in a pair of pants—and a title—that were too big for him.
And then there was Nick—harbinger, carrion god, collector of the dead—fish-belly gray and sweaty as he worked on her. His hands shook every time he lifted them out of her guts to wipe his face on his sleeve. As though Jack hadn’t seen him in bird form peck a frozen eyeball from a corpse’s skull like it was a melon ball at a party.
It wasn’t humor, just a bleak recognition of how ridiculous they all were.
“He doesn’t like blood,” Gregor said quietly, the same faded, terrible shred of acknowledgment in his voice. “Not when it’s come out of the living.”
Faint as it was, the macabre flicker of amusement faded as Jack walked gingerly over, as though a creaked board might be what made her slip away. He took in more injuries as he looked her over, cuts to her arms and feet, bruises on her shoulders. The smell of blood was bright and metallic—the tang of the rabbit’s blood caught in the back of Jack’s throat and made his stomach turn—with a sour undertone of infection.
Bron’s chest fluttered in fast, shallow breaths and her sallow face was wet with tears. She looked like Danny, so much it grabbed Jack’s guts and twisted. If she hadn’t healed yet….
“Just let her go,” Jack said. His throat was so dry the words hurt. “We’re wolves. We live or we die, but we don’t linger. We don’t suffer. This isn’t right. She’s—”
“Shut up,” Nick said through his teeth without looking up. “That’s the choice everyone gets. You’re not some special case. Life or death. And I know what kills people a lot better than you do. It was my—it is our—job. She can survive this.”
It was Gregor who put his hand on Nick’s shoulder, although he stopped short of trying to pull him away from what he was doing.
“In your hospitals, maybe,” Gregor said. “Here? On the floor of a sheep byre, with a storm on the way?”
Nick grunted. “Good. She’s going to have a fever soon. If the temperature drops, that will keep it down. You. Hector? Get her to drink more of the tartar.”
Hector hesitated as his eyes skipped from the gory scene on the floor to Jack and Gregor. His worn hands worked nervously around the large brown bottle he held.
“I don’t know if—”
Nick lifted his head sharply and fixed Hector with a bleak glare. “Good thing I do, then,” he said. “Pour it down her throat.”
He didn’t bother to wait and see if Hector did as he was told. Nick’s attention dropped back to Bron’s ruined stomach as he grabbed a bleach-white sheet to sop up the blood. He visibly gagged as it squelched under his fingers, his lips a thin, white line. Then he dove back in with bare fingers and a needle that Jack had seen Hector use to sew up a ewe’s fox-shredded stomach.
The first jab of the needle made Bron flinch and choke out a moan. She dug her fingers into the barn floor until she gouged up splinters with her fingernails.
Jack lunged down and grabbed Nick’s wrist. It was slick with hot blood, sticky under Jack’s fingers.
“Stop it,” he ordered thickly. “This is torture.”
“It’s medicine,” Nick corrected him sharply. “Done right, sometimes there isn’t much difference.”
“If she’s going to die,” Jack said. He tightened his grip on Nick’s wrist until he could feel the tight play of tendons under his fingertips. “Let her die. Cleanly. I can smell the prophets’ taint on her. It’s a bad way to go.”
A hand grabbed his ankle. It was weak, but Jack was surprised enough that Bron could grab at all that he nearly jumped out of his skin. He recovered after a breath and crouched down next to her. However else he’d fucked up as Numitor, at least he could do this. A Scottish wolf should die with her Numitor by her side.
“I’m here,” he said. “You don’t have to fight anymore.”
“Fuck. That,” Bron gritted out between chapped lips and clenched teeth. “I am. Not. Gonna die by dog.”
Gregor snorted a startled laugh, but the brief moment of humor faded quickly. He came over and squatted down beside Jack.
“Bron, I don’t think pride has healing properties,” he said. “You aren’t healing, and Nick’s not really much of a doctor.”
Nick grumbled under his breath. “I don’t like working on the living,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I wasn’t good at it.”
Bron swallowed and tried for a smile. It