Blood for Wolves (11 page)

He sucked in air through his teeth.
“Lavawort looks like a wolf’s paw. It’s a ground plant. Gum leaf looks like a
seven-point star. It’s a tree.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to go find
some. Breathe deep. Keep pressure on this and try not to move around too much.”

I stood up way too fast. I wobbled
for a bit before running off to search for leaves that looked like wolf paws
and stars. I’d had plenty of food and water while being stuck with the harpies
but sleep was another matter entirely. My adrenaline would only be able to push
me so far. It felt like forever to find the two, and I picked every leaf I saw
before rushing back to where Wolf lay. He’d gone relatively quiet, groaning
softly as he breathed. His vest was already red, so I couldn’t tell how much
blood it had absorbed, but the shirt on underneath was almost completely soaked
through.

I gently ran my hand over his
forehead. “All right, I’ve got it. Now what do I do?”

“You have to chew the lavawort to
make it soft. Then just put it on and cover it with the gum leaf.” He paused
for a moment, his brow knitted together in pain. “Make sure the furry side of
the gum leaf is down.”

“Okay.”

I was not excited about the idea of
chewing on a medicinal plant, but I shoved a bunch of leaves in my mouth
anyway, fully expecting them to taste awful. Instead, I now understood Wolf’s
secret to minty breath. Chewing lavawort tasted like wintergreen gum.

I ground them in my teeth just long
enough for them to get pulpy and then spat them into my hand and removed the
shirt from Wolf’s injuries. Ignoring the part of my brain shouting that this
was so far from sanitary, I spread the lavawort on one of the slash marks. Wolf
let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure if it was a relaxed one or a pained one. I kept
working anyway, chewing up lavawort, putting it on the wounds, and then covering
both with gum leaves, fuzzy side down.

Finally, the whole area was covered
in gum leaves, and Wolf appeared to be resting more comfortably. I chewed up a
few more leaves and spread them over the cut on my leg before covering it with
gum leaves as well. I used the only unbloodied side of his once impeccable vest
to clean away the rest of the blood—Wolf and harpy alike—from his face, body,
and hands. I smoothed back his hair and examined him. He had done so much for
me in such a short span of time—far more than anyone ever had in my lifetime.
He had injured himself twice in coming to my aid, and what had I done in
return? Nothing worthwhile so far.

I bent over, intending to tell him
how sorry I was, but instead I kissed him. It was an I’m sorry and thank you
and more. He took hold of my arms and held me there as his surprise gave way to
desire. Like before, he tasted delicious—like berries and mint—and he knew how
to kiss. Except that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t just know how to kiss—he
knew how to kiss
me
.

When we broke apart we were both
breathless. Wolf smiled and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

“Apology accepted,” he said.

I smiled in return and sat back. I
felt a little giddy and lightheaded from our kiss. Still, with the adrenaline
gone, as much as I wanted to slather on some lavawort to the scrapes on my
hands and thighs from climbing down the tree, I really just wanted sleep. A
yawn escaped me. I started to drift off, and then forced my eyes open again. We
were both injured outside of a wicked patch of forest. What if something
crawled out of it when the sun went down? What if thieves came by while we were
asleep? What if some other creature hungry for a snack smelled all the blood
and came running?

“Caroline.”

I looked, bleary-eyed, down at Wolf.
He stretched out one arm.

“Rest.”

I managed to shake my head twice. “What
if something tries to eat us? One of us has to stand guard…”

He actually chuckled a little. “I
hate to offend you my lovely, but you wouldn’t be my first pick. Lie down. Sleep.
It’s the middle of the day. No one will bother us here.”

After a few more moments I gave in
and lay down, careful of my injured arm. I rested my head on his shoulder. His
arm went around me and I was dead to the world.

When I awoke, Wolf was already up
and poking at a fire. He had his coat back on, but beneath it was bare skin. The
gum leaves had fallen off and four pale pink scars dragged across his
midsection. I blinked, vaguely wondering how I could see so well. The sun was
still out. In fact, it didn’t look like it had moved. I groaned, stiff from
another night lying on the ground, and pushed myself up.

“How long were we asleep?”

“The rest of yesterday, all night,
and most of this morning. I’ve only just been up long enough to start this
fire.” He dumped the stick into the flames and hopped over to me.

“We were out for that long?”

“Oh yes. You because, well, I doubt
you slept at all in that place, and me…. I didn’t sleep because I didn’t stop
looking for you.”

I looked at him sheepishly. “You didn’t?”

“Of course not, Caroline.” He
brushed his fingers along my jaw. “You’re my mate. And I promised you. I
panicked for a while, of course,” he glanced down, his cheeks growing slightly
red, “but eventually I caught the air currents and did what I could. But when
you started bleeding,” he huffed, “I wasn’t sure if I should be glad for the
extra scent or worried that you were dying. I think it was a lot of both.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I
can’t believe you came after me. I thought you would go straight after
Marianne.”

“I may be bound but I am not owned.
Besides, I already told you that a wolf never breaks his vow.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “It’s just
that, when I started flying…”

“Oh yes, that witch did something
to you with that necklace. I’m so glad to see you’re not wearing it anymore.”

“Yeah.” My hand went to the place
where the wings had touched my skin. They were no longer there.

Wolf started sniffing around me. He
touched the scrapes along my inner thighs, and I smacked his hand.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?”

“Checking for poisons and other
dangerous things. The last thing you want is a splinter from one of those trees
stuck in you for too long.”

“Well, I feel fine. I’m just a
little scratched up, that’s all.”

Wolf ignored me and took a close
look at my hands, smelling each one very carefully. He licked at one of my
palms.

“Okay, getting weird again.”

“Stop fussing.”

I shut my mouth and let him do his
wolf thing. I shivered when his fingers touched the inside of my thighs again. He
inspected me from top to bottom. His nose winkled at a spot by my ankle, and
for a second my breath hitched in my throat, but he moved on. I breathed easy
again.

“Why didn’t you put any lavawort on
these?” He asked when he came to my arm wounds.

I looked at him like he was insane.
“Babe, I have duct tape over all this gauze. That’s just going to open them up
again. Do you know how much that would hurt to take off?”

He gave me a sympathetic smile and
picked up a stick. “Bite down.”

I let my head drop and slowly shook
it. “Oh, Wolf…”

“Just do it. It’s better to suffer
a little now so that all the pain will be gone by tomorrow.”

I knew he was right. Just by my
experience and seeing his, lavawort would heal my arm in no time. Finally I
stomped my foot like a petulant five-year old and put the stick in my mouth. There
were puncture wounds on each side of my arm and four pieces of duct tape. I bit
down hard, anticipating the pain.

“Try to think about nice things,”
he said softly, moving closer so that my forehead rested on his shoulder.

Brown paper packages, tied up
with string…

He tore off one of the pieces.

I half-shouted through the stick,
pressing my forehead against his shoulder. I reached up to grab the back of his
neck. The sharp movement had indeed reopened the barely closed wound. Warm
blood trickled down my arm.

Schnitzel with noodles, lots and
lots of noodles…

He ripped off another square.

I cried out again, my teeth sinking
into the woody flesh of the stick. My eyes watered. The lyrics of the song
blurred in my mind.

Something to do with kittens and
roses and strudels…

Wolf tore off the last two pieces
at once, and I yelled curses through the stick before spitting it onto the
ground. My arm burned and my skin was wet with blood again, but all I could do
for a moment was rest with my head in the nook of Wolf’s neck and shoulder. I
tried to focus on something else, like the scent of him, a delicious mix of
earth and mint. He smoothed my hair. A tear of pain escaped my left eye. I
heaved a sigh and sat up, looking at him through blurry vision.

“Ouch,” I said.

He put a hand to my face, tenderly
wiping at my right eye with his thumb before leaning in to kiss the tear on my
other cheek. I smiled a little.

“Come,” he said, drawing back. “Let’s
patch you up again.” He led me over to the small campfire. “You’re going to
have a nice little array of scars by the end of this, you know.”

“So are you.”

“Oh I’ll be proud of this one.” He
gently patted the fresh scars on his abdomen.

“I can’t believe you killed that
thing,” I said as the scent of bacon wafted into my nostrils. “It was so huge.”

“Wolves and kehmets don’t often
fight, if ever.” He eyed me sternly. “Mostly because wolves don’t go into those
parts of the forest.”

I stared at the fire as he put
lavawort pulp on my arm.
I know, I know. My fault. And it was. But it was so
good to fly. So far away and so high…

“But kehmets are blind,” Wolf
continued, “and before I went in I made sure to find a sharp enough stick and I
wedged it in between some fallen trees just right. Then I made some noise. Kehmets
have good hearing and a good sense of smell, but wolves are better, and of
course I can see. So we had a nice little dance together, and if I were any
slower, you’d be eaten by harpies. I misstepped and that’s when it caught me. But
I managed to get into the right place and convinced it to jump, and jump it
did, right onto the nice sharp branch I brought in for it.”

He smoothed on the last gum leaf. Unlike
so many manmade wound treatments, the lavawort didn’t sting. I wondered if it
had numbing properties…except my arm didn’t feel numb in the least.

“Thanks,” I said. I looked up into
his calm hazel eyes. “For saving my life. Again.”

He smirked and
rubbed his nose on mine before jumping over to tend to the bacon before it
burned. While he shuffled the flat rock the bacon sizzled on, I slipped my
fingers under my hiking sock and gently touched the winged necklace there, so
glad I’d wrapped it around my ankle.

Once we’d eaten, we got ready to
go. I packed what little we had into my poor, ragged daypack while Wolf put out
the fire.

“What direction is the trail?” I
asked, shouldering my pack.

Wolf stamped dirt on the embers. “That
way.” He pointed south. “It shouldn’t be more than a few miles away.”

I could just fly low this time. He
could follow me. Or maybe I could carry him.

I pretended to stretch my leg and
touched the winged necklace around my ankle. I felt the familiar tingling on my
back. I suppressed my excitement and tried to pay attention to Wolf as he
talked.

It’s ready to work again. I
could fly, have wings and go off into the clouds. No one would miss me. But I
don’t want to leave him behind…

“What you doing?” He gave me a
funny stare.

“What? Oh, nothing. Just
stretching.”

“You’ve been stretching one leg for
an awful long time.”

I looked down. “I’ve just been
thinking. Distracted. That’s all.”

The tingling grew stronger. Wolf
narrowed his eyes at me.

I’ll be careful this time. I
won’t fly over any dark places. Or I could stay here with him and we could
continue on. The hero and heroine. And he could show me what else he knows how
to do besides kiss me. He said we were mates—let him prove it. Or I could go on
and on and explore and find out what’s over the ocean—

“Oh no you don’t!” Wolf rushed at
me.

I made it about two feet before he
grabbed me around the waist and dragged me to the ground.

“No flying! Where is it?”

“Get off,” I yelled, kicking up
leaves as I thrashed in his grasp.

“No! That thing is dangerous,
Caroline. Give it to me!”

“NO!”

He flipped me onto my stomach and
sat down hard on top of me. A small part of my brain shouted,
Ooh yay!
before I shut it out. I swung my fists backward, but they were useless. I
started kicking at him instead. He growled and grunted, managed to grab onto my
ankle and tore at the sock until he found the necklace.

“No,” I shouted again. “Please
don’t take it! We could use it. I could fly low. We could find Marianne faster
that way. It’s all right, I’ve got it.”

“No, you do not.” The necklace
chain broke free. “I don’t know why she gave this to you but you are not using
it again.”

He climbed off of me. I was on my
feet in a moment. Wolf backed away, eyeing me intensely. He tucked the necklace
away in one of his inside jacket pockets. I pouted, but didn’t advance. He was
a wolf; he could take me down in a second.

“Now we are going to go,” he said,
his voice low and even, “and I am going to find someone or some way to dispose
of this thing properly. It’s got magic in it, and it’s all over you.”

I blinked slowly for a few minutes
before heaving a sigh. “You’re right. When I was in the tree, I kept wanting it
to work. It’s just…it’s so good to fly. To fly and fly—”

“Forever?”