Chapter Thirty
Eryon
Awareness pulls me from the solace of my meditation.
The thick fur along my neck and spine bristles, every muscle coiling with instinct before I’ve even opened my eyes.
My claws unsheathe, curling into the rock beneath me, my body already poised for a fight it has yet to see but knows is inevitable.
The wind shifts.
A small thing, imperceptible to most, but I feel it ripple through my bones like an omen. The storm is coming. Not just the snow, not just the bitter wind. Something else. Something worse.
The air changes, and I taste it first, sharp and acrid on my tongue.
Something not of this world of stone and ice.
The scent of men drifts toward me, foreign and wrong, wrinkling my nose.
Synthetic fibers. Gun oil. The stale, metallic tang of greed.
A pestilence seeping into the mountain’s sacred space.
I rise, unfolding to my full height, scanning the vast white expanse below. The mountains breathe, whispering their secrets through the drifting snow, passing messages through the roots of the trees, calling to me through the aching bones of the earth itself.
The balance has shifted.
Intruders.
A deep growl rumbles low in my chest, rolling through the empty caverns behind me. They are here, in my domain. I move, silent and unseen. Nothing more than a ghost in the coming storm. I am a flicker in the long shadows of winter, the movement of a breeze in the trees. Invisible.
Before long, I come alongside the hunting party.
For that is what they are. They do not move like men on a simple expedition.
There is too much tension in their movements, too much nervous shifting of weight, hands adjusting gear, eyes flicking to the sides of the trail as if they expect the shadows to swallow them whole.
They are not just searching for something. They are hunting me. A wicked smile curves my lips, exposing my sharp teeth. My favorite kind of humans to realign the balance with. And one among them knows just how very real the danger is.
Their guide is the same man who had stumbled upon my Sruhnar with his vicious wolf yet ran away when confronted by me.
I should have ended him when I had the chance.
Instead, I showed him mercy. Let him leave unharmed.
And now he walks among those who would desecrate this land, this balance. Who would take what belongs to me.
The animal is restless. It whines under its breath, ears twitching toward the trees, sensing what its master cannot.
Unseen, I bare my teeth at them anyway and slink further into the shadows. Let them believe they are alone. Let them believe they are safe. For now.
Their guide may know these mountains well, may have walked these paths since birth. But I have lived in and protected these mountains for centuries. They are carved into the long lines of my bones, etched into the tapestry of my soul.
I am the mountain.
I press forward, keeping to the higher ridges, watching and listening.
The mountain hides my every move, covers my tracks, blows away any sound I make.
The voices of the men carry through the stillness.
They are loud. Careless. Their tracks evident all over the pristine landscape they desecrate, their trail so visible even a snowling could track them.
They do not know how to respect a world that is not of their making.
And then, the scent of the promise of Spring reaches me like a phantom.
Her scent. Faint and distant but real. Is it really here or do I desire her, long for her so deeply, that my poor mind is manifesting her here with me?
I stumble as I search for her, a single misstep resulting in the sharp crack of a branch underfoot.
The guide’s head snaps up, scanning the trees. I freeze, scarcely daring to breathe until his attention shifts back to the man prattling on beside him.
Something about the foreigner is wrong. His voice creeps under my skin, sets my rage simmering. He reeks of arrogance, of control. A man who does not fear what he cannot understand.
I circle them, moving closer. Silent despite my rage. Finally, I am close enough to discover he is the one who carries her faint scent. Why does it cling to him? The sacred essence of spring, of my Winter Star, polluted by his presence.
Had she turned to him after I cast her out? Reached for him in loneliness, let him hold her the way I did? Let him touch what was mine as if not only I had meant nothing, but all that we shared meant even less?
The thought is a blade, twisting deep, shredding through my ribs, carving something jagged and unholy into the wreckage of my heart.
She desperately needs the plant. Perhaps she is desperate enough to trade me for it.
The rage surges, dark and blinding, slicing through my reason until the world narrows to bloodlust and betrayal—until another, more horrifying thought buries the blade to the hilt and collapses me to my knees.
Had she sent them? Had she led them to my home, knowing what they would do? Had my grief, my pain, my life meant so little to her? Had I ever meant anything to her at all?
And then I hear her name—Dahlia.
The word from his mouth is a desecration. They way the sound falls from his lips not in worship but in mocking is wrong. She is not their flower, but mine. Not Dahlia, but Sruhnar, my Winter Star.
“She really thought she was going to find this plant,” he says, shaking his head with a smirk. “Like she was some kind of genius. Please, she is nothing without me. She never had the guts when things got tough. Always clinging to her ethics, her precious research integrity.”
His face twists as he scoffs. “She would’ve wasted years studying it, learning its history, figuring out how the locals wave it under the moon or some bullshit. Me? I have the brains. And the balls.”
Laughter ripples through their group as he lewdly grabs the front of his pants.
Another of the men claps him on the shoulder, saying, “Good one, Ben. Good one.”
The one called Ben chuckles, shaking his head.
“I’ll take the plant. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
I could give a shit about the environment.
I’ll rape and pillage this whole fucking mountain to get it.
And the best part? She handed it to me without even realizing it.
Bitch served up a fortune on a silver platter. ”
Ice floods my veins. My claws unsheathe, slicing through the frozen ground as I dig my fingers into the earth to keep myself from tearing into him now.
He pauses, then adds with a sneer, “Not surprising, though. She was always desperate. Desperate for a win. Desperate for purpose. But most of all, desperate for love. She clung to me like a lost little puppy because she had no one else.”
More laughter.
I am going to kill him. This is the man who haunted her eyes. Who made her feel less than her divine self. This is the man who did not treasure the gift bestowed by the gods themselves. He has no place here.
He has no place anywhere.
Every muscle in my body tightens, my teeth grind together as bloodlust surges through me, and a battle drum pounds in my chest, demanding violence. I can picture it too clearly—the snap of his bones, the wet crunch of his throat collapsing under my grip.
But I do not kill him.
Not yet.
Not here, not now, not where others could witness his death and escape to bring more in his place. The entire expedition must be disposed of. Order must be upheld.
I force myself to breathe, pushing air in and out of my constricted chest. To listen past the rushing of rage pulsing in my veins.
“The plant can only be in the Migoi’s cave system, Mr. Ben,” the guide says.
If I hadn’t already fallen to my knees, this would have felled me. They know. But how?
He continues, “I’ve lived my entire life in these mountains, and that’s the only place it could be. Never saw anything like what you describe anywhere else.”
Fool.
“And I saw her there—the woman. With the Migoi. He protected her. I retreated to the woods but then I saw them, together.” He pauses, as if considering what to say next. His face contorts as he continues. “They were doing unnatural things.”
The guide is a dead man walking. He has sealed his fate, too.
Ben scoffs. “My god she really is desperate for love. So desperate she’ll turn to a monster?”
One of the hunting party shakes his head. “Wait. You’re saying the girl was with it? Like, fucking some kind of animal?”
The guide’s face is grim. “Not an animal. The protector of these mountains. I saw them together with my own eyes.”
The group mutters, shaking their heads, making snide remarks to one another. Oh, I cannot wait to kill them all. How easy it is for them to judge what they do not know. What they cannot possibly comprehend. They call me a beast, a monster. I cannot wait to show them the true meaning of the word.
“And if that beast shows up?” another of the men asks, hesitant.
Ben laughs, sharp and triumphant. “It better.”
And then—confirmation.
“The plant is just the beginning,” Ben says, smirking. “But let’s be honest—the real prize is the thing guarding it. You don’t just leave a discovery like that in the mountains. We take the beast, too. Can you even imagine?”
He raises his hands, as if showing off a marquees, “Professor Ben Thorne Captures Legendary Beast. I can see the headlines now, fellas. The kind of fame that lasts forever.”
He lets out a low chuckle, adjusting the straps on his pack. “But even better than fame is the money. Pharma will pay anything for the enzyme—the drug alone will be worth billions. But the creature?”
He shakes his head, eyes gleaming. “That’s a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
The kind of thing that changes everything.
If this best is real—and from what you’re telling me it is,” he says, pointing at the guide, “then we’re talking about exclusive research grants, government funding, museum exhibitions—hell, maybe even movie deals. ”
He spreads his hands as if this is some grand revelation.
“Think about it. A species that’s survived here, undetected, thriving in conditions that should’ve killed it.
The kind of adaptation that rewrites biology books.
If we can capture it, study it? We’re looking at the greatest scientific breakthrough of our generation. Hell, maybe of all time.”
His grin widens, and he gestures around at the men. “This is history in the making, gentlemen. And I intend to be the one who makes it. I’ll get a fucking Nobel Prize for this.”
A low, rumbling growl I cannot contain escapes my throat, barely audible but reverberating into the night air. The dog whimpers, tail tucking tight against its belly. The guide’s eyes flick to the tree line, his breath hitching.
Fear bleeds into his voice as he murmurs a prayer and then says, “Maybe we shouldn’t be here.”
Ben smirks and claps him on the back. “Oh, we should definitely be here. Lead on.”
The others chuckle. They have no idea what they are walking into. They want to take me. They think they can cage me. Little do they know, they have already lost. Their fates are sealed in this mountain.
But now I know what I needed to. Ben is the enemy, not my Sruhnar. Never her.
I turn away, the plan forming like a snowdrift in the wind—shifting, building, waiting to bury them whole. Let him believe he is the hunter. Let him believe he will take what is mine.
By the time he reaches my cave, he will know he is the hunted.
I move quickly, away from the East trail the guide is directing the crew along. Let him think he is closing in. I will loop around the base of the mountain and come up the North side.
The sun breaks through the gathering clouds, a gold beam of light caressing my face with its warmth. Despite the depths of winter, Spring floats to me on the beam of light.
My heart cries out for my Winter Star, and her essence washes over me as if the universe itself is giving me one more taste of her, one more chance at the warmth of her before I cleanse this world of Ben and the men like him.
Perhaps I will finally die after all. It will be a worthy death. I close my eyes and picture her face in my mind, all the little sun kissed dots, “freckles” she called them.
I imagine the flush of her skin beneath me, the little cries she makes when her pleasure blooms. The vision is so real, I can not just sense her, but I can smell her. Not just a drift on the wind but something tangible.
My eyes snap open as her presence becomes stronger. I’m not just imagining her here. She is near.
The realization that she has chosen to return has my heart pounding and a strange ache twisting in my chest. She has chosen me. Not the plant. Not the world beyond these mountains.
Me.
She was desperate for the flower before. Desperate to save herself. And I let that desperation convince me she would never choose me. That I was only an obstacle, a means to an end. And maybe, in the dark and lonely place deep in my soul, I thought I wasn’t worth choosing.
But now—now, she stands on my land again. The mountain and the trees whisper to me excitedly, the land itself rejoicing in her presence. She is facing the storm, the cold, the danger. She walks this path knowing what waits in the shadows. Knowing I wait in the shadows.
And still, she comes.
I should not want this. I should not care.
But I do.
She has made her choice. And in doing so, she has undone the doubt I tried to carve into my own bones. She has sealed the bond I tried to reject.
She is mine. And I am hers.
I repeat my vow, just as I did when I first watched her. No one will harm her again. No one will take her from me. Not now. Not ever.
I swear it to the river that carves the stone, to the wind that howls through the peaks, to the mountain that will bury the bones of these men. I swear it to my Sruhnar, my Winter Star.
I drag my claw across my palm, let my blood spill onto the frozen earth. She has chosen. And so have I.
She must make this journey. This is her path to walk. I will watch, and I will protect, but I will not, cannot, interfere. She does not need to be saved—she needs only to see the strength that has always been hers.
I mark the path, knowing she will see and she will understand. I carve her name into the sentinel stones, dragging my claws through the frozen rock with slow, deliberate strokes. I rub the fresh cut of my palm over the etching. A guide. A claim.
I move quickly now, leaving more signs—breadcrumbs in the snow. Markers only she will recognize, meant for her eyes alone.
She will follow them. I know she will come. And when she does, I will be waiting.
I lift my gaze to the sky as the first howling gusts of a storm begin to pick up, swirling around me. Ben and his men have sealed their fate. They have shattered the balance. The mountain will take its due.
A deep, rumbling growl builds in my chest as I step back into the shadows.
Let them come.