The birthing chamber was a tomb.
Posy sat in a low wooden chair by the hearth, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around the bundle of flannel in her lap.
The wind had not stopped. It rattled the leaded glass windows of the Keep with a persistent, rhythmic thud, like a hand trying to force its way inside.
On the massive bed, Julianne’s body lay under a clean white sheet. The elder matrons had washed her and combed her hair, but they had not been able to remove her from the room. The ground outside was frozen too deep to dig a grave, and the lower cellars were already full of the dead.
So she stayed here, a silent, cold presence that watched over them from the dark.
In Posy’s arms, the newborn pup gave a tiny, restless shiver.
"Shh," Posy whispered, her voice rough from fatigue. She shifted him, pulling the flannel closer around his tiny shoulders.
He was a beautiful child, but he was so small. He had been born a month early, his wolf’s bloodline struggling against the human frailty of his premature body. His skin was pale, and a tuft of thick, dark hair sat atop his head, damp with her sweat.
He had not eaten.
"He must take the milk, human."
The voice belonged to Brenda, a thick-set wolf woman who had been brought up from the lower levels. She was one of the pack's wet nurses, her own child having died of the pale-fever three days ago. Her chest was full, her blouse stained with dry milk, but her skin was flushed with the telltale pink spots of the early stages of the sickness.
"No," Posy said, her voice quiet but iron-hard. "He will not."
"He will starve!" Brenda snapped, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "He is the Alpha's heir! He needs wolf’s milk to grow his strength. You are a human—your milkless breasts can offer him nothing but cold comfort."
"Your milk is poison, Brenda," Posy said, looking up with a cool, level gaze. "You have the shrapnel-fever. The silver flecks are already in your blood. If he drinks from you, the fever will take him before morning. His lungs are too small to fight it."
"I am a wolf of the Ironspike!" Brenda declared, her eyes flashing a dull, feverish yellow. "My milk is strong! It has the pack’s spirit in it!"
"The pack’s spirit is currently dying in the great hall," Posy said, her tone cutting through the older woman's pride. "I have seen ten babies die of the pale-shiver because their mothers tried to feed them through the sickness. I will not let this one be the eleventh."
"Then what will you give him?" Brenda demanded, stepping closer to the chair, her scent sour with sweat and anger. "Goat’s milk? We have none. The livestock froze in the lower pens two nights ago. If he does not feed, he dies."
Posy did not answer. She looked down at the child in her arms.
It was the truth. The baby had rejected the watered-down sugar water she had tried to spoon into his mouth. He had rejected the herbal teas. He wanted only one thing.
He wanted her skin.
Every time she laid him in the cedar cradle, his heart rate would plummet. His skin would turn a terrifying, translucent blue, and his breathing would become slow, shallow gasps. But the moment she pulled him back against her bare chest, his tiny hands clutching at her collarbone, his body would warm. His heart would steady into a strong, rhythmic thump.
It was her magic.
She could feel it, a tiny, warm thread of green light that hummed between her skin and his. Her body was acting like a hearth, keeping his fragile spark of life from being snuffed out by the mountain chill.
But she was so tired.
She had not slept in forty-eight hours. Her head felt heavy, filled with a dull, throbbing ache, and her fingers were stiff with the cold. She reached up, her thumb finding the empty brass locket around her neck.
She squeezed it until the metal edges bit into her skin.
Do not get attached, Posy, she told herself, the words a silent chant she had repeated for ten years. He is a wolf. He is an Alpha's heir. When the snow melts, you leave. You do not belong here.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, clear and sharp as a winter bell: “They will look at you with those big, golden eyes, Posy. They will tell you that you are their savior, that you belong to their hearth. But a wolf’s hearth is just a cage made of warm ash. Once you let them lock the gate, you will spend the rest of your life warming their bed and catching their pups, until you have nothing left of yourself.”
Sharon Hale had been right. Posy had seen it happen to other human women who married into the packs. They became property. Beautiful, protected property, but property nonetheless.
She looked down at the boy. His tiny mouth was moving, searching for a nipple, his brow furrowed in a small, babyish scowl that looked ridiculously like the portraits of the ancient Alphas on the walls.
"He is hungry," Brenda whispered, her anger fading into a desperate, maternal grief. "Look at him, human. He is begging for life."
"I know," Posy said.
She turned away from Brenda, her hand going to the laces of her heavy wool bodice. She untied them with slow, steady fingers, pulling the fabric aside to reveal the pale skin of her chest.
She laid the baby against her bare skin, right over her heart.
The child gasped, his tiny legs kicking out as he felt the direct warmth. He let out a small, frustrated wail, his mouth pressing against her breast, searching for something she could not give him.
Posy closed her eyes.
She reached down, deep into the empty cupboard of her soul. She had no milk. She was a virgin, a woman who had never known the touch of a man, let alone the miracle of nursing.
But she had the green-blood.
She pulled on that tiny, forbidden spark. She didn't think about the danger. She didn't think about her mother's warnings. She only thought about the tiny, perfect life that was slipping away in her arms.
Please, she thought. Just enough to keep him alive.
She felt a strange, tingling heat rise from the soles of her feet, moving up through her thighs, her belly, and into her breasts. It was a heavy, sweet sensation, like warm honey flowing through her veins.
A drop of pale, thick liquid pearled on her nipple.
The baby smelled it instantly. His tiny mouth found her, his lips locking onto her skin with a desperate, savage hunger.
Posy gasped, her fingers digging into the wooden arms of the chair as a sharp, pulling sensation shot through her chest. It wasn't pain; it was a deep, draining ache that felt like her very life-force was being drawn out through her skin.
But the baby was drinking.
He swallowed once, a wet, heavy gulp, and then another. His tiny body began to glow with a soft, healthy pink warmth.
Brenda fell to her knees, her eyes wide with a terror that was almost religious. "Great Mother..." she whispered, crossing her arms over her chest. "You... you are a witch."
"I am a midwife," Posy said, her voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. She looked down at the wolf woman, her dark eyes flashing with a light that was entirely human, but no less formidable. "And if you ever speak a word of this to Garrow, or the elders, or anyone else in this pack, I will leave this Keep tonight. I will walk out into the storm, and I will take this boy’s life-warmth with me. Do you understand me, Brenda?"
The wolf woman nodded quickly, her face pale. "I... I swear. By the moon, I swear."
"Good," Posy said.
She leaned back in the chair, her arm cradling the feeding child. She was exhausted, her body feeling as thin and fragile as a piece of dry parchment, but she kept her eyes open. She watched the door.
She knew she had just crossed a line she could never go back over. She had bound her own life-force to the heir of the Ironspike Pack.
She looked out the window at the endless, falling snow.
The cage was closing around her, its bars made of ice and a baby’s hungry lips. But as she clutched her empty brass locket, she vowed to herself that she would not let them keep her.
The moment the pass cleared, she would run. No matter who came back from the storm.