Fire Caught in Glass
Nic didn’t shout—he roared. His fist crashed into Gravis’s jaw, and the two men went hurtling across the sitting room, locked in a tangle of fury. They fought like beasts—teeth bared, eyes wild, the brutal momentum of two alphas battling for blood.
An armchair slammed against the wall. The windows shook in their frames. A painting fell with a sickening crack, frame shattering on impact.
They rolled over Collin’s mother’s trunk—mugs, an old candlestick, glasses—all shattered under the chaos. Shards sprayed across the floor like ice.
Aries dove in to stop them but caught a knee to the jaw and crumpled back with a grunt of pain.
Clive grabbed Gravis’s arm—only to get elbowed square in the face. Blood splattered the braided rug, deep red soaking into the threads.
In the corner, Helen sobbed uncontrollably. Hadria and Dragonfly were shrieking. Uriah and River shouted over the bedlam, but their voices were drowned out by the sounds of fists meeting flesh.
And then the fight spilled into the dining room.
One of Collin’s mother’s precious chairs toppled and splintered.
That was it.
He stormed into the fray, not seeing who he grabbed—didn’t care. Hands, limbs, someone’s shoulder—he yanked hard, blind with fury.
“Enough!”
Aries and Lekyi lunged in, dragging Gravis back and pinning him to the wall. Uriah and Arion wrestled Nic upright, shoving him back, though he twisted violently in their hold. His chest heaved. Blood streaked his knuckles.
“This isn’t helping!” Collin’s voice cracked. He held up a tuft of chestnut hair torn from Nic’s scalp. “We’re tearing each other apart—what good does that do? Fighting won’t bring Niall back. It won’t restore Logan’s family. We need each other, god damn it! Or we won’t survive another night.”
Gravis snarled, teeth bared. He shoved against the wall like it might back down. “Don’t talk to me about bonds. Not while she’s here.” His eyes cut like knives toward Helen. “Sitting around her father’s table, night after night—don’t tell me she didn’t know what Sol was planning!”
Helen’s voice trembled. “My father didn’t know... I swear—he didn’t... I didn’t—”
“Save it!” Gravis snapped. “Either you were too stupid to see the signs or you lied to the rest of us!”
Collin’s voice went razor-sharp. “You watch your tone.”
“I warned you,” Nic spat, straining against Uriah’s grip. His voice was low, dangerous, serrated at the edges. “You don’t talk to her. Not like that. Not while I’m alive!”
His hands trembled, fists clenched so hard his knuckles shone bone-white, blood still dripping from his earlier blows.
“She’s not responsible for what that monster did. But if you need someone to bleed—” his eyes locked on Gravis, cold and steady—“start with me. Just know I’ll hit back harder.”
“Gravis, if you insult Helen again in my house, I will personally throw you out,” Collin growled, but his voice was barely steady.
“I’m sorry,” Helen whispered through tears. “I swear, if I’d even guessed—”
“I never doubted you,” Nic said, ripping himself from the others. He crossed the room and wrapped her in his arms. “This wasn’t your fault.”
He led her to the armchair. She folded into him, sobbing softly into his shirt.
Finally, the room’s volume began to collapse in on itself.
Aries and Lekyi cautiously eased off Gravis.
Gravis straightened, wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. “Sky and I leave for White Wood tomorrow anyway.” His tone dripped contempt. “I’ll see myself out.”
He stomped to the door and yanked it open. He paused at the threshold—a moment—and then closed it quietly behind him.
More than a fortnight had passed since the massacre at Nesaea.
Collin had gone home, washed the blood and black powder from his skin, scrubbed at the soot that seemed to cling to his very pores. But he was far from clean. Far from whole.
Though no longer wolves, returning to their old lives felt like stepping into borrowed realities. They were each due to resume work after a short reprieve—rejoin the rhythms they had once known.
Collin found the monotony of his old life stifling. He didn’t miss the grueling sunrise-to-sunset drills—but he missed the exhaustion. Back then, there had been no time for memory. Now, sleep eluded him. And when it came, it brought nightmares steeped in blood and smoke.
Fatigue was seeping into everything. He misplaced objects without realizing. Tasks remained unfinished or poorly done. Worst of all, the things that had once brought him peace—reading, hunting, crafting with glass—now felt hollow. Dim echoes of a former self.
The fractures in his friends were just as visible.
Aries, once the stalwart guardian, now clung to Hadria with childlike desperation.
Nic’s usual warmth had curdled into sharp-edged volatility; he snapped at those closest to him without reason.
Dragonfly—never skittish—had grown wary of walking alone after dark.
Lekyi, the group's reliable commentator, had gone quiet.
No updates on legislation. No mention of village affairs.
And Clive—Clive seemed suspended in fog. He had barely spoken since Niall’s death. At the funeral, while others wept openly, Clive had stood still as stone, staring at the blaze that devoured his twin.
As for Logan and the Nesaea survivors, what remained of their village was scarcely more than a memory. A few dozen—mostly women, children, some elder men—were ushered back to the summit, their fates left in the hands of stewards and clerks.
Sympathetic citizens had stepped forward—offering beds, clothing, even homes for the orphaned.
Nic and Uriah’s family, Arion’s, even Helen’s parents had offered Logan a place.
But in the end, the stewards decided. He was sent to stay with James, who had recently inherited a small, quiet cottage from a dead grandfather.
Their shared dinner had started like so many others—a quiet ritual they’d come to rely on.
Gathered in Collin’s house, nursing cups of tea and the wounds of Nesaea, the group found comfort in shared silence and confessions.
Every retelling forged new threads between them—stronger, stranger, more tangled.
But the fragile peace cracked the moment James began showing up. As Logan’s guest, he was courteous, soft-spoken—but his connection to the stewards fanned embers Gravis could no longer suppress. He’d always kept his distance from Helen, but until that evening, he hadn’t turned hostile.
Dinner had been warm, filled with gentle laughter and the exchange of half-recovered appetites. Rhea and Sky, Logan and James retired early, their goodbyes light. Only the core remained, finishing their tea by the hearth when Gravis announced it...
He had petitioned to remain with the guards. Permanently. And been accepted.
The room fell silent.
“What?” Collin breathed.
“I start formal training in two weeks,” Gravis said flatly. “I’m not going back to Nereid.”
The stillness shattered.
“The captains are monsters,” Collin snapped. “And their men? Spineless. You saw what we became under them! In weeks we did things—things—no decent person should survive. We let ourselves be ruled by fear. We forgot right from wrong.”
Gravis’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing.
Aries shrugged a tentative shoulder. “Maybe it’s not... entirely a bad thing.”
Heads whipped toward him. He shifted uncomfortably. “I just mean—if we’re serious about resurrecting our fathers’ rebellion, having someone inside the system could help.”
“We have someone inside,” Nic bit out forcefully. “Lekyi. And at least he has access. Gravis would be bottom rung—barely above the kitchen boy. What intel do you think he’d hear? The captains don’t exactly send memos to the barracks floor.”
“And don’t forget,” River added grimly, “my uncle was a guard too. A good one. Lekyi found records—he nearly made captain before they executed him for being a rebel. Embedded or not, it didn’t make a difference. The plan still burned.”
The tension coiled, and then Gravis turned—slowly—his eyes settling on Helen.
“What I want to know,” he said coldly, “is why she didn’t say anything. You want me to believe that a steward’s daughter had no inkling Nesaea was about to be raided? That an entire village was marked and she just... had no idea?”
The accusation cracked the room wide open.
And Nic didn’t shout—he struck.
The golden light of the sunset filtered through the open window, casting soft colors across the gloom inside Collin’s house. Outside, Gravis stomped down the path, raising little puffs of yellow dust with every step. Then he turned the bend and disappeared into the forest.
With a heavy groan, Collin dropped into the nearest chair at the dining table.
At the far end, Dragonfly and Hadria sat close together, whispering in anxious tones. River moved silently through the wreckage, sweeping up shards of shattered glass. Clive held a dish towel to his mouth, blood already drying at the edges.
“I think we ought to call it a night,” Collin muttered, rubbing his temples.
“I’ll make you a new frame for your painting,” Nic offered quietly from across the room, his voice edged with guilt.
“You’d better,” Hadria snapped. “Honestly, Nic, why do you let Gravis get to you every single time? I’m not defending him—what he says is vile—but you know he just spits nonsense when he’s wound up. You can’t keep letting him ruffle your feathers.”
Nic’s head turned slowly, hazel eyes still raging. “He doesn’t just spit nonsense. When he talks about Helen and James like that, like they’re poison—he’s lucky I only use my fists.”
Hadria bit back her retort, teeth pressed tight. For once, she let it go.
Nic turned toward Clive. “You alright, my friend?”
Clive exhaled, sagging back slightly in his chair. He touched the towel to his mouth again, checked for fresh blood. “I’ll live. But Collin’s right—I should head home.”
“How’s your mother?” Dragonfly asked gently.