoulders hit the wall. The bed was barely wide enough for one body, let alone two.
Everest turned away and shrugged out of his fur cloak. The sight of him stripping in the dim orange light did something to me that made my pulse stutter. Not because I hadn’t seen his body before. Because I had, and my mind remembered it all too well.
Broad shoulders. Strong back. Scar lines and dark runes that told stories without words.
He tossed the cloak over me and his warmth hit me like a wave. His familiar scent wrapped around me, tangled with something deeper that I kept trying not to crave.
“Stay under that.”
“And you?” I demanded.
“I don’t need it.”
“Because you’re Frostcrag and indestructible?” I shot back, too sharp.
His eyes flicked to mine, and for a heartbeat, silver glimmered under the blue. Not fully surfaced. Just barely there. Watching.
A part of me was desperate to see his beast, the other sensible part was terrified.
“I’m not indestructible.” The honesty in his tone startled me more than any of his beastly growls.
He moved to the stove, fed it another sliver of wood, then turned back toward me and stopped. His entire body was impossibly still. Except for those eyes. They crawled over me like claws piercing in a way a simple touch never could.
The bed.
The storm that made leaving an impossible thought.
He stood there like a male with every instinct pulling him toward a mistake.
I watched him, heart thudding, anger and want twisting together in my chest. “Get in,” I whispered.
His jaw clenched. “No.”
I sat up a little, the cloak sliding to my waist. “Everest—”
“You don’t understand.” His words were raw. “I can’t—”
“You can,” I cut in. “You just won’t.”
His gaze burned into mine. “Calista, don’t...”
I leaned forward and pointed at the storm-rattled walls. “You want to just stand there all night and freeze out of pride while the hunters prowl outside and the moon crawls closer?”
His mouth tightened.
“Or you can get in bed and keep me warm like you keep insisting you’re duty-bound to do.”
Something flickered across his face. Not fear. Barely held restraint.
He inched closer, easing himself onto the edge of the mattress like it might bite him. The bed dipped under his weight, the frame creaking, the space between us shrinking fast.
I held my breath. “Lie down.” My voice was much steadier than I felt.
His eyes dragged over my face, my mouth, and the line of my throat. His breathing deepened, slow and controlled, like a male counting down from something he didn’t want to admit.
Then he climbed in.