"He's been on the ridge all morning," Melori says, brushing grass off the back of her trousers, trying to help. "Probably just tired."
"Probably." Kestria does not look away from me.
"Or hungry. Are you hungry? I could bring something by when we get back. I've got stew left—"
"I'm fine," I say, a third time, a fourth, I've lost count.
"He's fine," Axan agrees, with the kind of casual inflection that is not casual at all. "Probably just needs some air."
"He's outside," Kestria says.
"Different air."
Melori looks between them, confused but game. "Is there... special air? Is that a wolf thing?"
"Yes," Axan says.
"No," I say.
"He gets like this sometimes," Kestria tells Melori, patting her arm. "It passes. Usually." She pauses. Just long enough. "Maybe he should do something about it. Release all that tension." Her eye cuts to me, bright and lethal. "I'm sure our healer knows something that could help."
My teeth are going to crack. "Kes—"
"Oh!" Melori's face lights up. "I know a tea that could help! Valerian, a little chamomile, maybe some skullcap if you've got it, which you probably don't because nobody does around here, but I could put something together—it's good for sleep, good for stress, good for general wound-upness—"
I don't breathe. Nobody does, except Melori, who is cheerfully running through her herb inventory.
Axan coughs into his fist.
Kestria is fighting something that is trying very hard to become a laugh.
Melori, still earnest: "I'd have to see what I have. Probably tomorrow? I'm short on chamomile but I passed a patch on the ridge path—"
"That would be great," I say, because my mouth has decided to take over from my brain. "Thank you, Melori."
Her whole face lights up. She claps once, bounces on the balls of her feet, and I feel that bounce land somewhere behind my ribs with more force than any touch has ever had the right to.
"Oh! Okay. Tomorrow, then. Actually—I could bring two. A nighttime one and a daytime one, because if you're wound up during the day you don't want valerian, that'll knock you sideways, but something lighter—lemon balm maybe, if there's any growing around here—and passionflower, if I can find some, which I probably can't because nothing useful grows in this specific patch of forest except for pine, and pine is many things but it is not medicinal. Well. A little medicinal. Pine tea is fine. But it's not sleep tea." She's counting on her fingers now. "I should probably also look at what you're eating. Stress tea works better if your diet isn't actively fighting it. Are you getting enough protein? Never mind, obviously you are, look at you."
She looks at me.
She runs her eyes from my shoulders down to my chest to my stomach and lower and back up, a full sweep, clinical for approximately one and a half seconds before her entire face goes a color I have never seen on her before, a deep and unrepentant red that starts at her collarbones and climbs.
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
"Protein," she says, clearing her throat. "Is. Fine. Very fine."
Kestria makes a sound. It is the sound a person makes when they are using every ounce of their body to not die laughingon their brother's behalf.
"Good," Melori says, nodding too many times. "Good, that's. Good. Stress tea. Chamomile. Tomorrow. Right. I'm going to—we should keep moving."
"Absolutely," Kestria says.
"Southern ridge," Axan says, unprovoked, unbothered, savage.
Kestria is grinning now and Axan is not hiding it well. My wolf is snarling quietly under my ribs at the fact that I cannot explain to her what my sister and my Beta have just done to me in plain daylight, and also at the fact that she just agreed to brew me a tea, and also at the fact that she is standing three feet from Axan.
