Chapter 11 Julian
Julian
“Sergeant, you okay?” Bo hovered over me as I vomited only a few yards from my mate’s front door. “Look at all that blood on him, Leroy! Those’re knife marks… What’s the witch been doing to you, Alpha?”
Bo’s quick rage had me wiping my mouth and barking an Alpha command. “Quiet.” They both shut up, which helped somewhat. I rubbed my hand over the cuts she’d made, relieved they were already healing up. “She was removing silver.”
“S-silver?” Leroy handed me a cloth and a cup of water. I nodded my thanks and rinsed my mouth, spitting on the ground before I explained. “You mean to tell me you’ve been carrying silver inside you for years now? Alpha, you coulda…” He went pale under his tan and swallowed hard.
“I probably should have died by now,” I completed for him, as Bo helped me to sit on the broad, flat-topped boulder.
The wind had picked up, and the shush of pine needles carried over the distant burble of the river…
but not the more present growl from Bo’s stomach.
“You two need to eat.” I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to stand. “Where’re the rations?”
Bo glared at his friend. Leroy scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Um, well, it’s like this… You know how I eat when I’m nervous? And last night was one of those times when everything seemed to be goin’ tits up—”
Bo elbowed him in the gut. “Goin’ wrong, you mean. And one of those wrong things was that Leroy ate all his rations and mine, too.”
“I was asleep,” Leroy protested weakly. “Sleep eating. I can’t help it.”
“I can duct tape your hands shut every night,” Bo grumbled. “You ate every last crumb. I’m starved.”
“Well, you two know how to hunt,” I began, then stopped. “Shit. No, you can’t hunt.”
“Ah, why not?” Leroy asked. He’d already shucked off his shorts, ready to shift.
“Because Miss Zinnia’s friends are out there,” Bo explained for me. He frowned at Leroy. “And she could come out here any second. Put your clothes back on. She’s a lady.”
Leroy’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “But then… doesn’t she have some non-friends out there? Like, a really mean old elk or… a total asshole turkey?”
Bo snapped his fingers. “Geese. There’s never been a goose born that wasn’t a rat bastard, if ya ask me.”
I shook my head, thinking. “Plants, boys. She’s a vegetarian, and as long as we live here, on her land and around her friends, we are, too.
” Ignoring their stares of horror and their spluttered protestations, I turned back to the cabin.
I hadn’t heard any movement from inside, and my wolf was worried and pacing.
“Bo, I’m… I’m scared,” Leroy hissed, pulling his clothes back on. “A shifter eating plants. It ain’t natural. Maybe we oughta head back to the Alpha’s Den.”
Bo laid a hand on his arm. “I can’t. It’s my recuperation, Leroy.
My punishment from the Moon Goddess for hurting Miss Zinnia.
It’s like Grandma Ida told us when she made us re-stain the porch floors back at the house.
Sufferin’ builds character.” He sighed deeply.
“I just hope it don’t build so much character, we die from it. ”
Leroy pulled him away. “Let’s go find some vegetables, then.”
I gave a nod. “There may be some wild garlic down by the river, or dandelion greens.”
I left them arguing about what wild plants tasted best, and went inside to check on Zinnia.
She was sleeping on the bed, her long hair half-over her face.
I perched beside her and moved it gently away, wondering at the softness of it.
Ignoring the surge of magic that rushed to the skin where my hand came into contact with her.
She’d asked if it hurt when she touched me. I hadn’t known how to explain that it was agony and ecstasy combined. That the only pain worse than having her skin on mine was the moment it was removed, and I was alone again.
But I’d hurt her so much worse. I’d rejected her, left her suffering, chasing me.
For some reason, her words to the boys echoed in my ears. “I’d recommend wearing shoes.” I stood and moved to the bottom of the bed, where a beam of sunlight from the window was pouring across her lower half. Her legs were perfect, but her feet…
If I hadn’t already thrown up everything I could, I might have been sick again.
I hadn’t seen this in the night, couldn’t have known to look.
The bottoms of her feet were scarred beyond belief, all the way up the sides of her heels.
Her little toes were the worst, but the thick, rough scars made a slipper-shaped mass on both small feet.
I didn’t have to hear her say it to understand. She’d run after me; her wolf had probably driven her to run in whatever form she could hold.
I’d done this to her. The one creature in the world I would have never wanted to damage had lived her whole life hurting.
Restitution. The word that the boys couldn’t seem to get right rang in my mind.
I had to do the same: make restitution to my little star.
Ask her to heal me, but make sure she had whatever she wanted from me as well.
I had wealth, after years of living on a shoestring, with no one to spend my pay on.
I had power within the packs. I had connections. I owed it all to her.
I took in her lithe form, the threadbare dress covering her perfectly formed limbs, the way her lips curled into a smile as she dreamed. My mouth watered to kiss her again, even if it was agony. “I’ll never hurt you again, little star. Never again.”
Not even if it meant my own death.