POV: LUCY

The first thing I noticed was his hair.

It was longer than I had expected, dark strands falling around his face and brushing the collar of his black shirt. It looked as though he hadn’t bothered to cut it in months, maybe longer. There was nothing careless about the way it fell, though. Even disheveled, it somehow suited him, making the sharp angles of his face look even more severe.

Then he turned toward me.

And I understood why people called him the Monster.

Not because he was ugly.

That would have been easier.

He was beautiful.

Painfully so.

The man in the photograph had been handsome, but the man sitting in front of me was something else entirely. His dark hair framed a face that looked carved rather than born, his jaw covered in several days of stubble, his green eyes so cold that I felt them before he even looked directly at me.

But the photograph had lied about one thing.

It hadn’t shown me what the war had done to him.

Aldric sat in a heavy wooden chair near the windows, his body angled slightly to one side. His left arm rested uselessly against the armrest, his fingers curled in a position that didn’t look natural. One leg was stretched out in front of him, the other bent slightly, as though even sitting required him to compensate for the imbalance between the two sides of his body.

The collar of his shirt was open.

That’s when I saw the scar.

It disappeared beneath the fabric at the base of his neck and continued down the left side of his chest, jagged and pale in some places, darker in others. I could only see part of it, but even that was enough to understand that the injury had been catastrophic.

Silver.

My mind immediately began cataloguing what I could see.

Weakness on the left side. Possible nerve damage. Abnormal resting position. Compensatory posture. Muscle wasting.

And pain.

So much pain.

I had seen it before.

Not his specific injury, but the way a body learned to live around damage. The tiny adjustments people made without realizing they were making them. The way the shoulders tightened when movement hurt. The way the jaw clenched before shifting position.

His body was screaming.

His expression said he didn’t care.

“You’re the physiotherapist.”

It wasn’t a question.

I stopped a few feet away.

“Yes.”

“You’re young.”

Apparently that was going to be a recurring theme.

“So I’ve been told.”

His eyes narrowed.

Ambrose stepped forward. “Aldric, this is Lucy Beckett. She’s taking over your rehabilitation.”

“No.”

I looked at him.

“No?”

“No.”

His voice was low, rough, and completely final.

Ambrose didn’t even blink. “We discussed this.”

“You discussed it.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t agree.”

“I wasn’t asking you to.”

His gaze moved to his sister.

Something dark flashed through his eyes.

“Leave.”

“No.”

“Ambrose.”

“You need treatment.”

“I need you to leave.”

“You need someone to help you.”

“I need everyone to stop deciding what I need.”

The room went quiet.

I stood there with my bag hanging from my hand, suddenly aware that I had walked into a family argument that had probably happened a hundred times before.

Ambrose sighed.

“Aldric.”

“No.”

“You haven’t even met her.”

“I don’t need to.”

His eyes finally returned to me.

They were worse up close.

Green.

Beautiful.

Empty.

I had seen that emptiness before too.

Not in people who were tired.

In people who had stopped believing there was anything waiting for them on the other side of tomorrow.

It made something in my chest tighten.

I pushed the feeling away.

“I was told you don’t want treatment.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Because my sister has apparently decided that destroying my patience wasn’t enough. Now she wants to destroy yours too.”

Ambrose crossed her arms.

“She has excellent qualifications.”

“So did the last one.”

I glanced at Ambrose.

“The last physiotherapist?”

“The last physiotherapist. The doctors before her. The specialists before them.” His mouth twisted. “They all had excellent qualifications.”

“And none of them helped.”

“None of them could do anything.”

His gaze dropped briefly toward his left hand.

There was something in his expression then.

Not anger.

Something worse.

Resignation.

“I don’t need another person telling me to try harder.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

His eyes snapped back to mine.

I realized that was the first thing I’d said that had actually caught his attention.

“What were you going to tell me?”

“That trying harder isn’t always the answer.”

Silence.

I continued before I could lose my nerve.

“If the damage is neurological, forcing movement without understanding the pattern of nerve involvement can make compensation worse. If you’re having chronic pain, your treatment needs to account for that. If your wolf is responding differently to the physical damage, then we need to account for that too.”

His expression didn’t change.

“You read my file.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know I’ve already tried all of that.”

“I know what you’ve tried.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think they treated the right problem.”

Something shifted in his face.

Barely.

But I saw it.

“That’s a bold statement.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t believe it.”

“Do you know how many specialists have told me that?”

“No.”

“Seven.”

He leaned back slightly, and I noticed the movement cost him. The muscles along his jaw tightened, and his left shoulder shifted involuntarily.

“Seven specialists. Four physiotherapists. Two healers who claimed they could work with silver injuries. Three experimental treatments. And all of them eventually admitted that my body was too damaged.”

I looked at the scar again.

“You were exposed to silver for how long?”

His eyes hardened.

“Long enough.”

That was clearly the end of that conversation.

I nodded.

“Then I’ll need to examine you.”

“No.”

“I can’t treat you without assessing your mobility.”

“I said no.”

“You can refuse.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

“But if you want me to help you, I need to examine you.”

“I don’t want you to help me.”

“I know.”

That seemed to irritate him even more.

Ambrose made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh.

Aldric looked at her.

“Why are you still here?”

“Because I hired her.”

“You can unhired her.”

“No.”

His jaw tightened.

For a moment, I thought he might actually throw me out himself.

Instead, he looked at me again.

“You’ll quit.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I don’t need to.”

His eyes narrowed.

“You think you’re going to fix me?”

“No.”

The answer came easily.

“I don’t think you’re something that needs fixing.”

Something about that made the room feel different.

His expression didn’t soften.

If anything, it became colder.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t know what it feels like to wake up every morning and discover another part of your body doesn’t work.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what it feels like to lose the person who was supposed to grow old beside you.”

I went still.

His voice had changed.

Only slightly.

But I heard it.

“You don’t know what it’s like to survive when the person who should have survived with you didn’t.”

I didn’t answer.

There wasn’t an answer I could give.

He looked away.

“I don’t want your pity.”

“You don’t have it.”

His eyes came back to me.

“I don’t pity you.”

For the first time, something almost like anger flashed across his face.

“Then what do you feel?”

I held his gaze.

“Professional curiosity.”

Ambrose made a choking sound behind me.

I didn’t look at her.

Aldric stared at me for several seconds.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

It wasn’t a warm sound.

It was short and humorless, almost disbelieving.

“Professional curiosity.”

“Yes.”

“You’re either very brave or very stupid.”

“I’ve been called both.”

He looked me over again.

“You’re not qualified.”

That one landed differently.

I knew what he was doing.

He wanted me to defend myself.

He wanted me to become offended.

He wanted me to leave.

So I simply nodded.

“Maybe.”

Ambrose frowned. “Lucy—”

“I’ve read your brother’s file. I know his previous treatments. I know the prognosis he was given.”

Aldric watched me carefully.

“And?”

“And I also know that some of the research used to develop the medications he received was based on work I contributed to while I was studying.”

Silence.

His expression changed.

“You?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of research?”

“Silver-related nerve damage. Rehabilitation protocols. Neuromuscular response after prolonged exposure.”

He stared at me.

“You were involved in that?”

“I was.”

“Then why have I never heard your name?”

I looked down at my hands for a moment.

Because I had left.

Because my life had changed.

Because there had been no university after that.

No research.

No laboratory.

No future I’d planned.

Just a cabin, a mother who needed medication, a sister who needed me, and years spent making sure we had enough food to survive another winter.

Instead, I said, “Life took me somewhere else.”

His eyes remained on me.

I could tell he didn’t believe the answer.

That was fine.

He didn’t need to know everything about me.

Not yet.

“Even if what you say is true,” he said, “the research didn’t save me.”

“No.”

“Then why should I believe you can?”

“You shouldn’t.”

He frowned.

“You should let me examine you,” I said. “Then you can decide whether I’m worth keeping.”

Aldric leaned back again.

Pain crossed his face this time before he could hide it.

It was there for barely a second.

But I saw it.

And I knew something then that none of the stories had prepared me for.

The Monster wasn’t angry because he didn’t feel pain.

He was angry because he felt it all the time.

“Fine,” he said.

Ambrose looked surprised.

I was too.

“But don’t mistake that for cooperation.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t expect me to thank you.”

“I don’t.”

His green eyes held mine.

“Good.”

I reached for my bag.

“Then let’s start.”

His expression hardened again.

“You’re going to regret this.”

Maybe I would.

But when I thought about my mother’s medicine waiting in that little cabin, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

I couldn’t afford to.