Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)-Chapter 434 - Names, Claims, & Augmentables, pt2

Chapter 434: Chapter 434 - Names, Claims, & Augmentables, pt2

"Well, you’re right. I should probably add Webber. And any of the other members of your mystical arts club."

"Covens."

"I know what I said."

How easy it is to fall quickly into old negotiation practices. Attempting to even the field when seeking favors by subtly calling the sanctity of any beliefs into question, putting the other side on a sort of guard I can slip around.

This is why I wanted nothing to do with this. Being a decision maker for a mass of people... it brings out more of the things my mother instilled in me, rather than the things I tried to embody from my grandmother’s journal.

"Though if I have misjudged your people as those who would take offense at a non-malicious joke or two, then maybe it would be good for you to tell me now. So that I do not add headaches to your future days."

"Dr. Lifton can be a stickler for terminology. But she will complain to you, not me."

"And I will then complain to you as the current representative of the witches within this tower. It is not a fun cycle, but it is the one we seem to be heading toward getting looped into."

As we have talked, I’ve been skimming the list of *options* with what appears to be a point cost resting beside each. Values which I assume to be opposing to the rate of gain Martha provides...

> A ’rate of drain’, if you will. <

Waving my hand in my soul towards the white wolf plush sitting off to my side, I can feel myself flush with embarrassment. Truly grateful that I have this space in myself to field lame rhyming wordplay!

Looking up at the tail of the bear and the hide still hanging along the spine that is *almost* off and fully dealt with, I sigh. I really just wanted to spend a couple hours up here to finish this, not deal with experiments with system abilities.

But if this means what I think it does, then it is even more valuable for my son than a nice fur coat.

"I’m going to try something. Tell me if you feel anything... change."

"Ominous. How exciting. Go ahead, dear. I’m sitting and ready."

| Grant Pack: Nurturer’s Tolerance / 20 pts |

Tapping on the first and most attractive option while willing it active, a pulse of white light rippled through my vision - like I’d momentarily gone snowblind. I couldn’t even see the glowing text of the system for just long enough to panick and wish I was seated too.

When that was over, the point total dropped by that value instantly... and chaos stormed through the radio channel.

"Huh."

"What the hell was that? Is that what they call seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? Did I just die for a moment?"

"Citra, what did you just do?"

Martha, Claire, and *finally* proof that Kyrie was listening. At least, is listening now. Not that I’m all that happy about that. Considering the circumstance.

"You... felt it too?"

My hands clutched at the hanging hide. She wasn’t supposed to be in the Pack yet. Yes, her name was there. Yes, she has... access to an ability. I’d been marked. But I had not done the whole-

"The temperature in this room didn’t change according to the thermometer but I stopped... registering it. This is your ability, right?"

The roster appeared again with my trembling focus. Blue names with white lines, and the dotted one between my name and hers was gone. In its place was a solid tether of lilac, between me - and between Asha.

> ...Fuck. Okay. No big deal. The Apocalypse System has always been pushing this. And I... okay, I did call her mine a lot earlier. And meant it more than I ever had. Yes. This is just logical expression of desire and the stupid entity behind it can’t read between sensitive lines! <

However, I’m still pissed that it didn’t allow me to consciously move her name from the potential list, annexing her officially. I could have made a big deal about it with her. Instead of it... robbing...

...

"Citra? Are you still there?"

"I’m here. I just... I need a moment. To..."

My voice was fragile as I answered, for I couldn’t stop looking at the roster now. All of it - not just the area right next to my own name. Not just the potential list I’d added Dr. Lang from or the corner with the Reservoir.

For days, weeks, I hadn’t dared to scroll my sight towards the rest of the floating letters. The rest of the people that I’d added to my collection as I willed. Good people, kind people.

Black. Not a slightly see-through fox-fire glow. An opaque void.

Lettering that should have been connected to living people now like char on the interface. Like wounds in the fabric of reality itself. Biting my lip hard enough that I taste blood, I tap on each to try and tell myself I’m wrong.

| Michelle Winston - Deceased |

| Dixon Richardson - Deceased |

| Samantha Harcourt - Deceased |

People I’d annexed wildly in the days before I left the city. Names that I could attach to faces and memories.

A blonde waitress at the first restaurant in this world I’d eaten in. Finally ran into her again and had some generic conversation, which led to her somehow crying and me consoling her about a breakup.

The guy on the photography team I once modeled for, who I made delete some candid photos by winning a ’thumb war’. Wasn’t a sore loser and even kept his word then and there, showing me as he deleted them.

Third was probably the worst of *this* bunch because I’d met her so frequently. Super friendly, enthusiastic brunette with piercings operating the counter at Bread & Breakfast. I’d managed six seconds somehow by her offer to feel what gauged ears were like.

> ...Vrika thought she probably had a crush on me, because who just lets someone do that? But she was just... really easy-going and friendly. And now she’s gone. <

I looked down at my hands. I’d scrubbed some of that arterial spray on the snowpile, but it was still a little red with blood. Still had flecks of fat that slivered off as I pulled the hide back.

"Ridiculous."

It’s not *their* gore. I’m not the one who killed them. But it feels like it. Way more than it did when it was just numbers of people and corpses on the ground coming into Vossden.

Clenching my fists, I take in a heavy feeling breath and reach up. Grabbing the tail of the bear, I push this human body with partial transformation and rip downwards.

Pulling the bulk of the hide free. Stashing it away instantly. Kicking two buckets closer to the bear. Collecting the flexible boning knife.

I begin to slice away the fat instead of thinking. Instead of admitting what I saw. The name next to another - that had been connected to another - that is now just that loud darkness.

"...Citra?"

A voice asks testingly from behind me. Concerned. Kyrie, of course. Realizing that something was wrong. So she broke away from the work she needs to be doing to come up here.

But there’s nothing to be done. No value in using her time for this. It’s something I could have dealt with on my own. With a little more time.

> Time... maybe I’m using too much time selfishly. No. No maybe about it. <

I feel the cooling fat under my fingernails as my hand brushes over my ear to check something... because I don’t even remember discarding the earpiece. Discarding any attempts to allow others to connect with me.

"I’m... a horrible friend."

Just like I discarded caring for someone who always cared so much for me.