I nodded mechanically, still processing what had just happened. "He tried to knife me. Liam..." My voice faltered as the reality sank in. "Liam stopped him."
Butch's eyebrow rose slightly as he looked at my mate with new respect. "Fast little bastard, aren't you?"
Liam ducked his head, some of his earlier confidence receding now that the immediate danger had passed. But he didn't retreat behind me or reach for his hood.
Progress, even if small.
"We'll handle Victor," Butch said, clapping me briefly on the shoulder. "You two take a moment."
As the door closed behind him, I turned to Liam, really seeing him now that the adrenaline was fading. His hands were trembling slightly, the delayed reaction of someone coming down from combat focus. But his eyes were steady on mine, a question in their golden depths.
"You saved my life," I said simply.
He nodded once, accepting the statement without pride or hesitation.
Just fact.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. No claiming bite could have created a bond stronger than this moment. No ritual or ceremony could match the raw truth of what had just happened—Liam choosing to place himself between me and death. Not because fate demanded it, not because tradition required it, but because he'd decided I was worth protecting.
In that split second of deadly danger, he hadn't run. Hadn't hidden. Hadn't saved himself as fifteen years of survival instinct should have dictated.
He'd chosen me.
And in that choice was a claiming more profound than any mark teeth could leave on flesh.
A little while later, I leaned against the wall of the infirmary, arms crossed over my chest, unable to tear my eyes away from Liam as he worked alongside Doc.
Henry Nash—the doctor we all called Doc since he'd joined our extended family—had been skeptical when Liam first approached him with a handful of plants retrieved from beyond our fence line.
That skepticism had lasted exactly three minutes, dissolving the moment he'd witnessed what my mate could do with those unassuming leaves and stems.
Now they moved in careful tandem around the wounded, Doc handling the stitches and bandages while Liam prepared poultices that seemed to ease pain and reduce inflammation right before our eyes.
"Hold still," Doc murmured to Gearhead, who was gritting his teeth as a bullet wound in his shoulder was examined. "This is deep but missed anything vital."
Liam approached with a small bowl of crushed leaves mixed into a paste, the scent sharp and medicinal. Without hesitation—without the skittish dance of approach and retreat that had marked his every interaction until yesterday—he placed the bowl beside Doc and demonstrated with careful hands how the mixture should be applied.
"What is that?" Doc asked, professional curiosity overriding his exhaustion.
Liam, of course, didn't answer verbally. Instead, he reached for the notepad Percy had given him, writing quickly before showing it to Doc:"Yarrow, plantain, comfrey. Stops bleeding, prevents infection, speeds healing."
Doc's eyebrows rose slightly as he read. "And you're certain about the proportions?"
Liam nodded firmly, no doubt in his golden eyes.
"Where did you learn this?" Doc pressed, already applying the paste as instructed.
Liam hesitated before writing again:"Plants taught me."
Any other time, such a statement might have earned dismissal or skepticism. But we'd all witnessed too much in the past twenty-four hours to question abilities that defied easy explanation.
Doc simply nodded and continued working, accepting this revelation as yet another piece of the puzzle that was my mate.
I watched with swelling pride as Liam moved to the next injured brother, his approach gentle but confident. His hands, which I'd only ever seen clenched in fear or raised defensively, now worked with delicate precision as he applied a different mixture to the burns on Bear's forearm.
There was something mesmerizing about his focus—the way his golden eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, the careful economy of his movements, wasting nothing.
"That actually helps," Bear rumbled, surprise evident in his deep voice as Liam's concoction took the heat from his burns. "What the hell is in this stuff, kid?"
