Chapter 5: Belt Marks

I got him through the window because I could not drag him through the door.

My mother slept at the far end of the cabin.

I did not want to explain a bleeding alpha heir on her kitchen floor.

He was heavier than he looked.

I got an arm under his, and my wolf took some of the weight.

Together we got him onto the rug by my bed.

"Don't," he said, when I reached for the lamp.

"I can't clean what I can't see."

"Then turn it low."

I turned it low.

I fetched the first-aid box from under my bed and a basin of warm water.

The cuts ran from his shoulder blade to his hip, seven of them, deep and clean.

"A belt," I said.

"Buckle end."

"Why?"

"I ate the gravy." He laid his forehead on his folded arms. "He wanted to know why. I told him I was hungry. He asked me twelve times."

I wrung out the cloth.

I laid it against the first cut, and he hissed through his teeth.

"Hold still."

"I am holding still."

"You're moving your whole back."

"It hurts."

"Good. You can feel what you let happen to other people."

He said nothing to that. I started on the second cut.

His skin was hot under my fingers.

I kept to the edges of the wounds.

I tried not to notice the muscles tightening along his ribs every time I pressed.

I moved up to the cut across his shoulder blade.

It was the first time I had touched that part of him, and the wolf inside me went very quiet and very attentive.

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