Chapter 8 #2
"You sure? You look a little—" Her mouth presses flat and I know that expression. It is the expression she has worn at me since we were children and she was about to get me in trouble with our mother. "A little wound up."
"I'm fine."
"He's been on the ridge all morning," Melori says, brushing grass off the back of her trousers, trying to help. "Probably just tired."
"Probably." Kestria does not look away from me.
"Or hungry. Are you hungry? I could bring something by when we get back. I've got stew left—"
"I'm fine," I say, a third time, a fourth, I've lost count.
"He's fine," Axan agrees, with the kind of casual inflection that is not casual at all. "Probably just needs some air."
"He's outside," Kestria says.
"Different air."
Melori looks between them, confused but game. "Is there... special air? Is that a wolf thing?"
"Yes," Axan says.
"No," I say.
"He gets like this sometimes," Kestria tells Melori, patting her arm. "It passes. Usually." She pauses. Just long enough. "Maybe he should do something about it. Release all that tension." Her eye cuts to me, bright and lethal. "I'm sure our healer knows something that could help."
My teeth are going to crack. "Kes—"
"Oh!" Melori's face lights up. "I know a tea that could help! Valerian, a little chamomile, maybe some skullcap if you've got it, which you probably don't because nobody does around here, but I could put something together—it's good for sleep, good for stress, good for general wound-upness—"
I don't breathe. Nobody does, except Melori, who is cheerfully running through her herb inventory.
Axan coughs into his fist.
Kestria is fighting something that is trying very hard to become a laugh.
Melori, still earnest: "I'd have to see what I have. Probably tomorrow? I'm short on chamomile but I passed a patch on the ridge path—"
"That would be great," I say, because my mouth has decided to take over from my brain. "Thank you, Melori."
Her whole face lights up. She claps once, bounces on the balls of her feet, and I feel that bounce land somewhere behind my ribs with more force than any touch has ever had the right to.
"Oh! Okay. Tomorrow, then. Actually—I could bring two.
A nighttime one and a daytime one, because if you're wound up during the day you don't want valerian, that'll knock you sideways, but something lighter—lemon balm maybe, if there's any growing around here—and passionflower, if I can find some, which I probably can't because nothing useful grows in this specific patch of forest except for pine, and pine is many things but it is not medicinal.
Well. A little medicinal. Pine tea is fine.
But it's not sleep tea." She's counting on her fingers now.
"I should probably also look at what you're eating.
Stress tea works better if your diet isn't actively fighting it.
Are you getting enough protein? Never mind, obviously you are, look at you. "
She looks at me.
She runs her eyes from my shoulders down to my chest to my stomach and lower and back up, a full sweep, clinical for approximately one and a half seconds before her entire face goes a color I have never seen on her before, a deep and unrepentant red that starts at her collarbones and climbs.
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
"Protein," she says, clearing her throat. "Is. Fine. Very fine."
Kestria makes a sound. It is the sound a person makes when they are using every ounce of their body to not die laughing on their brother's behalf.
"Good," Melori says, nodding too many times. "Good, that's. Good. Stress tea. Chamomile. Tomorrow. Right. I'm going to—we should keep moving."
"Absolutely," Kestria says.
"Southern ridge," Axan says, unprovoked, unbothered, savage.
Kestria is grinning now and Axan is not hiding it well.
My wolf is snarling quietly under my ribs at the fact that I cannot explain to her what my sister and my Beta have just done to me in plain daylight, and also at the fact that she just agreed to brew me a tea, and also at the fact that she is standing three feet from Axan.
It is going to be a long walk.
Axan starts us moving. The path narrows at the bend and we fall into formation without thinking—Axan at point, Melori and Kestria in the middle, me last. Kestria is saying something low to Melori.
Something involving the word protein and then a small choked laugh.
Melori makes a sound that might be a groan.
I keep my eye on the trail and my ear on the wind.
The bear has been dying for days. Every wolf on patrol has heard it. The pack agreed to stay off that side of the ridge until the thing finished—too close to the iron, too much risk of a second trap nobody's found yet. I've been routing patrols around it. I was going to route us around it today.
A quarter mile down, the wind shifts.
Melori stops walking.
"Wait." Her hand goes up. "Wait, do you hear that?"
I hear it. I heard it before she did. I was hoping it wouldn't carry this far.
"Hear what?" Kestria, careful.
"Something's crying."
The sound again. Low, ragged, broken up. Not close. Not far enough.
The smell hits next. Blood, old, and underneath it rot and infection and dying. And something else. Iron. Rust.
Axan catches it at the same time I do, his chin lifting, nostrils wide, eyes scanning left.
"Off the trail." Just for me. "Thirty paces. Maybe forty."
I nod, already adjusting our path—circle wide, give it space, keep moving.
"Bear." Axan's voice drops quieter. "Wounded. Days ago. Infected."
"How can you tell?"
"I can smell it." He pauses. "And iron. A trap."
Melori's face changes. "A trap."
"Leg trap. Human-made." Axan looks at me, the same thought on both of us—humans setting traps this deep in our territory. Not for bears.
"We go around," I tell her. "Trapped bears are worse than wounded ones. Pain and panic—"
"A trap." Her voice has gone hard. "Someone trapped it and left it there."
"Melori—"
"We're not—"
"In a trap. Alone. With its leg rotting."
I step in front of her, between her and the trees.
"A trapped bear kills you before you get close enough to help."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe. That is what will happen."
She looks up at me, and the height difference means she has to tip her chin. Her eyes are clear—certain.
No fear.
"It's dying, Keer."
"You are not walking toward a bear."
"I'm not asking permission."
She steps around me.
I grab her arm.
She stops, looks at my hand, looks at me, and her scent hits—honey and chamomile. Her pulse hammers under my fingers. She's going anyway.
"Let.go."
I let go.
She walks.
Kestria steps in front of her, hands on Melori's shoulders. "Mel. Stop. That thing will tear you apart."
"The wound's infected. If I can clean it and pack it—"
"You can't clean it if you're dead."
"Then help me not be dead."
Kestria stares at her and Melori stares back, and neither of them blinks.
My sister looks at me.
Do something.
The bear's breathing is labored, the clink of chain against iron. Big. Probably a male, from the depth of the breathing.
Melori is walking again, Kestria beside her already pulling the waterskin off her shoulder and handing it over without being asked, shifted to damage control.
I look at Axan.
The humor is gone. He's the Beta now. The second.
"How do you want to do this?" Already moving.
"Pin, don't kill. Kestria stays with Mel—hands her what she needs, keeps clear of the head."
"Two of us on a bear."
His jaw sets and he nods.
"She won't forgive us if we kill it."
Axan reads that on my face and doesn't comment.
"I'll take the shoulder and the good legs. You take the head."
"If it swipes at her—"
"It won't. Because we'll have it down before she gets close."
The bear is worse than I expected.
Massive, brown, male, half upright with one foreleg caught in the iron jaws of a leg trap.
The chain is staked deep into the ground.
The leg above the trap is swollen black, the skin split where the bear has tried to pull free, bone visible through the mess.
Flies. The smell up close makes my eyes water. Even Melori flinches.
The trap is old design. Heavy iron. Built for wolves.
Not for bears.
For us.
Melori has gone very still beside me.
Her eyes on the bear. Her hands on the pack at her hip.
"Axan."
"Yeah."
"That's a bear."
"Yup."
"That's not a bear-person, right?"
"No." His mouth pulls sideways and he fights it flat. "Just a bear."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Because a month ago I was sure werewolves weren't real and now I'm standing in a forest with three of them about to help a bear, so I am not ruling anything out."
"It's a bear, Mel." Kestria, close to her shoulder. "Just a bear."
"Fine. Okay. Regular bear." She exhales. "Good."
It sees us and the sound shakes the ground, low and guttural and building. It tries to lunge and the chain snaps taut and it roars, jaws wide, teeth yellow, spit flying. The good paw swipes—a full arm's reach, claws catching air.
"Now."
Axan hits it from the left, shoulder against the bear's side, driving it down and away from the trapped leg. It swings—fast, faster than something this injured should move—and Axan rolls clear and comes back harder, both hands on the shoulder, throwing his weight across it.
I go for the head.
My hands find the jaw, both sides, and the bear thrashes and my arms strain and its teeth snap six inches from my face. I wrench its head to the ground and hold. My back screams. The bear screams. I hold.
Two of us, not enough weight. The bear bucks and Axan slides, digs in, and I dig in, and the trapped leg jerks and the chain rattles and the sound the bear makes is not a roar—it's something worse.
It swipes. The good paw catches my forearm and three lines of fire open from elbow to wrist. I don't let go.
"Down!" Axan throws everything across the shoulder. The bear bucks again. He holds. Barely.
"Now!"