I still need to talk to her about the wrapping technique. One-on-one. Not in front of people. I mentioned it to Keer—
The stream.
When he stood in the water and said no one's sending you away and the ground tilted. When he said stop acting like you're leaving and my hands went still. The rough underneath of his voice when he changed his mind about Dara mid-sentence.
And then he knelt.He knelt. In the mud. On one knee so we'd be level—because I was crouched at the bank and he's six-and-a-half feet of Alpha and he got down in the MUD so I wouldn't have to look up at him.
Who does that.
Alphas don't do that. Alphas do not kneel.
His hand on my face.
Thumb on my cheek.
And then last night he was a wolf and—
His shirt.
Which I'm still wearing.
Ugh,it's totally fine. It's a shirt. People wear shirts. This one happens to smell like cedar and be four sizes too big andbelong to a man who—not relevant. The point is I'm cold and it's warm and I need to go find flowers before I analyze why I'm still wearing it, because I am not analyzing that, because the answer is temperature and nothing else.
Blue flowers. Near water. That’s my plan.
What should I dye first? Not bandages—impractical, nobody wants pink bandages. Though imagine Tovar's face if I wrapped his next wound in bright cheerful yellow.
Actually, that alone might be—no. Start practical. The scrap cloth I use for herb-drying. Nobody cares what color it is and if I ruin a batch I can make more. Then maybe a curtain for my doorway. Do I have a curtain? I should have a curtain. I saw extra fabric rolled behind Dara's supply bench.
Should I ask? Is curtain fabric communal property? What are the property laws of a werewolf pack? Nobody's explained this to me. Nobody's explained most things. I just keep doing things until someone growls.
Nugget pecks my ankle.
"I'm thinking. Give me a second."
She pecks harder.
"Fine. We're going."
Need a pot I can ruin.
Need somewhere to hang drying fabric.
Right. Go.
I walk fast, faster than I need to, mist still sitting in the low places and the pack sounds already behind me. The morning is cool and I hum because when I stop the shirt collar slides off my shoulder and I think about why it's so much bigger than mine and then I'm back in the dark with his fur under my hands and I can't be back there right now, I have flowers to find.
Not long. Just the stream and back. I'll be home before the pot's even cool.
It's been quiet. No humans seen anywhere near the pack. I'm barely outside the territory—basically still inside, if you squint.
If you squint from a very permissive angle.
See, I can follow orders.
The forest swallows me. Trees crowding close, pack sounds fading. My feet find the path without thinking.
"Blues first," I tell the trees. "Purple if I can find it. Back before anyone notices I'm gone and does something dramatic."
