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She smiles the whole way through it. She comes up to about his elbow, and she means every word. I don’t know what I expected.
Rauk looks down at her. “If I hurt her, I’ll hold still for it.”
“Good.” She reaches up and pats his forearm, bandage and all.
Well. They’re going to get along.
Rauk dips his head to her. “Kestria’s told me about you.”
“Oh, has she.”
“You wanted the fish cleaned.”
She turns to me, and I start laughing. It hurts my ribs, but I get it out anyway.
“I cleaned them. All four.”
“Good. One less thing. Sit down before you fall down.”
She tows me the last few steps into the clearing, and the clearing’s full. It’s the middle of the afternoon, so half the pack’s at the tables or crossing between the dwellings, and every one of them has stopped where they stand. A woman with a basket on her hip has forgotten she’s holding it. They’re all staring past me at Rauk.
His ears have gone flat, and he’s stopped walking. I’m not having that.
I let go of Mel and reach back for his hand. “They’re staring at me too. I was dead until two days ago.”
His thumb closes over my knuckles, and one ear comes partway up. Partway’s a start.
Mel hasn’t even slowed down. She flaps her free hand at the tables and the whole clearing at once. “Go on, all of you. Back to it. You’ve all seen a man with a limp before.”
A few of them actually go.
She points. “That bench. Rauk, you too. You’re limping worse than she is.”
She steers me to the bench at the edge of the clearing, a few steps from our things. Rauk comes with me, and I hang on to his right hand while I get myself down onto the seat in stages.
Keer’s looking at the hand I’ve got hold of. “What happened to your claws?”
Rauk glances down. “I bit them down.”
Axan leans far enough to see past Keer. “Only those two?”
Rauk turns his palm up. The middle two claws are chewed down to the fingertip, and the rest curve out well past them.
“Why?” Keer’s eye goes back to his face.
“So I could touch—”
Shit.
“My bandages. He changes them, and those two don’t catch in the cloth.”
Rauk looks down at me, and I squeeze his hand.
Mel looks at his hand, then at me. She giggles, then clamps her lips shut until she can talk.
“Excellent bedside manner. How reassuring.” She winks at me.
Thanks, Mel.
