Chapter 12
Nothing.
I feel nothing.
I feel everything.
Birds in the canopy. Breeze through the leaves. My own ragged breathing. My hand wet and my body still pulsing and the shirt—his shirt, still on me, still smelling like him.
I slide down the trunk until I'm sitting in the dirt.
His fingers curling. How he said fuck. The horror in his eye. His hands on my hips. Cedar and copper and his forehead on my shoulder and then nothing.
I wipe my hand on the grass. My hands need to be doing something or I'm going to scream, and screaming in an empty forest is only going to make things worse, so.
I pick up flowers.
Keep dropping petals. Three tries before I can grip anything.
"Oh, come ON."
The petals don't care. Blue ones. Purple. Yellow—I pile them in the basket anyway, stems bent and crushed, and my fingers won't close right.
Hands are for working.
I stand up. Legs unsteady but holding. One foot, then the other.
They give out halfway back. Not a choice. Just—stop working, and I'm in the grass with the basket against my chest.
His hands under the shirt. The growl in his throat. The horror after. The attack. The scream cutting off wet and short. My cheek throbbing. My fingers on the knife. His fingers inside me. Those men almost—he saved me. He kissed me.
And then he left.
The tears come.
I don't cry. Crying doesn't fix anything.
Crying is stupid and my chest is heaving anyway, wet heat down my cheeks, can't make it stop—
He wanted it too. His hands unsteady. Voice broken. He pressed closer. And then he wasn't there.
So why did wanting me look like that on his face after?
The tears slow.
I wipe my face on the sleeve. The huge sleeve. His sleeve.
A laugh. Wet and broken and very undignified.
"I almost died for flowers." Raw and scratchy. "He's right. I'm an idiot."
I stand up. Legs holding this time.
I keep walking.
The clearing comes through the trees. I shake my shoulders out. Arrange my face into something normal. Fine. Went to gather flowers, got scratched, came back. Totally normal outing.
"Mel!"
Shit. Kestria. Sharp with alarm, already running toward me, braids swinging.
"What happened? You're bleeding—"
"I'm fine. Went too far, got scratched up."
"You're covered in—" She's close now. Close enough to scent me.
Oh.
She's a wolf. Of course she can.
She stops. Her shoulders set. Expression going careful. I don't like it.
The bruise on my cheek. The blood. The shirt.
I watch her eyes catch on it. She says nothing about it—doesn't mean she's not reading it. "You went out alone?"
"I was getting flowers. For dye." I hold up the basket. "The pack ground is depressing."
"Mel."
"It IS depressing. It's all brown. Have you looked at it lately? Really—"
"You're bleeding and you're talking about brown."
"I'm multitasking."
"You're deflecting." She catches my arm. Gentle. Not letting go. "What happened out there?"
"Humans. Two of them."
Her grip tightens. "Humans. In our territory."
"They grabbed me. Cut one of them—deep, into the arm—and then Keer showed up and dealt with it."
"Dealt with it."
"They're dead, Kestria."
Her face shifts—eyes going sharp, jaw setting, a breath out through her nose. "Are you hurt? Beyond the obvious?"
"My cheek. My head hit the tree. I've had worse."
"You haven't had worse. You're a healer whose worst injury was getting scratched by your own chicken."
"That was one time. And she was molting."
"You've been crying."
Well, no answer for that. My face is exactly what it is—tear-streaked, swollen, wrecked.
Her eyes move over me again. The tear tracks. The disheveled clothes.
"Where's Keer now?"
"I don't know."
"Mel—"
"I don't know, Kestria. He left. He just—left."
She goes quiet. Reading everything I'm not saying. All of it written in the shirt and the tracks on my cheeks and how I'm standing and how I must smell.
"Come on." She takes my arm properly, firm. "Let's get you cleaned up."
I let her lead me because I don't have the energy to resist. My dwelling. She sits me on the stump outside, goes in, comes back with water and clean cloth.
She starts on my cheek without asking.
"This needs proper treatment."
"I'm aware. I'm the healer."
"Then stop being a bad patient." She tips my chin up and the world tilts, a slow roll, before settling. She checks the swelling. "These scratches on your arms—"
"Bark. I was pinned against a tree."
"During the attack?"
"Uh, yes."
Also after. Different circumstances.
The silence holds. She wrings out the cloth.
"What happened?"
"I told you. Humans, knife, Keer, dead humans. That's the whole story."
She pulls back. Looks at me. Her eyes go to the shirt one more time. Back up to my face.
"Is it?"
"Kestria."
"I'm not asking as his sister." She picks up my hands. Turns them over. Washes them carefully, between my fingers, under my nails. Doesn't comment. "Did he hurt you?"
Just answer the question. Simple. Answer it.
"No." The word comes out steady. "He didn't hurt me."
She searches my face for a long time. Then her shoulders drop.
"Okay." She picks up the cloth again. Moves to my arms. "Okay."
Quiet settles. Just the cloth and the water and her careful hands.
After a moment she reaches over and straightens the collar. Folds it flat against my shoulder instead of half-off. Doesn't ask. Doesn't explain why she's doing it.
"He doesn't give things." Low. Not quite to me. "Ever."
I look at the basket.
"Kestria—"
"I know." She picks up the cloth again. "I know."
"You're still going to dye things, aren't you?"
A laugh gets out. "What?"
"The flowers." She nods at the basket near my feet. "They're mostly ruined. But you keep looking at them. You're already sorting them in your head."
"The purple ones survived. Some of the blue."
"So that's a yes."
"That's a yes."
She finishes with my arms and sits back.
"You don't have to fix anything right now, Mel. You can just—sit. Five minutes."
"I don't know how to do that."
"I know." She squeezes my hand. Warm and solid. "I know you don't."
I stand up. Pick up the basket.
"I'll be in my dwelling. Come get me if anyone needs the healing area."
"Mel—"
"I'm fine, Kestria."
She doesn't believe me.
Neither do I.
Nugget is inside, pecking at the corner near the wall, aggressively pink against all the brown. I sink onto the floor next to her and put the basket in my lap.
I should take the shirt off.
I should fold it and bring it back and hand it to him—whenever he comes back from wherever furious alphas go—and not say anything.
Just: here. Your shirt.
Very normal. Practical reasons. Temperature. Not because it's warm and it smells like him and if I take it off, my skin is going to notice and then I'm going to have to think about why my skin noticed and I'm not doing that. I'm sorting flowers.
Blue petals in one pile. Purple in another. Yellow, too crushed, but I try anyway.
I'm still wearing it.
His mouth on my throat. How he said again.
Blue. Purple.
Nugget clucks softly and settles against my knee. Warm weight. Feathers tickling through the fabric.
"Yeah." A beat. "I know."
I keep sorting flowers.
The purple pile is bigger than the blue. That's good. Purple dyes beautifully. I'll have enough for a curtain. Something small.
Outside, a wolf howls. Low and long. The pups answer it, all of them, overlapping.
Nugget presses harder against my knee.
"Yeah," I say again.
I sort flowers.