The Alpha I Came to Kill

"The last healer lasted six days," Hesta said. "You'll last less." She didn't slow down, and I followed her through the kitchen passage with my kit against my chest and my father's knife sewn into the lining where no one would think to look. Blackthorn keep smelled of wet stone and smoke. Above us, the hall was full; I heard boots and cups and a woman laughing too hard at something. Hesta walked as if the floor belonged to her. "The one before her lasted twelve years," she said. "Oona. She knew her herbs, she knew when to keep her mouth shut, and then one morning she was dead in her bed with no mark on her. The Alpha's wound went bad a week later. The one after her lasted six days and went out the west gate in the middle of the night. Now we have you." "Who says the wound went bad?" "The Alpha says it. I say what I see." She stopped at a door and looked at me for the first time. "You're young." "Twenty." "Old enough to know better." She opened the door. "He doesn't like questions or liars. Keep your eyes down and your hands clean, and you might see the month out." The room beyond was warm. A fire burned high in the grate, and the shutters were closed against the rain. Kieran Blackthorn sat at the table with his shirt off and his right arm resting on a folded cloth. He was younger than I expected, twenty-nine, though the scar through his eyebrow made him look older. His shoulders were broad, his chest marked with old cuts, and his right forearm was wrapped in linen that had gone the color of tea. "Leave us," he said. Hesta went out and shut the door. I set my kit on the table and opened it. The knife lay under a roll of bandages, and I left it buried while I looked at him. "Show me," I said. He unwound the linen himself before I could reach for it. The wound was on the inside of his forearm, a long cut that should have closed by now. The edges had gone black, and the skin around it was hot and tight. It smelled sweet, and under the sweetness was a smell like burnt almonds. I had smelled it before, on the rats Mora poisoned in her yard. "What happened?" I asked. "Ironvale raiders on the north road. One of them got close." "With a blade?" "With a knife." I took his wrist to turn it toward the light, and the moment my fingers closed on his skin, the room went away. Something opened in my chest, a door I had kept shut for three years, and behind it was him: his heartbeat, the heat of his blood, the place on his arm where the poison was working. I felt all of it at once, and under it, I felt him feel me. My wolf had not spoken since Duskhollow. She did not speak now, but she woke enough to turn toward him. His eyes went gold at the edges, and his wolf looked out at me. He caught my wrist before I could pull away. "What did you do?" "Nothing." "Don't lie to me." "I cleaned my hands." He looked at my fingers on his arm. His grip tightened, and his thumb pressed my pulse until the thing between us pulled tight. I heard his breath change and felt the exact moment he decided not to let go. "Who are you?" he said. "The new healer." "Your name." "Tilda." Something moved behind his eyes, and I understood that he knew the name and did not say why. "Tilda," he said, slowly, as if he were tasting it. "Where are you from?" "The south, a village near the coast." "There is no village near the coast that sends a girl with hands like yours." I pulled my wrist free and put the table between us. "Do you want the wound treated, or do you want to talk?" For a moment I thought he would hit me. Then his mouth moved, not quite a smile. "Treat it," he said. I cleaned the cut with wine and a cloth. The poison had been on the blade, not in the wound. I could see the line where it entered, a thin dark seam at the bottom of the cut. If I said nothing, he would be dead within a week. If I said something, I would be telling him someone in his own house wanted him dead, and a healer who knew too much was a healer who did not last six days. So I said nothing and kept my hands moving. I packed the wound with yarrow and a paste of honey and garlic. He watched my hands the whole time. When I finished, I wrapped the linen tight and tied it off. "You're not afraid of me," he said. "I've been afraid of worse." "Who?" I looked up and said, "Men with knives." He laughed, a short sound surprised out of him. The door opened before I could answer, and a man came in without knocking, older, gray at the temples, with a soft voice and a steward's ring. "My lord. The council is waiting." "Tell them I'm coming, Alaric." Alaric looked at me, and his eyes were kind. They went to my kit, then to the knife under the bandages, and stayed there a breath too long. "New healer," he said. "Tilda." "Tilda," he said, and smiled. "Welcome to Blackthorn." He left, and I didn't breathe until the door closed. Kieran stood and pulled his shirt on. "You'll sleep in the antechamber, not with the servants." "I'd rather sleep with the servants." "I know." He picked up his belt and buckled it. "But Oona was killed in her bed, and I don't want to explain another dead woman to Hesta. You'll sleep where I can hear you." I stared at him and did not answer. "Someone poisoned my wound," he said. "You smelled it, and you said nothing. That makes you either a coward or a liar, and I haven't decided which. Until I do, you stay close." He went out and pulled the door shut behind him. I stood alone in the warm room with my kit open and my heart going like a hare's. He knew something, enough to keep me close. I waited until the hall went quiet. Then I took the knife out of the lining and laid it on the table. My father had made it from a piece of the old gate at Duskhollow. The hilt was wrapped in black leather, and the pommel was stamped with a wolf's head over a broken ring. I had carried it for three years and never used it on anyone. Under the knife was a scrap of cloth that had not been there when I packed. I unfolded it and found a black circle with a single white thread inside. Mora's mark. Under the thread, in her small, careful hand: Thirteen days. If he is still breathing on the full moon, your brother will not be. I sat down on the edge of the bed. The bond moved in my chest, warm and alive. On the other side of the door, I heard Kieran's boots stop. "Sleep, healer," he said, low enough that I could have pretended not to hear. I put the knife under my pillow and lay down with my hand around the hilt. Thirteen days.