Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
“Oh, so you are listening.” I dabbed more carefully at the wound. “Good. Then listen harder. I’m trying to save your life here.”
He made a soft sound in his chest that might have been annoyance.
I almost smiled, then I reached his hind leg. The bite marks there were ugly, deep punctures. There were too many torn edges and skin stretched and angry and already swelling. My hands shook harder when I uncorked the liquor.
“This is going to sting,” I warned him.
The moment the liquid touched the wound, he jerked hard enough to nearly knock the bottle from my hand. A snarl tore through the room, sharp and sudden, and my heart leapt into my throat.
“Hey.” My free hand flattened instinctively against his flank. “Hey. It’s all right. It’s all right. Just a minute more.”
His head lifted, and silver eyes locked on mine.
For one breath, the predator was there. Pure and bright and terrible. Then it eased back, flashes of blue emerging.
“That’s it,” I whispered, though my own voice trembled. “You’re fine. You’re not dying. Not tonight.”
I cleaned the leg as best I could, hands aching by the time I was done. Then I smeared salve around the punctures and wrapped the leg with cloth strips that never seemed long enough.
It took forever or maybe only minutes. Time had gone strange.
By the time I tied off the last wrap, my fingers were stiff and numb, and I was breathing just as hard as he was. I sat back on my heels for one second, then looked at the slice across his chest. I wanted to cry.
“No,” I muttered at myself. “No, no. Not yet.”
The needle shook in my fingers as I threaded it. I had to do it twice because the first time I missed entirely. The second time my hands trembled so hard I nearly stabbed myself.
Everest watched all of it. “You’d think that after everything we’ve been through together, I’d be better at this.”
His tail gave the faintest thump against the floorboards.
“Hold still.” Hand shaking, I brought the needle to his torn flesh. His whole body locked. I nearly lost my nerve right there with the needle half through skin and my own breaths coming too fast.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” I dragged the needle through another inch.
He flinched but held still.
“How did you even do that?” I asked, gesturing vaguely at all of him. “Summon your Wolvryn like this, I mean. It’s before the full moon.”
His ear twitched.
“Only Alphas are supposed to be able to call their Wolvryn early. You told me that. You never said you were an Alpha...”
He didn’t look at me this time. The big brute only stared at the stove, eyes narrowed as if he was watching something only he could see.
“Was it because of me?” I whispered, horrified by the thought. “Because Trystan had me and you…” I swallowed hard. “If it was just because of me, that’s not fair. I didn’t ask you to—”
He turned his head, silver gaze pinning me.
I willed my mouth closed.
“And what Trystan said,” I blurted, because my fear wanted answers the way my body needed warmth. “About Savage stealing his mate. Is that true? From everything you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound at all like something he would do.”
His nostrils flared. He exhaled hard enough to ruffle the loose hair at my forehead.
“That’s not an answer,” I grumbled. “Fine. Be difficult.”
The thread went dark with blood. My eyes burned, but I blinked hard and kept going. When I finally tied off the last stitch, I pressed a clean cloth over the wound, and only then did I let myself sag back a little.
My shoulders shook with exhaustion. So did my hands.
The room smelled of blood and spirits, hot metal and cedar. Outside, the storm had softened to a low, restless growl against the walls. At least that.
“What’s the difference,” I asked after a while, too tired now to keep the questions in, “between a mate and a Moonbound mate?”
The wolf couldn’t answer. I knew that, but I asked anyway.
“In Hollowcrest, we don’t talk about mates.
” I rubbed my numb fingers together, trying to coax life back into them.
“Not really. We talk about survival and duty. The raiders. Not mystical bonds.” My laugh came out thin.
“But the way the bards sing about it...” I shook my head.
“It sounds like law. Like fate. Like Selraya ties the knot and everyone else is just forced to live with it.”
Everest didn’t move.
“Is Moonbound very rare? Is that why everyone whispers about it like it’s a myth? Like it’s something holy and dangerous?”
His chest rose and fell. Slower now. Better.
I watched the runes dim further, their wild glow settling into something quieter.
The dread low in my gut finally eased. Trystan was dead. The hunters were still out there somewhere beyond the storm, but the blizzard might yet cover our tracks.
Everest was still in Wolvryn form. Still bleeding and too stubborn to explain a single useful thing, but he was here. He had come for me.
Even after the fight. Even after everything.
That truth pressed hard against my ribs. I had thought myself strong and clever. Hard enough to survive this rite on my own.
And maybe I could have. Or maybe not.
What I was almost certain of was that tonight, against Trystan, the storm and the laws and everything else, I could have lost. It was Everest who had made the difference.
The thought sat in me strangely. It didn’t feel like weakness, more like truth.
My eyelids grew heavier. I shifted closer to him without fully meaning to, drawn by the steady heat coming off his body. I tucked myself carefully by his side, trying not to press his wrapped leg or stitched chest, and dragged the fur cloak over both of us like a shelter.
He was warm, filled with the deep, living heat of something that had fought death and refused to lose. I rested my cheek beside his shoulder, breathing in frosty mint and the faded iron bite of blood.
“Don’t you dare die on me, Everest,” I murmured, voice gone thick in spite of myself. “I don’t have the strength to drag you back from the afterlife just to yell at you there too.”
His tail thumped once.
I let my fingers sink into his fur and close around the soft tufts.
There was something so familiar about it.
As if I’d slept beside this enormous beast countless times.
A yawn parted my lips, and I snuggled closer.
For the first time since the Hunt began, the hopelessness didn’t feel like mine alone to carry.
We were in this together now.
Broken, bloodied, exhausted, and far too tangled to deny it.