The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Stitches

I woke on the cabin table with a lamp burning above me and a needle going in and out of my shoulder.

"Don't move," Cormick said.

I didn't.

My left sleeve had been cut away to the collar.

The skin around the bite was swollen and purple, and he was closing it with neat black stitches, one every half inch.

His sleeves were rolled and there was blood on his forearms.

None of it was his.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Four hours."

"Did they come back?"

"No."

"Did you carry me here?"

"I did."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Fainting."

"You were bitten by a grown wolf and you took its throat open with your hand," he said. "You get to faint."

He tied off a stitch and bit the thread.

I watched his hands.

They were big, square and scarred across the knuckles, and so careful on my skin that I hardly felt them.

It was the first time anyone had touched me gently since Hattie put me to bed.

"You broke your first rule," I said.

"I did what?"

"No touching."

"I'm sewing you shut." He didn't look up. "That's a medical exception."

"Is there a list of exceptions?"

"No."

"You're making it up."

"Yes."

I laughed, and it hurt.

"Hold still," he said, but his voice had gone softer.

He pulled the torn cloth back a little to get at the last of the wound.

His fingers stopped.

They'd found the mark under my collarbone, the small pale crescent I'd had since the day I was born.

He didn't move.

I could feel the heat of his hand through the skin.

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