The scent vanished into the night. Like it never existed. Like he had just imagined it.
Kross rubbed his temples. Maybe it was the exhaustion, his mind playing tricks on him. To the point he smelled things that weren't there.
He had to get some eye shut.
He moved and went to the bed. He laid there for some minutes eyes shut before he got up and went to the bathroom. The bathtub which was filled with hot water had turned cold. He did not have any patience left for him to fetch and use the ember crystals, the magic stones laced with enchantments to keep water warm while bathing.
In cold weather, it was a tedious for the servants to pour buckets of hot water which would cool in minutes.
After finishing bathing, he didn't bother drying his hair as he got on bed and closed his eyes ready for sleep to carry him. Ten minutes in, he couldn't stay still, he kept turning and tossing. It wasn't the ravager, he was sure. It was something else. But for some reason he felt restless and uncomfortable.
A gnawing discomfort he couldn't name.
Regardless sleep claimed him, unsettled as it was.
***
Lyra shivered. Her teeth bit into each other violently. The room was super cold. She had thought Rina would unlock the room after some hours but she didn't.
She trembled uncontrollably while sitting on the corner of the room hugging her knees.
Her stomach growled.
She could feel her consciousness threatening to leave. She grew weaker and weaker with each passing time.
Her head throbbed. Her fever was getting worse.
The herbs she had been given earlier that day were left in the room where her misfortune happened.
Lyra knew Tessa was looking for her and she was her only hope if not for the maid tomorrow morning with laundry duty will find her.
Her throat felt like sandpaper. There was water, but it was filthy, wrung from soaked clothes. Drinking that water would be madness. Not only would it make her sick but also she just couldn't, it was dirty. She could get a stomachache if not worse.
Still, her body cried for it.
***
Kross woke up with a start. Heart pounding in his chest.
It was back.
It was not yet full moon. There was still fifteen more minutes;
His whole body was trembling uncontrollably. He got up from the bed, drenched in sweat. His shirt clung to him like a second skin, soaked and suffocating. He had to get water from the stand. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps.
His blood was boiling and muscles twitching painfully like something was alive beneath his skin.
He stumbled out of bed, each step heavier than the last. He needed water to cool the fire raging inside him, to ground him.
But the moment his foot hit the floor, his knees buckled.
"Ugh!" he groaned, collapsing hard.
Pain exploded through his skull as the Ravager surged forward, its presence overpowering. It had began clouding his mind, thick and suffocating. More painful than ever. Ripping through the fragile walls of his sanity.
Kross clawed at the ground, trying to push himself up, but his strength was already draining fighting it took everything.
For a few fleeting seconds, he managed to push the Ravager back. Just enough to breathe. To think.
He had thought every single time the Ravager surged forward on full moons, the pain he felt that it could never get worse as he was used to it but every time it happened it proved him to be wrong.
He needed water.
He tried to fight it, which only exhausted a lot of his strength fighting it, making him weaker.
But it came back stronger flooding his mind until his own thoughts were shoved into the dark.
The ravager came forward. It was full moon, which added fueling the beast with ancient, uncontrollable power. Kross was too tired to fight it and it wasn't like he could win it. Not tonight. It was stronger and the full moon made it extremely strong.
They had let their guard down, he, his Beta, and his Gamma foolishly believing the curse was gone. They hadn't taken a single precaution. Now, he would pay for their hope.
The shift came violently.
A searing heat tore through his limbs as his body began to break. His bones cracked, twisted, and reformed in rapid succession. Then his skin split. Claws erupted from his fingertips. His screams were swallowed by the sound of snapping cartilage and the low growl building in his throat.
Then silence.
The Ravager had fully emerged.
A massive black wolf, monstrous and primal, stood hunched in the center of the room. Its chest rose and fell with ragged, animalistic breaths. Blood-red eyes flared in the dim light, scanning, surveying the room like a predator.
Then.
It let out a loud howl.
A thunderous, piercing sound that shook the walls and sent a violent vibration through the floorboards.
Without pause, the Ravager spun and charged.
The door didn't stand a chance. Wood splintered and hinges snapped as the beast barreled through barging out of the room.
The sweet and fresh freesia smell was back. Even Kross buried in the back could smell it.