The Moonlit Curse

Ch 18: Whiteout

No one slept that night. The light powdering of snow grew heavier as the hours stretched on. Nearing dawn, the wind started to pick up and by noon, as August predicted, it was impossible to see any further than a foot ahead. Everything was cast in a veil of white. Though the walls were thick, the shutters over the glass windows rattled in their frames against the howling wind. The fireplace in the main room roared in sheer defiance against the crippling cold, supported by the cooking stove in the kitchen and the smaller heating stoves in each room.

For a long time, none of the five conscious members of the Monster Hunter Corps left their lieutenant's side. Whatever was wrong with Kiya, she wasn't unconscious. Not entirely, anyway. Her eyes were open wide, glassy and out of focus, staring ahead but seeing nothing. The pillow was damp with sweat, but her face was pale. An endless stream of incomprehensible muttering poured from her mouth. She was covered in a mountain of blankets up to her chin, but she shivered so violently that the bed trembled with her.

They were afraid. Of course, they were. They had no idea what was happening to her and had never seen an illness like this. Rick spent the time scouring through his medical texts and the books provided by the physician's guild looking for anything he could do to help. He would find nothing. Not unless the monster hunters had detailed accounts of the symptoms of the lycanthropy curse.

For all August knew, they did have such an account. The hunters had collected a wealth of knowledge over the centuries. But if Rick did have this record and found it among his notes, he would have to recognize the symptoms and then piece it together all the way back to the night of the full moon and the attack.

August wasn't sure if Rick was perceptive enough to figure that out on his own. Brey had praised him for his creativity in his techniques in the treatment of wounds in the middle of battle. He was well-respected in the military, and surprisingly respectful of the humble members of the Silverkeep physician's guild. He had trusted and defended Brey's diagnosis against the irate Red and paid careful attention to fulfill every single one of her recommendations. But was he clever enough to add two and two to make four?

Brey didn't think so. But she was also furious that it had taken them—meaning himself and Hadyn—six days to tell her that someone had been bitten. Among the unwritten laws to keep the pack safe and secret, it was tradition to tell the few human members of the town when someone had been bitten accidentally or if there was a plan to intentionally turn someone on the next full moon. On the latter, these few humans, including Brey and two of the four adopted Whittemore children, were more than welcome to voice their concerns or support.

Brey had, rightfully, scolded him harshly in the privacy of the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, she agreed with Hadyn that Kiya should have been killed. The town, not just the pack, couldn't trust a capital soldier to live among them. Jack Whittemore had been hesitant but ultimately agreed that it was probably for the best.

To everyone's surprise, however, Jeanie sided with August and defended Kiya. She argued that Hadyn and the alphas before him gave everyone else a chance. But it was what she said after Brey and Jack returned to the main room that really stuck with August. "She's one of us," she said in a gentle tone typically reserved for her siblings and their children. "There's something missing. She's looking for something to fill that hole."

"What do you mean?" August asked, and Jeanie shrugged.

"Not sure, exactly. But what better way to find it than joining the division of the military that spends most of the year on the road?"

One of us. In what way? An orphan, like the Whittemore children? A disgraced runaway, like him?

Those questions haunted his mind the whole night well into the next day as he hovered from the hallway. He found every excuse to go in when he could—restocking wood for the stove, changing the water in the wash basin, bringing fresh rags—but there came a point where Red said outright that his services were not needed and to leave him, his soldiers, and, most importantly, Kiya alone.