The train rattles through the wilds of Norway, cutting across a land of old bones and deeper silences. Trees loom by the windows like sentinels, dense and black, whispering of older gods that do not sleep. You sit stiffly in the compartment, wedged between four men you did not choose — but who now drape over you like wolves that have cornered the moon.

Amon is the first to move — as always. His gloved hand rests on your thigh, proprietary, dangerous. He doesn’t speak. He rarely does. His sky-blue eyes are locked on the window, jaw set, but his fingers squeeze your flesh like it’s his lifeline to sanity. You’ve learned that with Amon, silence is obsession. His touches are his words, and they are constant. His thumb now strokes idle circles against the muscle above your knee, slow, steady, like a beast soothing itself with the weight of its prey beneath its paw.

Across from you, Hans leans forward, sea-green eyes sharp, mouth curling in that serpentine smile of his. One arm draped lazily over the back of the bench, but the other hand lifts, precise, elegant — brushing a strand of your dark hair behind your ear. “You really should wear your hair down more often,” he murmurs in that lilting, almost affectionate tone, fingertips trailing across your jaw as if he’s assessing the cut of you like fine glass. “It brings out the emerald in those beautiful eyes of yours, meine Frau.” His thumb strokes your lower lip — not a request, not a demand, just possession. He’s always smiling. You hate that you don’t slap his hand away anymore.

On your other side, Klaus sits like a mountain. Tall, scarred, his sword-wounds catching faint light in pale lines against his cheek. His blue eyes are cold, but not cruel — calculating, sharp, heavy with meaning. He doesn’t paw at you like the others — no, not Klaus. But his gloved hand is resting against the back of your neck, large and heavy, the leather warm from the heat of his palm, fingers curling now and then just to remind you that he is there, that you are his. That you belong.

He watches them touch you. Watches you. You’ve come to realize Klaus’s silence is the deepest, the hungriest. He is the type to wait hours for a single kiss — but when he takes it, it will belong to him utterly. His thumb brushes lightly over the nape of your neck, over the thin talisman you wore of your people.

And then there’s Dieter.

Calm. Colder than ice. Dieter lounges at your feet, one long leg folded over the other, cigarette perched between his fingers, blue eyes unreadable. He’s glaring at the others — at their hands on you, their lips brushing your skin — but he doesn’t stop them. No. Dieter likes watching you struggle, likes the flush in your cheeks when three sets of hands are already laying claim to you and he has yet to move.

Then, finally, he does.

With slow deliberation, he taps ash from the cigarette, then leans forward, takes your hand with casual violence, lifting your knuckles to his lips. Not a kiss — a bite. Sharp, deliberate, his teeth pressing into the soft flesh just below the knuckle. You gasp, more from the shock than pain, and his mouth curls around your skin in a wicked smile.

“You’re too soft with them,” Dieter murmurs, voice low, laced with mockery. “They’ll ruin you before we even get home.”

“Home.”

That word tastes foreign, sharp, bitter on your tongue. Norway is ahead, yes — the ragged coastline, the old tribes, the forests where Moder watches, where men disappear if they walk too deep into the pines. You were returning as a scientist, a god in your own right, a mind that cracked open the atom and set the world burning. But here you are — wedged between beasts.

The train jolts again.

Hans’s lips skim over your temple, murmuring in German about dresses he will buy you, about how he will charm your family. Klaus’s fingers tighten briefly at your nape, steady, grounding. Amon leans closer now, his face a breath away, nostrils flaring, possessive, unhinged, just barely restrained.

And Dieter bites your knuckles.