“Still attached to my body,” he assures her.
That summons a shaky laugh from Poppy.
“What happened?” I ask, giving her a once-over to make sure she wasn’t hurt during the attack on Xavier. “Where the hell did a ridgehowler come from?”
“I don’t know. It just lunged out of the bushes.” She points toward the thick overgrowth nearby. There are bluebonnets scattered all over the ground. She must’ve dropped them when the ridgehowler startled her.
“Come on, let’s go,” I tell Xavier. “We need to clean up that arm.”
“My mom can heal it.” Poppy’s gaze is glued to the blood-soaked shirt around his arm. “I’ll let her know we’re coming.”
When she goes quiet, I assume her veins are glowing beneath her sleeves as she alerts Fiona to what happened.
We start to move away from the dead ridgehowler when we suddenly hear a faint growl.
For a moment, I think it’s the animal I just killed, but then I realize it’s coming from the bushes. I use my rifle to push aside leaves and shrubbery, and jolt in surprise when I find a pair of yellow-gold eyes staring back at me.
“What is it?” Xavier calls from behind me.
“A ridgehowler pup,” I answer without looking at him. My eyes remain locked on the animal’s. I don’t think it’s preparing to attack, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable turning my back to it. “That’s probably why she attacked. Poppy, you must’ve come too close to her pup.”
The wolf backs away from me, hissing and growling low in its throat. He’s almost entirely white, save for a patch of red around his left eye.
“There’s a baby?” Poppy darts over and tries to push past me.
“Not quite,” I say, barring her with my arm. “Judging by his size, I’d say he’s close to a year old.”
“Then why was he still with his mother?”
“A lot of pups stick close to the pack until they’re fully independent. Especially in areas with scarce food.”
I glance at the dead mother, then back at the orphaned ridgehowler. This entire mountain is crawling with dangerous predators. Chances are, this young wolf will be torn apart by something bigger and meaner the moment we leave.
My hands itch with the urge to beckon the ridgehowler closer, try to make friends with it. But then what? There’s no way anyone’s letting me bring a ridgehowler back to the Dagger.
“We have to help him.” Poppy sounds like she’s about to cry.
Xavier sees our faces and barks out an expletive. “No way. Let’s go.”
“But he’ll die if we leave him out here.”
“Circle of life. Let’s go,” Xavier repeats.
I give Poppy a look of half-hearted reassurance. “He could probably survive on his own. Look—he’s got teeth. Big ones. And he’s not dependent on his mother’s milk. He should be okay.”
“But—”
He cuts her off. “Listen, kid, it’s a wild fucking animal. Wouldn’t be fair to try to domesticate it.”
“Xavier’s right,” I say gently. “If we did that, we’re stripping him of the instincts he needs to stay alive. He belongs in the wild.”
She looks like she wants to keep arguing, but finally, she lets out a defeated breath. I pull her away from the bushes, leaving the frozen, growling wolf to its own devices. I don’t know if he watches us go, but I force myself not to look back as we hurry out of the clearing, leaving the dead ridgehowler and her orphan in our wake.
I still haven’t paid a proper visit to the medical bay since I got to the Dagger, and I didn’t expect my first visit to involve Xavier’s mangled arm courtesy of a ridgehowler.
The hospital is smaller than I expect, just a handful of rooms, and only one operating space, which Fiona says is rarely used. With a healer on-site, there isn’t usually a need for surgery, and for minor ailments that would waste a healer’s time, they keep a supply of regen balms and ointments.
“Where do you get it?” I ask as we follow her into a room lined with hospital beds. Three on each side, with gray curtains separating them. “The regen, I mean.”
