The spring brought life back to the mountains of Hokkaido.
The ice retreated to the highest peaks, and the forest exploded in vibrant, humid shades of green.
But inside Nyra, winter had returned.
It happened on a quiet morning.
Eijiro had gone to the nearest town to get supplies, a two-day trip. Nyra was alone in the cabin, polishing the new leather coat with oil and wax, when the silence broke.
Not by an external sound.
But by an internal one.
She heard it before she felt it.
As a hybrid, Nyra's senses were sharp as blades. She could hear the step of a deer a mile away. She could hear her own heart pumping blood.
But now, there was an echo.
Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump.
A second rhythm.
Weak, fast, fluttering like the wings of a moth trapped inside a glass jar.
It came from inside her own abdomen.
Nyra froze.
The tin of wax slipped from her hand and rolled across the wooden floor with a clatter she barely registered.
"No…" she breathed, the word escaping like a puff of horror.
She pressed her hands to her flat, firm stomach.
She expected to feel nothing, hoped it was a mistake of her supernatural hearing.
But the touch confirmed what her ears already knew.
There was life there.
A tiny spark feeding on her energy, on her blood.
Panic struck her not like fear, but like disgust.
She didn't see a baby.
She saw a curse.
She saw wolf blood, uncontrollable rage, painful transformation, a life of being hunted.
She saw her mother screaming in the fire.
She saw her father.
She felt again the metallic taste of blood when she lost control.
She was creating a monster.
Nyra shot to her feet, knocking the chair over.
Her breath came shallow and uneven.
"I have to get it out," she hissed to the empty walls. "I have to purge it."
She ran to the kitchen, ripping open the cabinets where Eijiro kept medicinal herbs. Her eyes darted across the jars.
Mugwort. Lotus root.
Nothing strong enough.
She needed poison.
Something that would kill the parasite before it could be born to suffer.
Her hand stopped on a dark-glass bottle on the highest shelf, a concentrated solution Eijiro used to clean rusted tools. Toxic if ingested.
Nyra grabbed it.
Her hands trembled so violently the glass clinked against her rings.
"It is better this way," she told herself, tears burning her eyes. "It's mercy. I won't let you be born just to be hunted."
She uncorked the bottle.
The acrid chemical smell burned her wolf-sensitive nostrils.
And then the cabin door opened.
Nyra spun around, hiding the bottle behind her back, but the guilt in her posture exposed everything.
Eijiro stood in the doorway, dusty from the road, a canvas bag hanging from one shoulder. He had returned early.
He looked at her pale face, the cold sweat, the terror in the blue eyes he'd learned to read so well. Then he glanced at the hand she hid.
"Nyra?" he asked, calm but alert. He slowly set the bag down.
"Don't come closer," she warned, backing up until her back hit the counter. "I'm sick. Something's wrong with me."
Eijiro stepped forward once.
"What do you have in your hand?"
"The cure!" Nyra screamed, her voice finally cracking under hysteria. She showed him the bottle of poison. "I have to drink it. I have to get this out of me before it grows!"
Eijiro stopped.
He looked at her stomach, then at her eyes.
Comprehension dawned on his face, not shock, but a deep, serious heaviness.
"You are pregnant," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I'm infested!" Nyra retorted, tears spilling freely. "You don't understand, Eijiro! My blood is cursed. It's poison. This child, it'll be like me. It'll have claws. It will crave blood. The world will hate it. Dracula will smell it!"
She lifted the bottle to her lips.
"I won't condemn an innocent soul to be a monster!"
Eijiro moved.
Not with the speed of a warrior, but with the resolve of a man watching his home catch fire.
He reached her hand and held her wrist firmly.
He didn't rip the bottle away — he simply stopped her from drinking it.
"Let me go!" she sobbed, weakly struggling. "Let me save it by killing it!"
"Look at me!" Eijiro roared, his voice filling the small kitchen and silencing her crying.
He took the bottle from her slack fingers and set it far away on the table.
Then he cupped Nyra's face in both hands, forcing her eyes to meet his.
"You call it a monster…" he said, voice trembling with contained emotion.
"I call it a miracle."
"It's a beast…" Nyra whispered, collapsing into his arms.
"It may have your blood…" Eijiro said, hugging her tight, pressing her head against his chest, where his heart beat steady and solid, "but it also has mine. And I am not cursed, Nyra. I am just a man."
He pulled back slightly to look into her eyes.
"If the child has claws, I'll teach them not to use them for harm. If it has fangs, I'll teach it to smile with them. If the world hates it… then I'll build a wall so high the hatred will never reach it."
"And if it kills you?" Nyra asked, her deepest fear surfacing.
"What if it's like me and hurts you?"
Eijiro took Nyra's hand, the hand that had held swords and killed demons and placed it gently over her belly, over the fabric of the yukata.
"Then I will die loving what we created," he said simply.
"But we're not running from this, Nyra. We don't run. We fix what's broken. We forge new things."
Nyra felt the warmth of his hand over hers.
Beneath layers of skin and fear, the tiny rhythm continued.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It no longer sounded like a countdown.
It sounded… stubborn. Determined.
She exhaled, a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
The murderous tension drained from her shoulders, leaving behind exhaustion and a terrifying sliver of hope.
"I don't know how to be a mother," she admitted softly. "My mother died trying to protect us. I failed her."
"We'll learn," Eijiro promised, kissing her forehead, sealing the vow.
"You're not alone in this trench, Wolf."
They stood there in the kitchen bathed in afternoon sunlight, holding each other.
The poison sat untouched on the table.
They didn't speak of names.
Giving a name would give power, and the fear was still too great for that.
But for the first time, Nyra didn't think of death.
She thought of the black coat with lilies on the collar.
Rebirth.
Perhaps, just perhaps, monsters also deserved a future.