051 | WINTER

The scream rang out, crisp and clear. Without stopping to think I hauled on Ares’s hand and yanked him towards the sound.

It was not hard to find the source of the noise. A group of Omegas were clustered around an open door, their hands clapped over their mouths to hold back their cries.

“There was no wood for her fire last night,” sobbed a young woman from just inside the room. “I told her to stay with me, but she told me to stop fussing. Stars–”

“What’s going on here?” Ares’s voice lanced through the noise and silenced it immediately, save for the wet, sticking breaths of the Omegas.

“She died!” wailed the woman, digging her nails into her palms. “My grandmother. From the cold…” she dissolved into sobs.

Ares and I pushed past her.

The room was much like the hovel I had been put in when I’d first arrived at Winterpaw. It was windowless, with a single bed, complete with a lumpy mattress, one thin blanket, and one thin pillow, and a decaying dresser at the foot of the bed. There was