"Miss Maebh! Miss can you hear me?" A voice pestered loudly. "Miss Maebh?"

Maebh groaned and slowly forced her eyes open, focusing her vision on the bespectacled old man leaning over her, whose breath reeked of something meaty.

"Tone it down a bit, please." She snapped weakly. "There's nothing wrong with my ears."

A throaty chuckle resounded from beside her, belonging to none other than Benjamin. "Why did you chug Nectar? You crazy woman!"

Panic swept over her as the previous night's findings came rushing back. She tried not to let the endless possibilities get to her but it was a losing game, and the emotional ramifications were undoubtedly written all over her face.

"Are you one too? A..." Maebh began but couldn't get the word out of her mouth.

"Oh, I-" Benjamin cleared his throat. "I'll make sure someone brings you breakfast."

He disappeared out the door, followed by the fidgety doctor.

Maebh jumped up –pointedly ignoring the dehydration pounding at the inside of her skull– and stormed down the hallway, into Hèmène's office –who had fortunately returned from absence.

"I want to go home."

The queen released the pen she had previously been writing with and looked up with mirth twinkling in her eyes. "A good morning to you too."

Maebh started pacing, rambling. "I read the story. About the lycanthropes and the chilbearers with the... my eyes and it's too much. I can't."

"So he finally told you?"

"He didn't tell me anything! Just shoved the book in my hands and left." She ran a shaky hand through her hair, feeling like she would rip them from her scalp. "I need to go back to Haines Junction, away from here. Now."

"Okay, I will arrange a car for you."

There was a heavy pause.

"That's it? Simple as that? You're letting me... go?"

Maebh felt like the personification of stupidity. Had she known it would be this easy to get a one way ticket out of here, she would have gone to talk to Hèmène way sooner.

"Maebh, darling, you have to realise I was in your shoes once. And though my situation was different, I understand." Hèmène sighed, and approached her, placing two warm, comforting hands on her shoulders. "Eventually, you will come to accept what you are fated to be. I know I did. You're young, you need time. Fillin has been waiting for years, a few more won't make a difference."

Maebh shook her head, looking dazed as she attempted to comprehend what the lady was saying. "Why are you helping me? Shouldn't you be siding with him?"

She squeezed her shoulders once more, "An unwilling childbearer equals a kingdom in disarray, remember that."

———————————————

An hour later, Maebh was stood by a black SUV, bidding Hèmène goodbye. The few belongings she had and some gifts she had received from the queen were packed in a bag, that had already been tossed in the trunk.

"Will you take good care of yourself, darling? If anything's amiss, don't hesitate to call me, you have my number."

Maebh nodded, smiling.

All of a sudden, a bloodcurdling bellow resounded from the open gates of the castle and shook them through and through. Fillin charged towards them with purpose and an unfathomable fury blazing in the fires of his eyes.

Maebh flinched out of instinct and tried to create as much distance between herself and the man as humanly possible. Knowing his anger was directed at her made the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. 

The prince had rolled up his sleeves, allowing her to see the muscles in his forearms twitching from restraint. His hands were by his side, tightened in fists with the whites of his knuckles showing.

At the sight of his lips, the memory of yesterday's scene in his room crawled back into her thoughts.  A tingling heat spread across her tummy, settling there and buzzing pleasantly. At the revelation of his beastly nature, his physique served as a reminder that even the prettiest flower could be poisonous.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Before Maebh had the opportunity to answer, Hèmène took a step sideways, shielding the girl from view. "She is going back to Haines Junction."

"Over my dead body." He so much as spit the words.

"You better start digging then, honey."

"Mother, I forbid her from leaving."

"Do you hear yourself talking? Unbelievable." Hèmène shook her head in disappointment. "This is your punishment for taking her against her will. And if you want her to come home, you're going to have to work for it."

"Mother.." Fillin seethed.

"I don't want to hear it. This is your own fault."

Hèmène pushed Maebh into the car and shut the door. Rapping on the window, she signalled the driver it was time to go and the car sped off with screeching tires.

Throwing a last look at Fillin through the back window, she regretted it instantly. Eyes like his could cast anyone trembling in fear within a mile of his presence. The silent promise, even from such a distance, was evident in his eyes. An image that would surely haunt her for the coming days.

Taking in the beauty of the valley, of the castle and the buildings carved from stone, Maebh released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. Returning to this place after it had left such a mixed first impression wasn't in her plans, but a nagging feeling inside foretold that somehow, someway, she eventually would.

———————————————

Around this time of year, the sun hours were short in Yukon and the nights long. Maebh had been informed about this. But you don't realise just how little 5 hours of daylight is until you experience it at first hand.

Condensation fogged up the cubicle and Maebh leant her head into the cool tiles on the wall, heaving a sigh as the scorching water fell down her back. So much had changed since the last time she'd taken a shower in her own bathroom.

After getting dressed, Maebh headed downstairs, her fingers itching to pick up a knife and cook. But since her cooking had been on hiatus for a week, the majority of the products in the refrigerator must have gone out of date. Maebh groaned, and went to see what things could still be used.

Opening the door, Maebh's eyes widened. The entire refrigerator was stocked to the brim with fresh veggies, fruits, cheese, poultry and who knows what else. Deciding she was too hungry to care about the question of who and what, she silently thanked the unknown person and got to work.

After a successful fridge raid, she settled down with a large roast beef sandwich and a freshly made mini quiche. Once her stomach was full, her mind inevitably turned to what she had been trying to ignore all morning: everything she had come to learn about herself and about the secret society that had been living amongst them all along.

She walked over to the telly, flicked it on and snagged the remote before sinking into the cushions of the sofa.

A loud ringing interrupted her from the documentary she'd been watching. Glancing over at the source of the noise, her eyes fell on her phone –winking at her from inside the big bag she had taken the night Elias was born. Coinín must have returned it, she thought, resentment blooming up at the thought of her treacherous friend.

What was even worse, was the dread that washed over her as she noted her mother's name flashing on the screen. She was expecting to hear a stern calling of her name or an angry "Where have you been???". Instead, her mother trilled "Hello darling!" with a surprisingly normal tone.

"Hi Mam.. Err- how are you?"

"Oh, we're fine. The same as always. Your father is grumpy and I'm bonkers."

Maebh couldn't help but laugh, relaxing a little. "Good to know."

"We're off to Spain for our holiday next month and we want you to come home for Christmas."

Maebh was silent.

"Mo ghrá? Are you there?"

"I-"

She couldn't tell her Mam what had happened, not yet anyway. Maebh felt like she had to come to terms with it herself first. 

"I'll go and see when the next flight is out."

———————————————

The rest of the day was devoted to watching marine life documentaries and stuffing her face with anything her tummy craved.

Feeling paranoid about being kidnapped again, she had locked all the doors, windows and shut the curtains –not even daring to go outside to check on the plants in her greenhouse.

So when the sound of a key being inserted in her door filled the air, her heart leapt into the back of her throat. But because she had bolted the door, the person was unable to enter. Slowly making her way there, she peeked through the gap between two curtain flaps, only to find a familiar pair of eyes staring back at her.

"Wha- Maebh?" the muffled voice of Coinín came from the other side of the barrier, to which she replied by promptly breaking eye contact and stomping back to the sofa.

"Oh Maebh, come on! I can explain, I swear!"

Ignoring the man, Maebh inserted headphones into her ears and returned to watching the documentary with a scowl on her face, drowning out his muted shouts with David Attenborough's upturned voice.

When she next pressed the pause button, his shouts had ceased. The sky had darkened even further as thick snowflakes fell down like goose feathers, covering the frosty ground in yet another layer. Lifting a curtain flap, she checked whether the coast was clear and found Coinín nowhere in sight. Pleased with the revelation, she went to prepare herself a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows when a pinching ache brought her to a standstill.

Maebh massaged the centre of her chest, willing the feeling to go away. But it only got worse, spreading over to her lungs and making her entire upper body grow tight. As a child, she would sometimes have asthma attacks, she'd brought two inhalers to Haines Junction just in case it would happen again –not expecting that it actually would.

With great difficulty, she managed to crawl her way up the stairs and into the bathroom, rummaging through the drawers for the blue inhaler. Putting the canister in her mouth, she pressed the inhaler and deeply breathed in the medicine. No matter how many times she pressed it, nothing changed. 

With weakened legs, she dropped to the floor and clung to the covers of her bed, attempting to get on the mattress in case she fainted. Maebh took another breath, a desperate one for fresh air, anything to make the suffocation cease. It tightened itself around her; squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.

Next thing she knew, Coinín was on his knees in front of her, holding her shoulders and shaking her. But she couldn't speak.

When the choke hold on her lungs finally stopped its torture, the pain begun. Clawing at her brain and stinging her nerves like hundreds of jellyfish.

"This was a bad idea, you should've stayed there, stubborn girl!"

She wheezed. "Painkillers.. in bathroom.. please just-"

"They won't help."

Colorful spots flashed her vision as her skin grew pale and clammy. Coinín's presence reminded her of how hurt she felt by his betrayal. But she just didn't have the energy to yell at him yet. And somewhere deep inside, she felt glad he was there.

Coinín wrapped his arms around her, carefully lifting her and placing her on the bed –holding her down as every muscle in her body contracted under the torturous force of the pain. She had an unrelenting grip on her duvet in an attempt to squeeze the pain away, without result.

"What are you- What is-"

"Don't worry about that now. Try to get some sleep, okay? It will hurt less"

———————————————

Maebh drowsily awoke to a dark room. Sitting upright, it took her a while to gather her bearings and remember what had happened prior to falling asleep. 

The distinct sound of a howl was heard from somewhere within the woods. A creeping feeling prickled over her as she looked through the gap in the curtains and into the shadows outside her bedroom window. Unease wormed into her mind and niggled away like a maggot at dead flesh.

A massive, dark shape stepped into the moonlight –one she recognised. 

Maebh hadn't seen the wolf since the night she had fallen down the ravine, so for him to reappear now, when she needed moral support most, gave her a sense of security.

He took shelter from the snow under the dense foliage of a pine. His paws had left prints the size of dinner plates in the freshly fallen snow. The wolf's body was thick and muscular under the roils of black fur and was only partly visible now that he had laid down by the tree's trunk.

Maebh blinked, as she realised how drained of energy she was, and how tempting the idea of sleep sounded. Her mind was too hazy with fatigue to question the wolf's presence. All she knew was that he was there, and the pain had gone.