I find the healer in her workroom at the back of the fortress, surrounded by drying herbs and glass vials and the sharp, clean smell of medicinal alcohol. She looks up when I enter, her pale eyes taking in my disheveled hair and the shadows under my eyes with a single assessing glance.
"You look like a woman who spent the night doing something she regrets," she says without preamble.
"I don't know if I regret it." I sink into the chair across from her worktable. "That's the problem. I should regret it. Everything I was taught says I should regret it. But when I try to summon the anger, all I feel is confusion."
"Tell me what happened after."
She doesn't need to specify after what. The whole fortress heard Ragnar's arm break.
So I do. Not the explicit details, but enough. The way I went to his chambers afterward, drawn by need I didn't want to examine. The way he touched me like I belonged to him, and the way my body agreed with every stroke and kiss and command.
"And now you feel like a traitor to yourself," Signe says when I finish.
"I feel like I'm losing my mind. I was raised to fight, to survive, to never surrender. And now I'm wet for the man who's holding me prisoner, responding to his dominance with arousal instead of rage." I press my hands over my face. "What the hell is wrong with me?"
"Nothing is wrong with you." Signe's voice is matter-of-fact, almost bored. "You're an omega responding to an alpha. Your body was designed for this, whether you like it or not."
"So I'm just a slave to my biology? No free will, no choice, just hormones and instinct?"
"You have choices. You made one when you honored the blood pact instead of running. You made another when you went to his chambers last night." Signe's pale eyes hold no sympathy. "You're not a prisoner, Iris. You're an omega who is finally accepting what she is. There's a difference."
She leans forward, her gaze sharpening. "You think wanting an alpha makes you weak? Omegas have ruled from behind thrones since our kind existed. Submission is a weapon when you choose who receives it. The question isn't whether you want him. That much is obvious to anyone with eyes. The question is whether he's worthy of what you'd give."
The words hit me like cold water. I sit back, blinking.
"I never thought about it that way."
"Most humans don't. You're taught that submission equals weakness, that wanting to be dominated makes you lesser somehow. It's nonsense. Power flows both ways in a proper bond. He may control your body, but you control something far more valuable." She taps her chest. "An alpha without his omega is half a creature. Stellan has been incomplete for years, waiting for you. You hold more power over him than you realize."
"He doesn't act like I have power over him."
"No? Then why did he break another wolf's arm in front of the entire pack for insulting you? Why did he declare you luna when you haven't even accepted the bond? Why does he look at you like a starving man looks at a feast he's forbidden to touch?" Signe shakes her head. "That wolf has been ruined by wanting you, Iris. He just hides it better than most."
I think about the journals in his study. The photographs spanning years. The obsessive documentation of my entire life before I ever knew he existed. She's right. He has been wrecked for me for a very long time.
The difference is that now I might be just as lost.
"What do I do?" The question comes out smaller than I intend.
"That's not for me to answer. But I'll tell you this: fighting your nature is exhausting, and it never works. You can rage against what you are until you break yourself on it, or you can figure out how to make it serve you." She picks up her herbs again, signaling that the conversation is over. "Now go. I have work to do, and you have thinking to do."
I leave her workroom with more questions than answers, but I can breathe a little easier. Maybe wanting him doesn't make me weak. Maybe it just makes me omega.
Maybe those aren't the same thing.
I find Stellan at a place I didn't know existed until I followed the narrow path that winds up the cliffs behind the fortress.
The Overlook, one of the servants called it when I asked where the alpha had gone. His private refuge. The place he goes when he wants to be alone.
The path is steep and rocky, clearly not meant for casual visitors. By the time I reach the top, my legs are burning and my breath is coming in short gasps. But the view steals what little air I have left.
The territory spreads below like a tapestry woven in green and gold and shadow. Mountains rise in the distance, their peaks still crowned with snow despite the warmth of the valley. A river cuts through the forest, glinting silver where the sunlight catches it. Wilder and more vast than anything I have seen, and for a moment I forget why I climbed up here.
Stellan stands at the edge of the Overlook, his back to me, his shoulders rigid beneath his fur-lined cloak. He doesn't turn when I approach, but I know he heard me coming. He hears everything.
"This was my father's place," he says without preamble. "He used to bring me here when I was a boy, before the responsibilities of leadership consumed every waking moment. He said the view reminded him of why we fight. Why we endure. Why we sacrifice everything for the pack."
I move to stand beside him, leaving a careful distance between us. "When did he die?"
