“I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do.” I keep my voice even, factual. “And we both know it. Even with advanced healing, blood loss can weaken you. We don’t have time for weakness right now.”
Her jaw tightens. She wants to argue, wants to maintain the distance, but biology doesn’t negotiate, and she’s losing blood faster than her healing can compensate for the damage.
“Fine,” she says finally, hard and clipped. “But just the wound. Nothing else.”
“Understood.”
She moves to the bed and sits on the edge with her back to me. Her hands go to the coat buttons.
I turn away, giving her the illusion of privacy while I gather supplies from the bathroom. Basic first aid kit—bandages, antiseptic, nothing sophisticated, but enough to work with.
When I return, she’s removed the coat.
And what was underneath.
Which was nothing.
Jesus.
She’s sitting there with her back to me, bare from the waist up, and I fix my eyes on the wound. Just the wound. That’s what I’m here for. Clinical. Professional. Necessary.
Except I’m aware. Can’t help being aware.
The graceful curve of her spine. The way her shoulder blade shifts when she breathes. Old scars mapping violence across silken skin that catches the lamplight—knife wounds, claw marks, the evidence of a life spent in combat. A soldier, like me. Someone who’s survived things that should have killed her.
Someone I’ve added to that list of survivals.
I focus on the wound.
The bullet passed clean through. Entry wound on her back, exit on the front of her shoulder. Already healing, edges knitting together faster than human normal, bruising fading from blackto purple to green in real time as I watch. Her wolf healing is working, even though she’s weakened by cold and blood loss.
“This will hurt,” I say.
“Just do it.”
I start with the antiseptic. She goes rigid when it hits the wound but doesn’t make a sound, just breathes through it with the kind of controlled rhythm that speaks to years of field experience. My hands stay steady as I clean the entry wound first, then carefully reach around to access the exit wound on the front of her shoulder.
My fingers brush skin that’s warmer than it should be. Not fever—something else. She’s running too hot even for a shifter, heat radiating from her in waves that I can feel through the careful clinical distance I’m trying to maintain.
I work quickly, efficiently, keeping my touch impersonal even as I’m hyperaware of the vulnerability in the line of her neck, the way her hair falls forward when she drops her head slightly, the fact that she’s trusting me with this when hours ago she wanted me dead.
The wound is clean. I apply bandages, securing them properly, and move back immediately to give her space.
“Done.”
She reaches for the blood-soaked coat crumpled on the floor.
“Wait.” I cross to my bag and pull out a spare shirt. Black, long-sleeved; it will be too big on her, but it’s clean. I toss it to her.
She catches it and stares at it for a moment like she’s trying to figure out the angle, the manipulation, the strategy.
There isn’t one.
She pulls it on. It hangs loose on her frame, sleeves too long, hem hitting mid-thigh. She rolls the cuffs up and doesn’t look at me.
“Thank you.”
