Chapter Ten

“I Thought You Were Trying to Poison Me”

Ariadne’s home was a cabin built halfway into a mountain shelf, several feet above the ground. A series of slippery stone steps led up to the front door, which, aside from the windows, was the only wooden structure visible from the outside. The cabin overlooked a massive expanse of snow-covered pine trees stretching farther downhill and was obscured mostly from view by snow and the fact that the only people likely to come around these parts, besides the few who visited her now and then, were lost or insane travelers.

Tristan considered himself among the latter. He was definitely insane, thinking he could simply return to his sister after all these years.

“This…is where your sister lives?” Lyla asked.

She was staring around in awe. They’d ascended the steps and now stood before the door. Tristan picked up some movement inside the building. His sister was home.

He nodded. “If we’re lucky, she’ll let us in.”

“And if we’re not?”

He said nothing in response but simply knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice that set his heart racing a little. “I’m not expecting anyone this Christmas.”

A moment later, the door swung open, and the woman poked her head out. Silvery hair hung down the sides of a surprisingly young-looking face. For someone in her fifties, Ariadne looked at least a decade younger. Obsidian eyes peered out at them, settling first on Lyla, then on Tristan.

Ariadne’s lip curled. The door slammed shut.

“Ariadne!” Tristan knocked on the door, a little harder this time. “Sister, this is important.”

“I told you never to return.” Ariadne’s voice, dripping with venom, reached them from the other side. “You should have stayed away.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t an emergency,” he told her, biting his lip. “I need your help.”

“Help?” The door was suddenly wrenched open. Ariadne’s gaze was frostier than the mountain itself. “You allowed our brother to die all those years ago, and now you want my help? You must have traveled a long way, you and your…” Her gaze traveled toward Lyla, and he thought she saw some of the coldness flicker away for a second as his sister’s eyes roamed the woman. “You should go back.”

She started to close the door, but Tristan stuck out a foot before she could shut it in his face again.

“I can’t, Ariadne,” he said. “We can’t. This is a grave matter, one that concerns you as well.”

“And why should I be concerned?”

“Because it’s back.” It was Lyla who responded. “The curse is back.”

The silence that followed felt almost eternal. Ariadne blinked at the other woman. “What…what did you just say?”

“You heard me.”

His sister’s gaze drifted back to Tristan. She stepped back and opened the door wider.

“Come in,” she said firmly. “ Now , before I change my mind.”

Tristan and Lyla shared a relieved gaze, then followed Ariadne into the cabin, shutting the door behind them.

The cabin was exactly as he had remembered it. Ariadne was a simple woman; as such, everything about her was plain. The living room held very little furniture; what was there was neatly arranged in a semicircle. It was much warmer inside, mostly from the crackling fire, whose flames bounced off the stone walls. The powerful smell of plants filled the entire cabin, wafting into his nostrils.

“Herbs,” he said to Lyla, seeing the frown on her face. “Ariadne is a healer.”

“I have been for a long time.” She gestured to the chairs before the fireplace, her gaze on Lyla alone. “Take a seat. I’ll attend to your injuries in a moment.”

Lyla frowned. “How did you know…?”

“I can sense your pain as much as you try to hide it. A healthy body does not need to be tense,” replied the healer. “And you have cuts on your neck. I assume the major injuries must be under your coat. Sit. ”

Lyla took a seat, followed reluctantly by Tristan. Ariadne stared at the duo for a second, then disappeared from the living room, returning shortly with a small stone bowl in her hands. She sat next to Lyla, who frowned at the paste inside the bowl.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“This is a salve,” Ariadne replied with a twitch of her lips. “Take off your coat.”

Lyla obliged, tugging the coat off her shoulders. Underneath it, she wore a sleeveless black top and black trousers. Tristan glimpsed the blade and metal shackles strapped to her hip, but his attention was mostly drawn to her torso. Whether it was from the cold outside, he had no idea, but he couldn’t help noticing her perky breasts, nipples poking through the material.

Discarding the thoughts that surfaced in his mind, he shifted his gaze from her chest, focusing instead on her arms. A gasp parted his lips. Her wrists and upper arms were covered in dark bruises, and there was a slight cut on her forearm.

She was hurt more than he’d realized. Guilt filled his chest as he stared at her. There wasn’t much anyone could do to convince him that he wasn’t responsible for her pain. What if she was right, and he’d really transformed in the middle of the night and attacked her? That had to be where most of those injuries came from, not to mention their run-in with Angus and his men. Even that was his fault. Wasn’t it because of Tristan that Angus was after them? Without even meaning to, he’d put her in grave danger. As far as Angus was concerned now, she was as guilty as he was. The village chief wouldn’t hesitate to strike them both down.

At least she was still alive–for now. Tristan would have been crushed to see her get badly hurt—or worse, killed—by those men. And when he saw Angus attack her…

He stomached the anger that had suddenly risen in his chest and watched his sister attend to Lyla’s wounds. Lyla’s eyes slowly fluttered shut with a soft sigh, her breasts heaving gently.

“That feels…relaxing,” she said.

“Good. It’s supposed to.” Ariadne glanced up at her brother, her expression souring a little. “Now, what on Frost Mountain happened?”

Tristan wasted no time filling her in on everything that had happened in the past few weeks, from the deaths of Angus’s sons to his first interaction with Lyla and everything that had followed. Ariadne didn’t seem too pleased to learn that he’d left Lewis behind in Elron. When he mentioned the attack on Lyla, her brows furrowed.

“I suspected something like this might happen someday,” she said, staring into the flames, a faint shadow flickering across her face.

“You did?”

She looked at him like she couldn’t believe how oblivious he was. “Curses don’t just die out, especially when they’re from dark witches. The curse on our bloodline is a powerful one. It was only a matter of time before it reared its head again.”

For a moment, she continued staring into the flames, her brows knit closely together. Suddenly, she rose to her feet and disappeared from the living room. When she returned minutes later, it was with another bowl clutched in her hand. She handed it to Tristan, who simply blinked at her.

“Drink,” she instructed.

He eyed the murky liquid swirling in the bowl, then looked up at his sister. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not offering to heal your wounds,” she snapped. “I’m asking you to take the potion so you don’t turn again and kill me and Lyla.”

Here, I thought you were trying to poison me.

He pushed the thought guiltily out of his mind and, after another moment’s hesitation, took the bowl from Ariadne. The potion tasted bitter, but he forced it down and handed the bowl back to his sister.

“The potion is meant to suppress any manifestations of the curse,” she explained. “It’s the same kind our ancestors took for the same purpose. It doesn’t erase the curse itself, but a regular dose should keep you from…”

She trailed off, but the message was clear. Tristan bit his lip, feeling two pairs of eyes on him. They were all thinking the same thing, he knew. He’d drunk the potion because he was cursed, because he was dangerous, a bloodthirsty killer who had taken lives already and would take more if he wasn’t stopped.

“If I can prevent you from causing any more deaths, there’s no reason I shouldn’t,” Ariadne said, and Tristan got the feeling she wasn’t talking about the curse.

His sister stood for a moment, watching him as if expecting some kind of reaction to her potion, then retreated from the living room, leaving him alone with Lyla once again.

She blinked at him, rubbing her arm with some of the salve Ariadne had left with her. “So…what’s going to happen now?”

Tristan avoided her gaze, focusing instead on the tongues of flame dancing around the fireplace.

“Now,” he said, “we’ll wait. We should be safe here, from Angus. From anyone , really. This place is hard to find.”