Water on her throat. The back of her neck.
I was saying something to Axan.
She tilts her head and water runs behind her ear, down along her jaw, and she wipes it with the back of her hand and the sleeve slips down and she pushes it up again and—
Axan is standing beside me.
He walks to the stream, crouches a few feet from her. Casual.
"Getting anywhere with those stains?"
She holds up her hands. Purple from knuckle to wrist. "I've accepted my fate."
"Distinguished. Very healer."
"Very 'I dropped a jar of paste and it exploded on everything I own.'" She splashes more water. "Does it bother the wolves? The smell, I mean. Moonbright on my skin all the time."
"Burns a little up close. Nothing bad. Most of the pack's used to it by now."
"Even Keer?"
My hands curl at my sides.
"Keer?" Axan tilts his head. "Keer seems to manage just fine around you. Can't imagine the smell is the hard part."
I'm going to kill him.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing." He gives her a wink, quick and easy, having the time of his life. "Just that you're a lot to get used to. In a good way."
Melori snorts. "That's the politest version of 'you're a lot' anyone's ever given me."
"I'm a polite person."
"Weren’t you holding a young man by his ankles right before we left?"
"Politely."
She laughs, sharp off the water, and Axan grins. He did that without trying. Her head tips back and their shoulders almost touch and—
My teeth itch to lengthen. My wolf surges to the surface, wanting out, wanting to do something I can't do, and I breathe through my nose and shove it down. I look at the trees—the bark on the nearest birch, the moss on the north side, anything else.
"We should move." My voice comes clipped.
Axan stands and offers Melori a hand. She takes it. His hand closes around hers and opens—brief, nothing, the kind of touch that means nothing—and my wolf doesn't care. It snarls under my skin, teeth itching again, hackles I don't have rising anyway, and I'm halfway to a step forward before I catch myself and lock my knees. Mine. Not a thought. A fact. I breathe through my nose and shove it down, again, harder this time.
"He's right." Axan rolls his shoulders. "Southern ridge gets steep past this point. Better with daylight."
Kestria is pulling her boots back on and she catches my eye, holds it for one second, two. "You look tense, Keer."
The word lands exactly where she aimed it. Pleasant.Casual. Completely without mercy.
"I'm fine."
"You sure? You look a little—" Her mouth presses flat and I know that expression. It is the expression she has worn at me since we were children and she was about to get me in trouble with our mother. "A little wound up."
"I'mfine."
