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The bison fur I’d wrapped around his arm had come loose and was lost, leaving the bleeding shreds of his flesh to become dirty again. But it wasn’t the bite that drew me to him—it was the rich, black blood pooling from his side where Aktor’s spear had pierced him, glossy in the moonlight.
My stomach churned.
He needed healing.
Before it was too late.
Wary of the wolves, I stepped toward the stranger.
The alpha grumbled as I dropped to my knees, placing my hand on his icy, grey chest.
My gaze locked with the alpha’s.
The sound of running feet came louder.
I tucked a strand of the man’s sweat-sodden hair off his brow, and the wolf let out a deeper, scarier warning.
I stiffened. “But...he needs help. He’s bleeding and suffers from fevers.” I studied the stranger and all the pains he’d gone through, all because he’d found me in the grass.
I swallowed hard.
If it wasn’t for him, Aktor would’ve taken me fully.
He’d protected me.
He’d ensured my mind didn’t break from something I couldn’t endure.
I owed him more than just my life.
I owed him my sanity.
Risking touching him again, I murmured at the snarling alpha. “He saved me tonight. Let me do the same. The people who are coming can help. They’ll heal—”
The alpha snorted and shook his head, throwing a furious look at Aktor. His lips pulled back from his fangs, and for a moment, I feared he’d kill the Nhil heir—that he’d tear out his throat with a single bite and leave his corpse for his father, the chief, to find.
But then he cocked his massive horned head at the sound of quickly coming feet and gave a harsh bark, glowering at his pack.
They moved as one.
Their powerful furred forms surrounded the stranger, their muzzles landing on his arms, legs, and torso. The largest female wedged herself between me and the nameless man, pushing me away while the alpha stalked forward, lowered to his belly, and waited for the pack to pick up the unconscious male with their teeth.
“Wait...don’t hurt him.” I hurried to stand, reckless enough to touch the female blocking me. “Your teeth are too sharp.”
The wolves ignored me, just like they ignored Aktor.
With a rustle of fur, they gripped him gently in their mouths and draped his floppy form over the alpha’s huge, broad back.
I stopped breathing as the wolf stood.
The stranger fell a little but remained mostly on the alpha’s back, his arms and legs dangling as if he were already dead.
“Where...where are you taking him?” I dared step closer, needing to touch him. To see if he’d wake. I wanted to see his smoky eyes again. To hear his protective voice. To say thank you for everything that he’d done.
But the female growled and bared her teeth, nudging me back.
The running feet of Nhil hunters came ever closer.
With another savage bark, the alpha broke into a lope, arrowing through the tall grass with the stranger on his back.
The rest of the pack followed.
They vanished as suddenly and as silently as they’d arrived, just as the Nhil hunters appeared from the other direction, crashing through the grass seas with their spears and staffs, bows drawn and arrows pointed at...me.
I raised my hands as Nhil men and women spilled into the crushed ring where Aktor, Kivva, and the stranger had fought. The bruises on my neck blazed, the cuts from Aktor’s knife burned, and my nipples pebbled with shame that I was bare as the day they’d found me.
The hunters narrowed their eyes, spreading out to form a ring, just like the wolves had done. Chief Tral appeared, his large bulk blotting out the darkness, his hands curled around a wicked-sharp spear. His shoulder-length dark hair was loose with scant beads and feathers, his ash-tattoo etched over his heart.
His gaze immediately fell onto his son. Striding toward him, his hands fisted tight around his weapon. “What happened? Who did this?” His knuckles whitened. “Tell me, Aktor!”
Aktor pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, shooting me a glare.
I waited for him to admit what he’d done. To confess how he’d tried to take me without consent. How he’d almost killed a stranger he didn’t know. How he’d watched a pack of wolves carry a man as if he was one of their treasured own.
“Aktor?” Tral asked. “Speak, son. Tell me what happened.”
With a twist of his lips, Aktor shook his head, snatched up his knife still stabbed into the dirt, and ran into the long grass, leaving us behind.
Tral watched him go before spying Kivva, unconscious and bloody, stiff on his back. His intelligent ebony eyes met mine as his powerful legs carried him toward me. “You, Girl. You tell me what happened here.”
Other hunters carefully gathered Kivva into their arms, carrying him between them and heading in the same direction Aktor had stumbled, taking him to a healer no doubt.
