My brothers are not my prisoners to keep. They are my family to heal.
As I approach the castle, my enhanced hearing catches something that makes my heart clench with both dread and desperate hope: singing. Hannah’s voice, clear and pure, rising from the depths I forbade her to enter.
She went back. Despite my commands, despite my threats, she returned to show my brothers the same mercy she’s been showing me.
Fear and fury battle in my chest, but underneath both emotions again runs something new—admiration. My fierce, stubborn,perfectHannah, teaching me about courage even when I’m not there to witness it.
I land on the window ledge with more care than I’ve ever shown these stones, my claws finding purchase without theusual scraping destruction. Even my approach must change. Hannah has made it clear that force will never again be my first response.
The singing grows clearer as I make my way down the stairs, each note a dagger of beauty in the darkness I’ve allowed to fester. My fur stands on end, not with rage but with the terrible knowledge of what I might find.
When I reach the dungeon entrance, the sight before me stops my heart entirely.
Hannah sits within the circle of Thing’s many arms, wearing one of Creator-Father’s kitchen coverings as a makeshift dress. But she’s not cowering or trapped; she’s chosen to be there. Thing’s claws, which have drawn my blood countless times, rest gently against her shoulders as she sings. His hair, once matted with filth, gleams clean and combed in the torchlight.
She bathed him. Groomed him. Treated him with the dignity I denied him for centuries.
“Here we go,” Remus observes from his corner, alerting them to my presence.
Hannah looks up with a smile so bright it could illuminate every shadow in this cursed place. “Abaddon! Look, Thing and I?—”
The old patterns surge through me like muscle memory—reach out, grab, dominate, control. My hand moves toward her throat, lifting her away from what I perceive as danger.
But the moment her feet leave the ground, the moment I see shock and betrayal flood her beautiful features, everything changes.
This is not protection.
This is exactly what he did to me.
Remus’s tail whips around my throat, jerking me backward with shocking strength. I stumble, releasing Hannah, who drops to the floor and scrambles away from me.
Away. From.Me.
The look in her eyes—gods, the look in her eyes. Not fear of Thing or Remus, but ofme.
I am still the monster she needs protection from.
Thing’s claws emerge all at once, seeking every piece of vulnerable skin he can reach.
For the first time in our violent history, I don’t fight back. I deserve every drop of blood he draws.
“No!” Hannah cries out, and I realize with distant amazement that she’s protecting me now. Even after what I just did, she’s shielding me from the consequences of my own actions.
“Why no?” Thing’s voice seethes against my ear, his claws still embedded in my flesh.
Hannah positions herself between us, one small hand on Thing’s massive shoulder. The tender gesture breaks something in my chest. She touches him with kindness and offers him comfort. She’s treating him like the brother he is, instead of the beast I made him believe himself to be.
“Why protect him?” Thing demands, his rough voice carrying decades of justified rage. “He hurt you. You bear his kit. He deserves death.”
Kit? The word hits me like a physical blow. I fall to my knees as my enhanced senses finally catch what I missed in all my fury—the subtle but unmistakable scent change that marks the beginning of new life. Thing’s sense of scent has always been better than mine, so he knew before I?—
She’s pregnant.
With my child. The future I dreamed, the family I yearned to create... and I nearly destroyed it all with the same brutality that createdus.
Remus releases my throat, and shackles fall from my eyes, and oh gods of the Great Hall, do I see.
Thing is clean—truly clean—for the first time since Creator-Father chained him in this place.
