Chapter 43.
780 Words
Rhiannon scrambled to her feet from the half-kneel she had fallen into, her boots slipping on the treacherous ice she now hated. Her breath came in frantic, ragged white plumes.
"I'm so sorry! I’m so, so sorry," she gasped, her voice cracking under the weight of a decade’s worth of fear. Seeing him bleed- seeing him vulnerable because of her. was a reality her mind couldn't quite process. "Can I? Please, let me-"
Fenris didn't move. He didn't pull away or growl in a reflex of pain. He simply stood there, a mountain caught in a storm, his hand still heavy on her shoulder. He gave a sharp, single nod, granting her silent permission to touch the ruin she had made.
The silver blade was still lodged deep in his side, the metal appearing dark and cruel against the spreading crimson stain on his shirt. Rhiannon reached out, her fingers trembling so violently they brushed against the wire-wrapped hilt. With a sharp, decisive pull, she yanked the blade out.
It clattered to the frozen ground with a hollow, metallic ring.
Fenris let out a pained, guttural hiss through gritted teeth, his body tensing into a cord of iron under her touch. Rhiannon didn’t wait. She immediately pressed both palms against the weeping wound, her hands instantly slick with the startling heat of his blood.
She closed her eyes, and the blue spark within her didn't just hum- it roared. The magic surged up from her core, flowing down her arms and through her fingertips with a desperate, frantic intensity. She didn't just want to close the skin; she wanted to undo the moment entirely. Under her hands, the jagged edges of the puncture began to knit together, the silver-seared flesh responding to the raw power of her magic.
Fenris stared at her the entire time. He didn't look at the wound; he didn't look at the blood on the snow. His eyes, a startling, pained blue, never left her face. As her magic poured into him, an electric jolt snapped between their skin- a current far more potent than the ones they had shared during training. A fever of goosebumps erupted across Rhiannon’s arms, and she felt a corresponding shudder ripple through his massive frame.
The skin sealed. The bleeding stopped. The jagged hole in his side became nothing more than a fresh, pink scar that would soon join the tapestry of others on his body.
Even once the wound was gone, Rhiannon didn’t move her hands. She couldn't. She kept them pressed firmly against his ribs, feeling the heavy, rhythmic thud of his heart and the furnace-like heat of his skin beneath the ruined linen.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, finally forcing her gaze up to meet his. Her green eyes were swimming with a mix of guilt and a terrifying, new realization. "I... I shouldn't play with knives. I shouldn't have been so careless."
"Could’ve been worse," he said. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, and as he spoke, the gold began to swirl back into his irises. Malphas was coming back to the surface, drawn out by the scent of her magic and the persistent, grounding pressure of her palms.
"Worse? I stabbed you, Fenris," Rhiannon countered, her voice steadying even as her hands continued to shake against his side. She held onto him as if she were afraid he might split open again- as if the only thing keeping him whole was the desperate contact of her fingers.
"You also healed me," he noted. His hand moved from her shoulder to her wrist, his large thumb tracing the rapid, fluttering pulse there. He wasn't pulling her away; he was anchoring her. "The bite and the balm. Most only have the first. You have both."
Silence bloomed between them, thick and expectant, broken only by the distant howl of the wind through the high peaks. The air was freezing, but where their bodies met, the heat was suffocating. Rhiannon felt the static in her head settle into something else- something heavier, more permanent. She looked at the man who had been her shield, her teacher, and the beast who had been her anchor.
"Why, Fenris?" she asked, the words barely more than a breath.
"Why what?" he replied without hesitation, his gaze intense enough to burn.
"Why were you there?" she said, her voice catching on a slight tremor, her hands tightening against the fabric of his shirt. She searched his golden eyes, looking for the truth behind the Alpha's mask, terrified of the very answer she was hunting for.
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