Page 65 of Mate Night Snack
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KATNISS
Katniss knelt among the raised beds of the garden behind Miriam’s Inn, her fingers gentle as she harvested the ingredients Twyla had requested for a protective ward.
The mate mark had been pulsing steadily since dawn, responding to visions that flickered around her consciousness like half-remembered dreams. Nothing clear, nothing immediate, just the constant sensation of wheels turning and plans falling into place somewhere beyond her sight. She'd tried to explain it to Emmett before he left for his Council meeting, but how did you describe the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff you couldn't see?
"Just a few more sprigs of sage," she murmured to herself. The Council meeting had run long, and she'd grown tired of sitting in Miriam's parlor like a china doll everyone was afraid to jar. The garden was still within the inn's protective wards, still safe, and she'd promised Emmett she wouldn't go beyond the property line.
Which was exactly why she didn't notice the danger until it was already too late.
"Picking flowers, little seer?"
The voice came from directly behind her, smooth as aged whiskey and twice as poisonous. Katniss spun around, herb basket tumbling from her hands as she came face to face with the monster from her nightmares.
Ashwin looked almost disappointingly human.
Tall and gaunt, with jet-black hair slicked back from a face that might have been handsome once before something cold and hungry had taken up residence behind his eyes. Those eyes were exactly as she'd seen in her visions, pale yellow like old amber, but worse in person because they were focused entirely on her with the kind of attention a hawk gave a field mouse.
"You're smaller than I expected," he continued conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather instead of the fact that he'd somehow breached Hollow Oak's most secure location. "All that fuss over such a tiny thing. Though I suppose it's not the size of the vessel that matters, is it? It's what you can pour into it."
Katniss's hand went instinctively to her neck, feeling the mark burn with sudden intensity. Through the bond, she could sense Emmett's alarm, his immediate shift from whatever he'd been discussing to raw, protective fury. He was coming. But the inn was a fifteen-minute walk from the Council chambers, and fifteen minutes felt like an eternity when faced with those predatory eyes.
"How did you get past the wards?" she asked, proud that her voice came out steady despite the terror clawing at her chest.
"Oh, child." Ashwin smiled, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp. "You really don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Wards are just energy. And energy can be... redirected... when you have the right tools."
He gestured casually, and Katniss saw the amulet hanging around his neck. Dark stone carved with symbols that hurt tolook at directly, pulsing with a sickly light that reminded her of infected wounds.
"Thirty years," he continued, beginning to pace around her in a slow circle that made her skin crawl. "Thirty years I've been collecting the tools I need. Do you know what the secret is to breaking protective magic? You use the very thing it's meant to protect."
Understanding hit her like ice water. "The missing girls."
"Such bright eyes. Their power, twisted and bound to my will, makes an excellent key for locks they once helped create." His smile widened. "And soon, you'll join them. But first, I thought we should have a little chat about your wolf."
Every instinct screamed at her to run, but her feet felt rooted to the spot. This was the moment she'd been preparing for, the confrontation she'd known was coming. Except she'd imagined facing it with Emmett beside her, not alone in a garden with herbs scattered at her feet and nowhere to go.
"Emmett's nothing like you," she said, lifting her chin in defiance.
"Isn't he?" Ashwin's laugh was like glass breaking. "Tell me, dear one, has he mentioned what really happened the night he was cast out? The real reason his pack turned against him?"
"He made a mercy kill. Chose compassion over cruelty."
"Is that what he told you?" Ashwin stopped pacing, fixing her with those terrible eyes. "How very... selective... of him. Did he tell you about the others? The pack members who died because of his moment of weakness?"
Ice formed in her stomach. "What others?"
"Three good wolves, loyal soldiers who followed his orders into an ambush because he'd compromised our position by letting that pathetic whelp escape." Ashwin's voice took on the cadence of someone reciting a beloved story. "They trusted him,you see. Believed in his leadership right up until the moment enemy claws tore out their throats."
"You're lying."
"Am I? Ask yourself this, little seer: if his choice was so noble, why does he wake screaming from nightmares? Why does he carry guilt like a second skin? What kind of mercy leaves a man so broken he can barely stand to touch another living soul?"
Each word hit like a physical blow, finding cracks in her certainty she hadn't known existed. She'd seen Emmett's nightmares, felt his guilt through their bond, but she'd thought it was just the natural aftermath of leaving his pack. Not... not this.
"You see it now, don't you?" Ashwin moved closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He's a killer, dear one. Oh, he dresses it up in pretty words like honor and protection, but underneath all that noble posturing beats the heart of a predator. Just like me."
"No." But the word came out weaker than she intended.
