Evie
“That’s a flesh wound. That’s a flesh wound. That’s a flesh wound. And that…” Constantine groans loudly as Tristan pokes his collarbone. “That is not a flesh wound.”
He pokes some more around Constantine’s bruised and bloodied body.
“Nothing broken here,” he says, digging his finger between his patient’s ribs and wiggling it. “But I bet it’s painful as hell, isn’t it?”
“Fugyer, Trisin,” Constantine spits out through gritted teeth.
I suggest that Tristan try for a slightly sunnier manner, a suggestion I immediately regret it as he launches into some strangely threatening human song about sunshine.
“But if you leave me to love anoooooother/You’ll regreeehhht it all someday.”
At the upper left quadrant of Constantine’s bruised torso, Tristan pokes a few times and the pain makes Constantine gag.
He snaps off his gloves. “Ruptured spleen.”
Constantine will need a few days of bed rest so I bring my laptop and papers. Wolves have been coming in and out of Medical for two days, and I don’t bother to hide what I’m doing here. When Constantine sets his beaten and punctured hand on my knee, his finger searching out my skin through the holes in my jeans, I feel lighter for it.
“Tristan,” chokes yet another despairing voice from the door.
“As much sweetgrass as you can manage and call me in the morning,” Tristan shouts from the back as he has with every choked and desperate wolf who has come to his door.
“Isn’t there anything stronger?”
“Ah, Julia,” Tristan says, appearing from the back. “Hold on a second.”
When he returns, he is holding a sponge basin. “You could just vomit him up.”
With a tight shake of her head, Julia hiccups.
“You ate twice as much as anyone else,” I tell her. “No one would think less of you.”
After a few more convulsive swallows, Julia stands high, presses her hand tight against her stomach, and says through gritted teeth, “But I would, Alpha. I would.”
She leaves in a cloud of sweetgrass-scented air.
* * *
Poul claimed that having run from a challenge, Constantine is no longer protected by the law, but Silver was very definite that as he didn’t run from cowardice, the challenge was not forfeited, just postponed. She gave Poul the option of calling it off, but he refused.
A day or so later, Poul passed me in the hall and put his nose to my ear. I elbowed him in the intestines and told him that whatever he smelled there, it wasn’t for him, and if he stuck his nose in my ear again, I would eat his testicles.
He still wouldn’t call it off, because his interest was always in the status that came with being the Alpha’s companion. Not like Constantine, who goes along with “all the Alpha crap,” as he calls it, because that’s the price that comes with loving me.
“You were upset when he challenged me last time. Why not now?”
I don’t tell him that it’s because I believe now. I believe his love is good for me and for the Great North. I believe that if—when—Poul loses, there will be a Thing with for-speakers and against-speakers and the Pack will decide whether Constantine brings strength to the Pack. And I know, as I look at his battered body, that the answer will be yes.
I also know that Poul will lose because not only will Elijah give him all the advantage of his long years of fighting, but I will too.
“Because this time, I know you will win.”