Chapter Fifteen The Fight Between Mates
Riksa arrived at Northroad like a plague sent to discipline lesser disasters.
She came in a Red Creek cart, standing braced beside the driver with one hand gripping the rail and the other holding a healer’s bag as if it were a weapon.
Her gray hair had come loose from its knot.
Her face promised pain to anyone who had caused her inconvenience by bleeding where she had not personally approved.
“Where?” she barked before the cart fully stopped.
Torren stood with Willa in his arms beneath Mara’s ruined awning, blood soaking through the cloth Hessa had pressed around Willa’s forearm.
“Here,” he said.
Riksa climbed down.
“Obviously here. I meant where is the worst damage, you overgrown panic.”
“Arm. Ribs.”
“Bite?”
“Yes.”
“Shifted after?”
“Yes.”
“Badly?”
Willa opened one eye.
“Rude.”
Riksa leaned over her.
“That answers that.”
Torren’s arms tightened.
Riksa’s gaze snapped to him.
“Do not crush my patient because you are frightened.”
Torren went still.
Willa felt the rebuke land through the mark harder than Riksa probably intended.
Or exactly as hard as she intended.
With Riksa, intention was a blade tucked in a bandage.
“Torren,” Willa whispered.
His eyes dropped to hers.
The world narrowed.
His face was streaked with mud and blood, not all of it hers, his hair damp against his cheek, his jaw set so hard it looked painful. The mark between them beat like a second wounded heart.
Fear moved through him.
Not clean fear.
Possessive, feral, mate-fear.
The kind that wanted walls, doors, locks, teeth at every entrance.
Willa knew it before he spoke.
Knew it and dreaded it.
“Put me down,” she said.
“No.”
Ah.
There it was.
Riksa’s eyebrows lifted.
Hessa, kneeling beside the bloodied cloths, looked up sharply.
Willa held Torren’s gaze.
“Put me down.”
His voice was low. “You are bleeding.”
“Yes.”
“You were bitten.”
“I noticed.”
“You shifted through a wound.”
“Also noticed.”
His eyes flashed black.
“You nearly got taken.”
The words struck too deep.
Too close to snow.
Too close to boundary stones.
Too close to hands carrying her beyond firelight while Frostmere pretended silence was mercy.
Willa’s own fear flared, sharp enough that Torren flinched.
Not because she spoke.
Because he felt it.
Good.
Let him.
“Yes,” she said.
His throat moved.
“Then no.”
Riksa went very still.
Hessa muttered, “Careful.”
Willa did not know whether the warning was for him or her.
Both, probably.
Torren bent his head closer.
“You will not stand in open road with blood on you while Redjaw wants marked blood.”
“I am not asking to stand in open road.”
“You are asking me to put you down.”
“For Riksa to treat me.”
“She can treat you here.”
“In your arms?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The word cut.
Torren’s expression changed.
Hurt, again.
Immediate and involuntary, like when she had stepped away from him at the gate.
Willa hated that the right thing could hurt him.
Hated more that she could not let the hurt decide.
“I am not a bundle you rescued from snow,” she said.
His jaw clenched.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The mark surged.
Anger now.
His and hers.
Around them, Northroad quieted in the way crowds quieted when danger became intimate enough to embarrass and public enough to matter.
Varric watched from the shrine wall.
Oren watched from near the south posts.
Davra watched like a woman memorizing weakness.
Red Creek watched with pens and knives.
Pike Hollow watched with dread.
Torren knew all that.
Willa did too.
It did not make the fight smaller.
It made it necessary.
“You will not use the mark to make a wall,” Willa said.
Torren went utterly still.
His voice, when it came, was rough.
“That is not what I am doing.”
“It is what you are beginning.”
His eyes flared.
“Redjaw came for your blood.”
“Yes.”
“They bit you.”
“Yes.”
“They tried to drag you away.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to put you down.”
“Because I came back.”
Silence.
The words left her weak and shaking, but they held.
Willa swallowed against pain and smoke and the burning pull of the wound.
“I came back to myself before I asked for your mark. I came back again when they tried to take me. I shifted. I fought. I am hurt, Torren. I am not gone.”
Something in his face broke.
Not fully.
Enough to show the boy under the alpha, the wolf under the man, the survivor under both.
“They had your blood in their teeth.”
“I know.”
“I felt it.”
Her anger faltered.
There.
The mark had given him that.
Not sight.
Worse.
Her pain, panic, fury, the old wound of being carried away, the bite closing around her arm. He had felt the shape of it from the outside and been unable to stop the first moment.
No wonder he wanted walls.
No wonder she could not allow them.
Willa lifted her good hand and touched his jaw.
His eyes closed for half a breath.
“I know,” she said more softly. “But if you hold me so tightly that I cannot choose where I stand after, then Redjaw took more than blood.”
Torren opened his eyes.
The mark pulsed between them.
Pain.
Love.
Rage.
Truth.
He looked at Riksa.
“Where?”
Riksa pointed to a cleared plank beneath the awning.
“There. On the blankets. Slowly, as if you have handled an injured person before and not a sack of flour you are emotionally attached to.”
Hessa made a strangled sound.
Torren lowered Willa carefully.
Too carefully.
But he lowered her.
Her boots touched mud first.
Her knees buckled.
His hands caught her waist.
Willa gripped his wrist.
“Do not make that mean you were right.”
His mouth almost moved.
Gods, he was impossible.
“I would never.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
Riksa pushed between them.
“Romance can resume after I determine whether the bite has ruined anything useful.”
“My arm is useful,” Willa muttered.
“We shall see.”
Torren snarled.
Riksa did not look at him.
“Make that sound again and I will assign you to hold used cloth.”
He went silent.
Mara, nearby, whispered to Hessa, “She has him trained.”
Hessa whispered back, “No. She has no fear of death.”
Riksa cut away the soaked wrapping.
Pain sharpened so violently Willa’s vision went white at the edges. She bit down on her own gasp, which was stupid because Torren felt it anyway.
He dropped to one knee beside her.
Not over her.
Beside.
Good.
She turned her head toward him.
His face had gone pale under the mud.
“Do not kill anyone,” she said.
“Not helpful.”
“It is to them.”
Riksa poured something cold over the wound.
Willa swore.
Jory, lying nearby on another blanket with his shoulder wrapped, lifted his head weakly.
“That one was new.”
Hessa pushed his head back down.
“Collect swear words later.”
Riksa examined the bite with efficient cruelty.
“Deep punctures. Torn muscle but not ruined. No tendon cut. Knife slice on the outside, ugly but clean enough. Ribs bruised, maybe cracked. Shifting made everything angrier, because of course it did.”
“Will she heal?” Torren asked.
Riksa looked at him as if he had disappointed medicine personally.
“No, I am describing a chair.”
Willa tried to laugh and immediately regretted it because her ribs objected.
Torren’s hand found hers.
She took it.
Riksa’s gaze flicked to their joined hands but she said nothing.
That was almost tenderness.
“She will heal,” Riksa said. “Slowly if she insists on being heroic. Faster if she listens, which she will not. Bite needs packing and closing. No shifting until I say unless death is the alternative, and I reserve the right to define death narrowly.”
“Riksa.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask about wolf form.”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
“What if—”
“Still no.”
Torren’s hand tightened around Willa’s.
He liked that answer too much.
Willa looked at him.
“Do not.”
His face closed.
“Do not what?”
“Take Riksa’s medical order and turn it into mate law.”
The mark flashed.
Torren’s temper sparked.
Hers answered.
Riksa looked between them.
“Ah. There it is.”
Hessa sighed.
“Now?”
“Apparently,” Mara said.
“Should we move?” Jory asked.
“You cannot,” Hessa said.
“Then no.”
Torren leaned closer to Willa.
“If Riksa says no shifting, you do not shift.”
“Correct.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That is agreement.”
“With Riksa.”
“And me.”
“No.”
His head drew back slightly.
Willa hated this.
Hated the pain, the witnesses, the fact that Varric could probably smell discord and would season a road compact with it by nightfall.
But if she let this slide now, it would become a root.
A small one.
Deep enough.
“Riksa is my healer,” Willa said. “You are my mate.”
“Yes.”
“Those are not the same authority.”
His face changed.
Riksa went very quiet.
Hessa watched like a woman watching a bridge decide whether to hold.
Torren’s voice dropped.
“I am not trying to own your body.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why does it feel like you are punishing me for being afraid?”
That landed.
Hard.
Willa’s throat tightened.
Around them, the market noise faded under the sudden closeness of the question.
She did not answer quickly.
Not because she did not know.
Because the first answer was cruel and the second was incomplete.
“I am not punishing you,” she said finally. “I am trying not to disappear into your fear.”
Torren’s face went still.
The mark ached.
“You think I would make you disappear.”
“No.”
“Willa.”
“No,” she said again, sharper. Then softer, because the sharpness was for fear, not him. “I think you love me enough to call it protection until we both believe it.”
Torren looked away.
Only for a moment.
But he did.
That frightened her more than his anger.
Riksa resumed cleaning the wound, perhaps because someone had to be mercilessly useful while hearts made a mess.
Willa breathed through pain.
“Torren.”
He looked back.
“When I say no wall, I am not saying no shelter.”
His eyes held hers.
“When I say stay behind me, I am not saying stay beneath me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
There it was.
Fair.
Ugly.
Necessary.
Her mouth trembled.
“Not always fast enough.”
His anger shifted.
Not gone.
Changed.
He bowed his head until his forehead touched their joined hands.
The gesture was too intimate for Northroad and exactly right.
“Neither do I,” he said.
Willa closed her eyes.
Riksa wrapped the wound.