Chapter Nine
Bowencaughtuptothembeforetheyarrivedbackintown,lopingthroughthetreesinhiswolfformwithaconcernedexpressiononhisface.Hequicklyshiftedbackandstumbledthroughthesnowtowardthem.
“Wolf-God, you guys! What happened? I smelled blood, but... Are you alright?” he asked, reaching out toward Kade’s other side to grab his arm.
“I’m okay,” Kade said, shaking his head. “Florian patched me up. I’m not bleeding anymore.”
“Is that...?” Bowen trailed off, his eyes lingering on the Arrow still clutched in Florian’s free hand.
“That’s it,” Florian said, nodding. “C’mon. Can someone in town check on him?”
“Yeah, okay,” Bowen agreed, and together they walked with Kade between them.
When they made it down the hill and onto the main road, the other wolf shifters immediately came to witness the scene. By the time they’d reached the town square, a small entourage had crowded around them, some trying to help, and others watching with morbid curiosity. One woman came up to Kade and started wiping the blood from his face with a cloth, keeping pace with them as she fussed over him.
A man came up to Florian and started dabbing his bloodied arm as well, looking him over.
“You’re hurt?” he asked, glancing at the blood on the handkerchief. “This is your blood?”
“No, I—I don’t think so,” Florian stammered, and he felt Kade tense next to him.
“Get the hell away from him,” Kade snapped, reaching his arm around Florian to shove the man away. “It’s not even his blood. Have some respect.”
The man shrunk away with a hastily muttered apology, and Florian felt his face burn with a strange mixture of anger and embarrassment. Jerah had told him that he’d sent him away for fear of people trying to steal his Changeling blood, yet he hadn’t quite believed it. Now, it had happened without him even realizing—and hurt as he was, Kade was still the one to protect him. The thought left him unsettled.
“Thanks,” he muttered, glancing suspiciously at the crowd still around them. Kade nodded silently, and the people around them seemed to shrink away a bit, after seeing what had happened. Florian cradled the Arrow closer to his chest as they walked. Luckily, no one seemed overly interested in it, but he supposed that could change in an instant.
“Come get cleaned up,” Bowen sighed, opening the front door of their family home. Florian stumbled inside with Kade, and he could see that Meriwa was already descending the stairs.
“What’s all this commotion about?” she said, only to let out a startled shout when she caught sight of Kade. “Wolf-God, look at you! What’s happened?”
Before they could answer, she was ushering all three of them into the kitchen, as Florian tried to explain, and Bowen ran to bring her what looked like a first aid kit. The irritation was plain on Kade’s face, but silently he allowed his mother to clean him off with wet hand towels and inspect each of the wounds that Florian had healed.
“Not bad, little king,” she murmured, gingerly touching one of the scabbed-over wounds on Kade’s side. “He should heal up just fine. Nothing serious.” She straightened, then smacked Kade’s shoulder. “Coming in here covered in blood like that! You’re lucky your father wasn’t down here to see. He would have had a heart attack.”
Kade shot her a wry look. “I’m fine,” he said. “Can we go now?”
“What, you’re not going to let me make sure Florian’s all right? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting the fae king?” she replied. Kade sighed as he squeezed his wet, bloody shirt into a ball between his hands.
Florian offered quickly, “I’m okay. Just got scratched up a little bit. Kade got the worst of it.”
“Fine, fine, I see how it is,” she muttered. Behind Florian, Bowen stifled a laugh, and Meriwa rolled her eyes. “Go on, then, stop dirtying my kitchen.”
Kade was silent as Florian followed him back up to their room. Almost at once, Kade stripped off the rest of his bloody clothes and went to shower. Florian tossed his own bloodied shirt into the same pile, waiting awkwardly outside the bathroom door for Kade to finish. He had the distinct sense that the other man wanted to be alone.
As he waited, he looked the Arrow over again. Florian had hoped that he had misread it before, but the same inscription met him as he turned it over in his hands.I pierce the heart of summer.
For a moment, he was filled with longing once again. Jerah would have known what it meant. He would have to go over his notes again—there had to besomethingthere—but in that instant, he wished desperately that he could just turn to his father and show him the Arrow. Even if he didn’t have an answer, just his thoughts on the inscription might help him come up with a theory; or maybe he just wanted to hear Jerah’s voice again.
After a few minutes Kade came back out, all traces of blood gone and only a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Oh,” he said, pausing in surprise when he realized that Florian was still there. “I thought... Sorry. There’s another bathroom across the hall.”
“It’s okay,” Florian said quickly. He wasn’t sure why he had lingered in their room. Part of him didn’t want to be alone, he thought; and part of him didn’t want to leave Kade alone either. “I, um... I don’t really know what to do with this.”
He held out the Arrow. Kade nodded, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.
“I should have thought of something first,” he said, sighing. “I’ll find a quiver to put it in. Just leave it on the table for now. You should rinse off. You’ll feel better.”
