Chapter 4: Stitches

Odessa had the two Redcliff men in chains before the sun came up.

She did not ask me one question, only looked at my bleeding hand and then at the Alpha and sighed.

"Healer's drunk," she said. "Again. I'll wake him."

"Don't," Tobias said. "I've had worse. Lena can sew."

"I can't sew."

"You held a man's arm together tonight," he said. "Your hands don't shake. Come in."

He went into his room and I followed, because there was nothing else to do.

It was a plain room, with a big bed, a desk covered in maps, and a wolf pelt on the floor.

A shelf by the window held a single photograph of an older man with Tobias's jaw.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt off.

I had seen a lot of men's bodies at the vet barn, usually hurt.

I had never seen one like this.

He was broad and scarred, with black hair across his chest, and the burn on his arm ran up over his shoulder.

The cut along his ribs was long and deep and clean.

"There's a kit in the drawer," he said. "Whiskey in the cabinet."

"For you or me?"

"Whichever."

I poured two fingers into a cup and handed it over.

He drank it without blinking.

I washed the cut and threaded the needle, and my fingers were steady.

They were steady because I was too angry to be afraid.

The first stitch went in, and he breathed out through his nose.

"That's my father," he said, nodding at the photograph.

"I figured."

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