Chapter 3 The Beast in the Drawing Room

Cordelia's Pov

Following the sound of destruction through Ravenshollow's corridors was like following breadcrumbs in a particularly violent fairy tale. A Ming vase lay in pieces near the library door. Claw marks scored the wallpaper in the hallway. Someone had definitely been having a proper tantrum.

"Perhaps," Margaret Ashworth said with the sort of brittle composure that suggested she was one broken antique away from a nervous breakdown, "you might consider a more... measured approach."

"Measured?" I paused outside what used to be the blue drawing room, listening to the low growls emanating from within.

"Your son sounds like he's trying to redecorate using only his claws. I'm thinking measured might not be the appropriate response."

Another crash. Something expensive meeting an untimely end.

"He's been like this for weeks," Rupert muttered, running a hand through his hair. "The pack healers can't get near him when he's in one of these states."

"Right." I rolled my shoulders back and reached for the door handle.

"Well, the good news is, I've had five years to get over being intimidated by Lysander Ashworth's dramatics."

Margaret's eyebrows rose to somewhere near her hairline. "You always were impertinent."

"Still am, thankfully."

I turned the handle and stepped into chaos.

The blue drawing room looked like it had been redecorated by a particularly artistic hurricane. Furniture was overturned, paintings hung askew, and in the centre of it all stood the man who'd once been my everything and was now apparently committed to destroying his family's antique collection.

Lysander Ashworth, in all his tragic, infuriating glory.

Five years had changed him, but not in the way I'd expected. He was still devastatingly handsome in that aristocratic way that made sensible women forget their own names.

Still tall, broad-shouldered, and possession of those ridiculous cheekbones that belonged in a renaissance painting. But there was something wrong with the picture now.

His skin had a greyish pallor that spoke of serious illness. His dark hair, usually perfectly styled, hung lank around his face. Most concerning of all, his eyes – those startling green eyes that had once made my knees go weak – now held a wild, desperate quality that made my wolf instincts scream WARNINGS.

He spun toward me as I entered, and for a moment, I thought he might actually shift right there in his mother's favourite room.

"No," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Absolutely not. Get her out."

"Lovely to see you too, darling," I said, closing the door firmly behind me. "You look terrible, by the way. Has anyone mentioned that lately?"

He stared at me like I was a particularly unwelcome hallucination. Which, to be fair, I probably was. "I said get out."

"And I said you look terrible. We seem to be at an impasse." I picked my way carefully through the destruction, noting how he tracked my movement with predatory focus.

Whatever was wrong with him, it was affecting his wolf nature as much as his human side. "When did you last sleep? Properly, I mean, not whatever you've been calling sleep lately."

"This is none of your concern."

"Isn't it?" I settled into the one chair that had somehow survived his redecorating efforts, crossing my legs with deliberate casualness.

"Because from what I understand, you're dying, the pack healers are useless, and I'm apparently your last hope. That sounds rather like my concern, whether I want it to be or not."

He laughed, and the sound held no humour whatsoever. "My last hope. How poetic."

"I've been called worse things."

We stared at each other across the wreckage of the room, five years of silence stretching between us like a canyon.

He looked like he wanted to pace, but something was stopping him. Weakness, maybe, or the knowledge that sudden movements might trigger whatever was eating him alive from the inside.

"You shouldn't have come," he said finally.

"Probably not," I agreed. "But here we are. So why don't you tell me what's actually wrong with you, and we can both get on with our lives."

His mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile if you were feeling generous. "Our lives. Right."

"Lysander." I leaned forward slightly, and he tensed like a cornered animal. Interesting. "Whatever happened between us, whatever you think of me, I'm not here for revenge or closure or any of that tedious emotional nonsense.

I'm here because people seem to think I can help. So let me help, or let me go home to my pottery wheel."

"Your pottery wheel," he repeated, as if the words tasted strange.

"Yes. It's very therapeutic. I make mugs now. Lots of mugs. Some of them are even round."

Despite everything, despite the years and the hurt and the sheer impossibility of the situation, his lips twitched. Just slightly, but enough to remind me of the man I'd once known.

The one who'd laughed at my terrible jokes and brought me flowers he'd stolen from his mother's garden.

The one who'd broken my heart so thoroughly I'd had to rebuild myself from scratch.

"The healers say it's a curse," he said quietly, sinking into the chair across from me with a careful movement. "It's something old that specifically targets the alpha line."

"A curse." I considered this. "How wonderfully melodramatic. Any idea who might want to curse your bloodline? Because I have to say, the list of people with grudges against the Ashworth family is probably extensive."

His eyes flashed, and for a moment, I saw the old Lysander. Arrogant, commanding, absolutely convinced of his own righteousness. "Are you volunteering?"

"If I was going to curse you," I said cheerfully, "I'd have done it five years ago. And it would have been much more creative than whatever this is."

The silence that followed was loaded with memories neither of us wanted to acknowledge.

Finally, he spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.

"It's killing me, Delia. Slowly, but efficiently. And according to the pack seers, you're the only one who might be able to stop it."