Chapter 27: Her Own Hands

Torin's POV

The knife went in under Rhett's collarbone and stayed there.

He made a short surprised sound and sat down in the mud.

Maureen stood over him with her hand still on the grip.

For one moment nobody on that riverbank moved.

Then four Cedar Hollow warriors tackled her to the ground, and she began to scream her son's name.

I was still in my wolf's skin. I changed back so fast that it burned.

Clara was already on her knees beside him.

"Hold him," she said. "Torin, hold his shoulders."

I held them.

Rhett's lips were going white. The blood came out of him in slow, thick pulses and ran down his shirt into the grass.

"Don't pull it out," Clara said to a warrior who reached for the handle. "Don't touch it."

"Clara," Rhett said. He was smiling, which was the worst part. "Clara, I did one thing."

"Be quiet."

"I did one thing right."

"I said be quiet."

She looked up at me.

"The Redfern healer is across the river," I said. "Twenty minutes in the truck."

"He doesn't have twenty minutes."

I looked at the wound. It was deep, and it had missed the lung by an inch.

"Then what do you need?"

"Pia's bag. The green one, from the hall. And a clean blanket." She was already tearing Rhett's shirt open. "Run."

Three warriors ran.

I knelt there holding the man who had lied to her for eight years, and I watched her hands.

They were small hands, black with soot, and perfectly steady.

I knew what she was weighing.

I had no right to ask her what it was. I would have stood back and let her choose either way.

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