by Maria Vale
Still, our scars are not like this. They’re not like this tattered collar at the base of his throat. One of the tears stretches all the way through his nipple.
The worst thing is I can tell they are old and he isn’t.
“What…what wolf would do that to a child?” It’s no more than a voiceless whisper to myself. He shouldn’t have heard, but I think he may have.
“Do me the favor of losing the tragic face, runt.” His voice isn’t angry, just brusque and cold and quiet.
“Turn over,” I say and start to pour chemical cleanser into his wound. “I will not answer to ‘runt’ or ‘cur’ or ‘dog’ or ‘bitch.’ Now, if you feel like playing nice, I can give you a local. If you don’t, that’s fine too, and I’ll stitch you up raw. I’ll warn you, though: I’ve helped doctors do this, but it’ll be my first time doing it myself.”
He licks his cracked, dry lips and with one hand gestures toward the wrapped lidocaine syringe I hold in my hand. I inject it in a circle around the wound.
“You were really lucky.”
“This is lucky?”
“Well, what I mean is, something like this? There’s always gut damage. But not here. There was some hemorrhaging, but that’s already stopped.”
“I heal quickly,” he says, craning his neck to watch me cut the flat plastic container holding the suture and the needle. Starting with the muscle, I set the clamp. He lies back down and stares at me. I’m not used to being noticed, and it makes me uncomfortable. It’s one of the perks of being a subordinate wolf. As long as you do your work and don’t get in the way, nobody pays attention. Not like the dominant ranks, where someone’s always watching to see if you’re getting sloppy or slack or stupid and it might be the right time to take you down.
Hard to tell what he’s thinking. Leonora, who teaches human behavior, says humans rely on words more than “nonverbal cues,” but that we should still be careful because what humans say isn’t always what they mean. Humans convey disapproval in many ways, she says. Unfortunately, none of them are as clear and expressive as carnassials slicing through your calf.
“Can we start over?” he finally says. “What’s your name?”
“Sil,” I say, holding the skin up with the clamp for a new anchor knot. “You can call me Sil.”
“Sill? Like windowsill?”
“No, Sil like Silver.”
His hand moves up to a silver strand that worked its way loose from the messy knot at the back of my head. He has long, strong fingers, smooth dark skin, and kempt nails. Not like my own rough, pale hands crisscrossed with scars from downed hawthorn branches and weasels that didn’t want to be eaten.
“It’s short for Quicksilver. It was meant as a joke. Irony.”
“Well, Quicksilver, you can call me Ti.”
“Tie? Like tie-dye?”
“No, like Tiberius.”
“Pffft. No irony there.”
“Nope. None at all,” he says, his voice tight and fading. “Are we almost done?”
“Two down. Only four more to go.”
“You know, if it’s all the same t’you,” he slurs, “I was thinking I mi’ pass out.”
And just like that, he does.
Fever, blood loss, shock, and cold all conspire to keep him passed out through the last stitch and the bandaging. I tape the edges of the dressing. This is going to leave a big scar. Another big scar.
When I smooth out the tape, my fingers stray beyond the edge of the tape. I pull back quickly at the warmth of his skin against mine. Sitting with my arms wrapped around my legs, I prop my cheek on my knees and watch the slow up and down of his chest.
When we first became schildere, I’d asked Ronan if I could touch him when he was in skin, because lots of schildere already had and I’d been prey to so many longings. Not for Ronan, but longings nonetheless.
“Remember what Leonora said when we asked her if humans had schildere?” he asked when he’d finished laughing.
I did remember. Still do. Leonora had thought for a moment and then told us that the closest thing humans had to schildere is buddies. “Buddies,” she said, “will hold the bathroom door closed for you if the lock is broken.
That’s what we are, Ronan had said, still chortling. Buddies.
I didn’t like the word. Sounded silly and childish. I like the Old Tongue better. Schildere, a shielder.
But supposing the Shifter feels that the only thing a crippled runt is good for is holding the bathroom door closed when the lock is broken? Then what? I will have passed up my chance to touch him.
So, I do. I touch the scarred ring at the base of his neck. Those lines are thick and rough. No one cared for them, and they healed badly.
I touch the sweep of high cheekbones and soft, dark cheek that blends into what was probably once a neatly cropped beard and mustache but is now a little wild. I touch his full lips, leaning down until I catch his warm breath against my own mouth.
This man’s body is tough and sinewy, packed hard into his taut skin. My fingers tease across, down to the contours of his chest, crisscrossed with veins that give way under the gentle pressure of my fingers and muscles that don’t.
I stop at his waistband. We are always told not to smell or touch humans here, because that is considered bestial. I touch him, feeling him warm and solid and thickening through his jeans, because what am I if not a beast?
I hold tighter until a growl, like a dreaming wolf, rattles in his chest.
Covering him with the open sleeping bag, I go about shaking the pup fur out of the tent. With a good-size stone, I pound in the stakes, set up the tent, then stretch the bed pad across the top so that it can air out.
Between all the fur and the partly gnawed cheese chew, it smells like childhood.
The Last Wolf
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About the Author
Maria Vale is a journalist who has worked for Publishers Weekly, Glamour, Redbook, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She’s a double RITA finalist whose Legend of All Wolves series has been listed by Amazon, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews among their Best Books of the Year. Trained as a medievalist, she persists in trying to shoehorn the language of Beowulf into things that don’t really need it. She lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and a long line of dead plants. No one will let her have a pet. Visit her online at mariavale.com.
You Had Me at Wolf
First in the Wolff Brothers, an exciting new series from USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear
Private investigator and gray wolf shifter Josie Grayson is on an important mission: find evidence to prove that the man staying at the Silver Town Resort faked his death for the insurance payout. When her partner is sent home sick, Josie needs to find a new fake lover in order to keep her cover intact—and the handsome wolf shifter and ski lodge owner Blake Wolff seems interested in the role…very interested.
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STAT agent Jestina Ridley has been teamed with former Navy SEAL and alpha werewolf Jake Huang. Jes doesn’t trust werewolves. But if they’re going to survive, she’ll need Jake’s help.
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