Chapter 6: The Stitch

I stitched him up in his own tower room, by two candles and a lamp.

Hester had brought a needle, gut thread and a bottle of the hold's worst whiskey.

"Drink some," I said.

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding on the rug."

"The rug is old."

"Ronan."

He looked up at his name, and I realized I had never said it softly before.

He sat on the edge of the bed in his trousers, his left shoulder bare, the gash open from collarbone to shoulder blade.

I washed it with whiskey.

His whole body went hard, but he did not make a sound.

"Hester says hunters poison their blades," I said. "Does it burn?"

"A little."

"You're lying."

"A lot," he said through his teeth.

"Good. Then it's clean."

I threaded the needle and set my left hand flat on his chest to hold him still.

His skin was hot.

His heart was going hard under my palm, much faster than a man who was only bleeding should have.

I told myself it was blood loss.

I began to sew.

Each stitch pulled a small sound out of him, deep in his throat.

The sound went right down my spine, and I did not like it, and I did not stop.

"You were good on the wall," he said quietly.

"I was fine."

"You were better than fine. You held a corner with a cut arm and thirty men coming at it."

"I've had practice."

"Where?"

"Ten years of Greyfell," I said. "Every night."

He was quiet.

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