Chapter Thirty-Eight
Calista
Something in the Wolvryn’s eyes shifted. It was as if his gaze had sharpened, like a male dragging himself back from the edge. The deep blue of his irises returned, eclipsing the brilliant silver.
My throat tightened. “Everest?” I whispered, barely more than a breath.
The black wolf took one step toward me and faltered, shoulder dipping. A pained sound rumbled in its chest, and then it forced itself upright again, stubborn even in agony. It came closer, slowly now, each step heavy.
I didn’t move. My blade hung useless at my side. I could never raise it against him. Not after everything we’d been through, not after he’d saved me countless times.
The beast stopped an arm’s length away and lowered its massive head, nostrils flaring as if scenting me, confirming I was real.
My heart hammered.
Then I saw him. The expression beneath it all. The restraint fighting the instinct. The way the beast held itself back.
Everest.
My knees nearly gave out. “Oh, Selraya,” I breathed, voice breaking. “Thank the goddess you’re okay.”
The Wolvryn made a low sound, something like exhaustion dragged over stone. I reached out before I could talk myself out of it, fingers trembling, and touched the thick fur along his cheek. It was warm and wet with snow and blood.
The beast flinched slightly, then leaned into my palm as if my touch anchored him somehow.
Tears stung my eyes, sharp and stupid. I swallowed hard and forced my voice steady. “We need to get you inside.”
His ears flicked. He looked toward the trees, toward the hut still much too far away. Then he took a step. I limped beside him, cloak wrapped tight, ankle screaming and the crescent blade heavy in my hand.
I hazarded a glance over my shoulder toward the icy sea below.
No sign of Trystan’s body. If Selraya was good, it had already sunk to the bottom of the Silverveil.
Ahead, the snowstorm still raged. And beside me, a wounded beast with silver-blue eyes moved like it was holding itself together by sheer will.
I certainly was.
We didn’t speak. We just started the slow, brutal hobble back toward the hut, both of us bleeding but at least breathing.
Getting Wolvryn Everest back to the hut felt like dragging the blizzard by its tail.
The black beast moved with stubborn purpose until he simply couldn’t.
By the time the roofline appeared through the blowing snow, his gait had turned into a heavy stagger.
He favored one foreleg, and the injured hind leg barely touched down at all. Blood dotted his tracks in dark beads.
Only the brutal storm kept the hunters and daughters at bay, thank the gods. In our current condition, we would have made far too easy prey.
I kept one hand on the fur at Everest’s shoulder as if my touch alone could hold him upright. “Almost there,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if he understood words or only tone. “Just a few more steps.”
He huffed, breath steaming in a thick plume, and pushed forward anyway.
When we finally reached the door, I fumbled for the bolt with numb fingers and shoved it open. Wind snarled through the crack eager to devour our small pocket of warmth, but I threw myself inside first, stumbling over the threshold.
“Come on,” I urged. “In.”
The Wolvryn followed. The moment he crossed into the hut, he sank to the floor.
He didn’t collapse fully, but his shoulders dipped and his entire body sagged.
He landed hard on the floorboards, black fur swallowing the dim orange light from the stove.
His ribs rose and fell too fast. Those eerie runes still glowed faintly along his forehead, pulsing like a heartbeat trapped under skin.
I shut the door and rammed the bolt home, hands shaking from the cold. The quiet after the storm’s scream was worse than the noise. It made every sound inside the hut louder.
The wet scrape of his claws against wood.
The steady drip of melting snow from his coat.
The low, pained rumble in his chest each time he tried to breathe.
I stood there for a heartbeat, just staring at him, trying to convince my body not to panic in front of the massive creature.
He was enormous in here, taking up half the floor.
He looked like something out of every warning story Hollowcrest mothers told to keep their daughters from wandering into the woods at night.
And yet when he turned his head and looked at me, the silver in his eyes wasn’t predatory. It was exhausted. It was…oddly aware.
My pulse slowed a fraction. “Everest,” I said softly. “Change back.”
His ears flicked. That was all.
I swallowed hard. “Please.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t shrink back into Fae form.
And he certainly didn’t become the male who could speak and smirk and pretend he wasn’t unraveling.
The big beast only let out a slow breath that fogged the icy air and laid his chin back down on the floor like even lifting his head cost him too much.
I stepped closer, careful, and crouched near his shoulder. The heat pouring off him was almost shocking after the cold outside. It made the hut feel warmer by degrees.
“I need you to change back,” I tried again, firmer this time. “I don’t know how to treat you like this.”
His gaze slid to mine. Silver again. And still, there was that same restraint under it, that same sense of a mind behind the beast. He blinked once, slowly, then looked away.
I couldn’t tell if he was just being stubborn or was too hurt. Maybe both. I exhaled shakily. “Fine. Be difficult.”
His tail thumped once against the floor. A heavy sound. It almost felt like agreement.
I pushed myself upright with a hiss as my ankle sent a bright, vicious line of pain up my leg.
The hut tilted for a moment. Or maybe that was just me. My pulse was still racing hard enough to make everything feel unsteady, my hands shaking from cold and adrenaline and the sight of Everest half-dead on the floor wasn’t helping.
“You’d better have something useful in here,” I muttered. Somehow, the sound of my own voice kept the panic from swallowing me whole.
I limped toward his pack and dropped to one knee beside it. Even that hurt. My whole body felt bruised through, scraped raw, and used up. I dug through leather and cloth with trembling fingers.
Cloth strips.
A small tin of salve that smelled like spruce and sharp herbs.
A needle and thread sealed in wax paper.
A bottle of clear liquor.
Flint.
Thin cord.
Thank the goddess for the field kit.
I laughed once, weak and humorless, then hauled the whole thing back across the floor toward him.
Everest lay where he’d collapsed, enormous, and breathing too hard. His Wolvryn watched me through half-lidded eyes, the runes along his brow dimmer now, though the larger symbol at the center still pulsed with a low, steady heat.
I tried not to stare at it. Tried not to think what Trystan had recognized there that I still didn’t understand.
So I knelt beside Everest instead and reached for the basin we’d used earlier. The water inside had gone icy, so I forced myself back to my feet and limped to the stove. I crouched there shaking flint over tinder until sparks finally took.
Come on. Come on.
For one terrible heartbeat, nothing caught. Then the kindling breathed orange, small and stubborn, and I nearly sagged with relief. I fed it splinters of wood he’d collected earlier with clumsy fingers until the flame grew.
Then I forced myself to the door, cracked it open and packed snow into the pot because the basin water would never be enough.
The icy wind tore at my cloak through the opening, but I gritted my teeth and filled it up.
I made three agonizing trips, each one slower than the last, each one sending fresh pain up my leg.
By the time I set the snow over the flame, I was already sweating beneath my chilled skin.
Everest hadn’t moved. That frightened me more than the blood.
“Don’t do that,” I whispered, limping back to him. “Don’t you dare do that.”
His ear twitched once.
I let out a shaky breath. “Good. Keep doing that. I need to know you’re still with me…” I dipped a cloth into the little warmth the melted water had managed and hesitated over his shoulder.
Where did I even start?
Blood matted the fur there, thick and dark. One ear had a torn notch. The hind leg Trystan had gone for was swollen and slick with red where teeth had torn through fur and skin. There were claw gouges across his muzzle and a long slice over his chest that rose and fell with every ragged breath.
Too much blood, too many wounds.
My stomach turned. I swallowed it down hard.
“You’re going to owe me for this…” I needed to keep talking or I would start thinking, and if I started thinking, I might break. “Do you hear me? You don’t get to almost die on me and then leave me to stitch you up like I’m some gods’ damned temple healer.”
His eyes shifted toward me. Tired. Heavy. But still there.
I chose to take that as agreement. “Good.”
I pressed the cloth to his shoulder, and he flinched so hard his whole body tightened. A low growl rolled out of him, not threatening exactly, only filled with pain.
“I know,” I said quickly, leaning closer without even thinking about it. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts.” I kept my hand there, buried in the thick fur at his neck, until the tension eased a little beneath my palm.
Then I tried again, slowly, carefully.
I cleaned away blood and clotted fur one small patch at a time, forcing myself not to look at the whole of him at once. The water pinked, then reddened. I wrung out the cloth. Dipped it again. Kept going.
He tensed every few breaths, and each time I stopped. Each time I waited then blurted something because silence made it feel too much like I was losing him.
“Why won’t you change back?” I murmured while I worked at a gouge near his ribs. “Is it because you can’t? Or because you think I’ll yell at you again?”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
A thread of relief moved through me so sharp it almost hurt.