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Sleep doesn't come quickly these days. Night has become his closest friend, his sentinel. In Kolín, Sam would climb to the roof of the building he and his mame stayed in and watch the stars churn above until his mind gave out. Here in Uzhitz, it’s much more difficult.
Kolín is an active town, full of life. It’s one of the few times Sam and his people have felt remotely comfortable—their happiness always tends to correspond with their volume. Even late into the night Sam would hear men talking, women singing, and children laughing from his perch so high up. It heartened him. It saddened him. It relaxed him and made him paranoid. The conflict alone is enough to tire himself thinking about.
Uzhitz is, in comparison, dead. Every light is turned out along the twin hills, casting the area in a pitch black only lit by the moon and stars. People are tucked away in their homes, happy and safe and quiet. The odd wolf howl from the forest never seems to rise above a whisper.
It makes Sam, in a word, insane.
“How did I know you’d be up here?”
Sam blinks in mild surprise as he hears John’s voice bloom behind him. He tilts his head enough to look at the beta from over his shoulder. The barn loft is even darker than the world outside, the roof creating a cocoon of comforting black. Yet, John shines all the same.
He wears his sleep things: a loose undershirt and perfectly pristine braies. Around his wrist is a gold bracelet of tiny links connected endlessly to one another. Sam had connected the final one, welding the bracelet permanently onto the man’s wrist. It never fails to catch Sam’s eye.
John must have been sleeping. His mousy hair is askew, curling around his ears and over his forehead. A stray chunk points to the sky at the crown of his head.
Despite his cozy look, it’s obvious that John has been up for a bit—if the bowls of warm, soft cabbage and carefully handled meat in his hands indicate anything.
Sam’s stomach makes itself known with a low grumble. He accepts the bowl when John comes close enough to offer it.
They sit beside each other at the edge of the loft, high above the sleeping town below. The quiet impact of their utensils against the bowls are the only noises that surround them.
The food is good. Henry made it, assuring Sam that he had done his best to stick to Jewish slaughtering practices. While Sam is also sure the meat is far from kosher, he appreciates the thought regardless.
And Henry had seemed so nervous about it. Then again, Henry is nervous about a lot of things these days. As is expected of a new dame.
“Mm,” John hums around a mouthful of tender venison. “This is good. I have to ask him what he cooks the meat with.”
Sam huffs out a gentle chuckle. “Only if you’re ready to hear the names of herbs you had no idea existed.”
“It’ll be a learning opportunity,” John quips in response, lips curling into that familiar foxish smile of his. “Henry always surprises me with how much he knows.”
“He’s a smart man.” Quite the understatement. “Too smart, sometimes.”
“I don’t know…” John easily presses the edge of his spoon through the meat, fibers readily parting under the pressure. “I think it’s sweet how concerned he is for Anna.”
Anna. The pup that never seems to leave Henry’s side. Every morning, he’d strap her into place against his chest or back, impossibly skilled at using whatever cloth is available to him to do so. From then on, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight until he placed her back into her comfortable bed lined with thick furs and wool.
To Sam, she seems a bit coddled. If he ever even thought of saying that to Henry, he’d surely lose a finger or two to the dame’s teeth.
“You can’t expect a man like Henry to not be worried about someone he gave up everything for.” John’s voice swings low and slow, the melodic lilt it naturally has making it seem like he is singing a lullaby. “I only wish that Lord Capon—“
“Don’t.” Sam stabs his spoon into the venison, only offering half a mind to apologize to the animal. “Hans Capon has made his decision.”
If he cared, Lord Capon would have tried to find Henry. If he cared beyond himself and that ratty land he calls home, he would have fought to keep Henry at his side. Instead, he watched the omega go with that sad sack expression on his face, eyes glinting with performative remorse in the morning mist.
Thinking of that morning has Sam’s stomach turning. He brushes the memory from his mind, not wanting to waste Henry’s efforts. He takes another bite of his venison and pulls a leaf of beer-soaked cabbage between his teeth.
“I…” John thinks otherwise. It’s an argument they’ve had many times and will many more. “… Right. I’m too tired to point out how wrong you are.”
Good thing. Sam’s too tired to fight back.
“How late is it?” Sam asks after swallowing down his mouthful of cabbage. “The moon is not full tonight.”
“Past the end of a goy’s day, for certain.”
Past midnight.
Sam rubs his face and places his bowl to the side.
“What’s keeping you up?” There’s a small hesitance in John’s voice—not because he’s afraid to ask, but rather he’s afraid Sam might not answer. “Normal nightmares or…?”
It does cross Sam’s mind, at it always does, to not tell John. The entire time they’ve known each other, it has been a struggle to tell even John—the closest person to a mate that Samuel has ever considered—what burns inside. Oftentimes, he dismisses it with half-truths.
Memories of Kuttenberg. Worries about my people. My mother’s health.
In reality, his darkness reaches much deeper than that.
When Sam looks at his hands, he doesn’t see skin. Blood coats his palms as paint would, so thick he can’t even see the creases where his fingers and thumb bends.
When Sam catches a reflection of his face in a trough, a chest plate, a puddle, he only sees the blackened sockets of his eyes and blood dripping from his lips.
And sometimes, it goes beyond himself. Sometimes when he gazes at a stranger’s face, their jaws would be missing, their eyes gouged out, their skin burned. He’s learned to not startle anymore, but the haunting images linger.
He’s not sure when it started. A piece of him desperately wishes he could blame that French fucker’s torture entirely for his strange hallucinations. Yet, he can barely remember the mamzer’s name and doesn’t look twice at the gnawing gashes he left behind.
No, this is something deeper that Sam wishes he knew how to excise.
“I am…” Sam haltingly begins to speak. His belly squirms under the relentless patience offered by his partner. “I am seeing death. Again.”
As if he’d ever stopped.
Warm and soft, John places his hand over Sam’s. His fingers curl around the width of Sam’s palm. Their skin—porcelain white to sunburnt brown—stands out against one another, all too telling of how innately different they are.
“What do you see when you look at me?” whispers John.
Sam is almost too afraid to look at his partner’s face directly. If he sees perfect lips torn by cruel fangs or eyes plucked from their sockets or rounded cheeks turned to meat—
He lifts his gaze.
John sits beside him, legs folded against his chest and his cheek resting on them. Their hands tangle on the loft floor between them.
No blood. No viscera. Just John.
“Well?” the foxish beta hums.
There’s no stopping Sam’s hand from cupping John’s upturned cheek. Plush, warm skin presses against Sam’s palm. His thumb rubs between lip and chin.
“I see you,” Sam admits in a whisper rivaling John’s in volume. “You’re beautiful.”
It’s not what John expected. His face fills with an embarrassed pink. The giggle that leaks from him holds a slight air of hysteria.
“Why—Why, thank you. Samuel.” Another stuttering giggle. John looks back toward the city. He’s never been very good at accepting affection like that. A stranger could call him beautiful and he’d preen like a peacock. When Sam murmurs it in the dark of night when they’re both worn and weary…
“To be more accurate,” Sam continues with a twist to his mouth. “I rarely see you dead. Myself. Mame. Henry. Random people on the street. But rarely you.”
“I… will take that as a compliment, I think.” Yet another fluttering laugh, though this one is softer. Less flustered. “You’ve never told me what you actually see. Only that you see death.”
Sam hears the unspoken question. He looks back out at Uzhitz. It looks so small from up here on a hayloft on top of the hill.
“You do not want to know.”
The sound of fabric shifting against wood tickles Sam’s ear. Along his side, warmth burns as John leans into him. He’s so soft. Nearly a year of knowing the man and that fact still manages to startle Sam.
“You don’t have to tell me,” John replies into the curve of Sam’s shoulder. “Not now or ever. I only want you to know that you can tell me.”
Of course he can. Sam exhales and tilts his head to rest his temple on John. Their scents mix, obvious when they’re this close. Smoke and ink. Oil and honey. Sam would be happy to drown in this scent if it meant never leaving it or John.
A smile creeps along Sam’s mouth. Lifting his head just enough to brush his lips to the curve of John’s skull. Teasing, he whispers, “You’re also very nosey.”
The spill of laughter that bursts from John warms Sam’s soul from the inside. His smile only grows as John sits up straight and wrinkles his nose in Sam’s direction.
“I’m a spy, of course I’m nosey!”
Before Sam can reply, a bone-shuddering bang resounds across the stud farm.
Both men shoot to their feet and make for the opposite side of the hay loft. Through the opening in the side of the building, John and Sam look at the house that sits quietly at the corner of the property. The front door is open. Wide open.
“What…?” John breathes as he tries to see what’s happening inside from up here.
Sam doesn’t even try.
He bolts for the ladder and lowers himself halfway before jumping from a middle rung. The horses are awake and shifting nervously in their stalls. Reedy, scared whinneys echo on the walls of the barn.
Then, something Sam has never, ever wanted to hear fills the air.
“ANNA!” Henry’s booming yell could wake the dead. “Anna!”
She’s gone. She’s hurt. She’s dead. All the worst things come to Sam’s mind as he sprints from the barn and to the open door. Henry meets him there, shaking with fury and his teeth bared.
“Where the fuck is my daughter, Sam!?” Henry barks as his hand snaps forward and grips the front of Sam’s shirt. Long hair sticks to the sweaty planes of Henry’s face, catching on his tight lips and scruffy jaw. “WHERE IS SHE?”
Fuck. Fuck!
Sam chokes on his unhelpful ignorance, head shaking. “I-I didn’t see—”
With one heave, Henry shoves Sam bodily down his stoop’s stairs. The alpha nearly falls over his own feet trying to keep himself from falling into the dirt. “Fucking find her! FIND her!”
Whoever has her can’t have gone far. Unless they had a horse—but the only horses Sam hears are the ones in the barn. No sounds of hooves hitting dirt. He nods to Henry and peels toward the road.
Empty. In both directions. No movement at all can be seen in the shadows. No sounds of life. No dogs bark.
Fuck, why had Godwin taken Mutt when he left on his pilgrimage? This is what happens when he’s not around. Either of them.
But, also, Sam was awake. He’d been watching. Nothing tipped him off of anything unusual happening.
Fuck! This is his fault and he is going to fix it.
He runs back onto the stud farm, determined to pull on his armor and tear the area apart to find where Anna has gone. She’s only four months old. She couldn’t have run off on her own—
“Sam.”
John. Sam looks around and sees John melted into the shadows next to the main entrance to the barn. Something unknowable glimmers in his eyes, tears catching on his lashes.
“Inside,” John whispers. “He took her into the barn.”
“Who?”
The question has John closing his eyes and grimacing. His lips pull with such emotion that Sam’s heart shoots into his throat. He’s about to demand that John tell him before the beta opens shaking lips and whispers a single, unbelievable name.
“Erik.”
Erik. The pale monster that took Sam’s people’s lives that day in Kuttenberg. Who nearly killed Henry in the ruins of Sigismund’s camp. Ištván’s stud.
Sam asks no more questions. He runs into the barn.
The structure is set up in a kind of L shape with the horses being stowed along the longer arm. In the shorter one, tack, food, and supplies are kept. There is where he finds him.
Erik.
Or, the creature that once went by that name.
He wears no armor. That’s the first thing that Sam notices. No pure white plate is in sight, leaving the once hulking alpha in rags that hang from his limbs. Tears in the fabric show too-pale skin and they way they drape over his shoulders indicates Erik has lost much of the bulk that once made him so intimidating.
Bones and sinew shift at the far end of the barn. Knobs from a hunched spine press against corpse skin, standing out above the slumping hem of the dirtied shirt that clings to skeleton limbs. Near-white hair is overgrown and gives the creature a blasphemous halo around his bowed head.
Sam grabs a nearby pitchfork. It’s an older one, rusted from too many years of use. As Sam doesn't have his sword, it will have to do.
Every step taken brings Sam closer and closer to the pile of sorrow and bones hunched over itself. Over Anna. A soft buzz hits Sam’s ear before—
A song. A hummed lullaby. One Sam has never heard. The throat that sings it has been torn asunder so all that escapes are dry croaks hinting at melody. Unmistakably, Erik is singing a lullaby.
To Anna.
Sam can hear her fussy little noises. He once joked with Henry that she got her sire’s whine. It drew a smile out of him, if only for a moment. Now, he can hear those frustrated whines cut through the hellish song. She’s not dead. Yet.
“Shh,” Erik rasps to the bundle. He hasn’t turned or indicated that he knows Sam is creeping closer. “Shh, my heart.”
It’s sickening and angering. Anna isn’t Erik’s heart. Sam doubts he even knows her name.
Caught up in his anger, Sam’s toe brushes against a piece of wood that once made up a fence post. It hisses against the ground for less than a breath—but it’s enough.
Erik spins around on his heel, and Sam nearly gags at what he sees.
Sickly skin is pulled taut over weakened bones. Silver glares from beneath a heavy, fair brow. Purple like bruises mar the skin around and beneath those eyes. His beard, scruffy and unkept.
On his chest, peeking through the loose linen, a red hot line of gore penetrates the skin just beneath his clavicle. A stab wound—perhaps Henry’s from all those months ago, left to fester.
“Erik,” Sam intones, keeping his voice low. “Let her go.”
A sharp snarl rings through the barn. Stained teeth bare, fangs digging into gum and lip. Anna squirms in Erik’s arms, wailing at the sudden onslaught of heady dominance. It doesn’t cow Sam. It barely affects him at all except to make him angrier.
“Let her go.” His command is snapped out between tight teeth and thickened tusks. “She is not yours.”
To his dismay, Erik tightens his arms around the wolf fur that had once lined Anna’s bed. He’s strangely careful to keep Anna’s mouth or nose from being covered, careful not to squeeze too hard.
To Sam, it looks as if he’s trying to protect Anna. From her own kin.
“Erik.”
Pale death refuses to back down. He looks upon Anna’s round, freckled face. Saliva drips from a fang and onto Anna’s cheek. She jolts at the sudden wet sensation, and her yell begins to churn louder and louder.
“You can’t,” Erik stammers out from behind his disgusting beard and sunken features. “You can’t take her from me.”
There’s no use arguing with him. Sam could lunge forward and catch the obviously sick man’s throat on the edge of his rust-and-shit encrusted fork. But he can’t hit Anna. The mere thought of it makes Sam lower his weapon, keeping it in hand but innocuous.
Slowly, he continues to step closer.
“Let her go, Erik.” Sam’s voice is firm, serious; it’s the way he talks to his people during emergencies. A voice that says listen and do as I say. It works most of the time. Most of the time.
“No—no!” Tools and supplies fall from their place among the boxes and shelves that Erik has buried himself in as he flails back. Away. “No! She’s—She’s beautiful.”
Sam’s guts twist painfully around themselves. That damned word has been haunting him tonight. If he weren’t panicking, perhaps Sam would find it interesting all the different ways one could call another beautiful.
Right now, all Sam is focused on is Anna.
“She’s Henry’s pup,” Sam says in an even tone. “She’s not yours.”
“Henry—“ Spat like a curse. “—doesn’t deserve her!”
And you do? Sam doesn’t want Erik to react poorly, so he keeps his snarky comment to himself. He can already see Erik balancing on the edge of what little sanity he has left.
“She could have been mine. Ours.” Tears gather at the corners of Erik’s too-wide eyes. He bends over Anna once more, tucking her close to his chest. “She could have been ours…”
Ištván Tóth.
Everything comes back to fucking Ištván Tóth.
“She isn’t—“
“She is!” Erik isn’t making sense, but he doesn’t have to in order to be a threat. “She’s—She’s mine! She’s mine…”
Tender, dirty fingers stroke over Anna’s frustration-pink forehead. She’s never been a baby who cries much. Yowls and screams, yes, but tears are wholly unfamiliar to her. Sam can only imagine what Henry might do if he hears her cry.
“Erik, please.” To beg in front of such a man has Sam’s pride clawing at his insides. It makes him sick to give any power to this madman. It’s for Anna. Sam would do anything for Anna. “I… am sorry things ended up this way—“
“No, you’re not!” Erik wheezes out a horrible, broken cackle. “No one is. No one cares anymore. I-I am left in the middle of this shithole with no one but…”
Manic eyes slip back down to Anna. Whatever clarity they had mere seconds ago is gone once more. Erik leans down and nuzzles against her chubby cheek. Anna snarls as much as a baby can snarl.
“It’s okay… It’s okay…” Erik is weeping. Tears flow from his eyes to the tip of his nose before staining Anna’s skin. “It’s okay, we’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you. My little lamb. Our little, little lamb…”
There’s movement behind Erik. Sam’s eyes snap up and he finds what he had been dreading this entire time. Somehow, some way, Henry has slipped into the darkness behind Erik. Steel blue eyes are wide and focused on the man holding his pup. Pupils squeeze tight, barely visible from where Sam stands.
Shit. What can he fucking do? If he doesn’t get Anna out, she could be hurt. Henry would never intentionally hurt her—but Sam can see how few thoughts are running through Henry’s racing, primal mind.
Wait, Sam pleads to Henry’s hulking shadow. Wait.
Sam has to make a choice.
He drops his weapon and lunges forward as Erik focuses on the pup he holds like precious crystal.
What happens next is too fast for Sam to wrap his mind around.
Apparently, Erik brought a sword. Sharpened and vicious, weighted perfectly for his palm. It cuts so cleanly through Sam that he doesn’t feel the pain at first.
Running hot on fear and desperation, Sam grabs Anna’s furs and yanks her toward himself. His left arm refuses to pull. The severed muscles give and go horribly limp.
But it’s enough.
Henry’s hand fully encapsulates Erik’s jaw. He grips hard, fingertips digging into pallid, sickly skin. There’s a distinct pop as something in Henry’s grasp shifts out of place.
“She’s mine, you pathetic fucking cunt.” The rumble seems to fill the entire barn, shaking the foundations and making Sam’s ears ring. “Feel free to tell your bitch about her when you see him in Hell.”
With that, Henry drags a blade hilt-deep from ear to ear.
In his last moments, Erik is terrified. Horrified. Shaken to his core. As his life pours from his severed neck, rushing rapids of red, something softens in his face.
“Thh… oo.” The words are unable to form as air escapes through the gaping slice in Erik’s esophagus. Blood spurts and bubbles, pushed faster out by his attempts to…
To thank Henry.
Sam’s horror only grows as he looks down. Blood pools in Anna’s makeshift bed. It coats her entirely, sticky and thick. For a moment, Sam thinks his mind is seeing the dead again—that he’s projected the worst possible outcome onto one of the most important people in his life.
Then, Anna’s mouth opens and she lets out a horrible wail as blood paints her face red. Both eyes are closed, glued shut by Erik’s ichor. It drips into her mouth, coating her tongue and toothless smile.
He tries to take her in his arms. Sam’s body is refusing to move. Even twitching is impossible, his muscles locking entirely. The right side of his face is burning. He can feel a chill on his teeth, though Sam is sure his lips are closed.
His entire body shudders. Pain trickles in with every trembling breath. Until Sam can feel nothing but agony. A yell from deep in his gut, deep in his soul rips free from ruined lips and joins the mess on the baby below.
All he can do is scream.
***
John has always been a level head in times of strife. Jobst saw that when he observed John lying straight to his royal face to get out of trouble. That first meeting had been a harrowing moment of clarity—that John is not, in fact, guaranteed to be the smartest man in the room, no matter how much he tries.
At this moment, as blood pours over the dirt and the sounds of Anna’s distress sings sharp into the air, John realizes that he is the only man in the room.
Sam yells in short, agonized, involuntary noises of animal pain.
Henry wraps his arms around the bloody, terrified form of Anna, and he is wedged so firmly into the corner it looks as if he’ll blend into the wall.
Erik is… gone.
“Fuck—Sam.” John stumbles forward from the doorway he hid behind and only just catches Sam’s body as he finally falls unconscious from the pure torture he’s received.
From the left pectoral to the right temple, Sam has been cleaved.
“No, no,” John hisses as he gathers the severed skin and presses it together. His mind is utterly blank. He is certainly not living up to his title as the only man capable of thought in the room.
This is Sam. Powerful, smart, terrifying Samuel. It’s his mate that falls utterly limp as his blood joins the ocean already on the floor.
“Henry,” John rasps, looking up. Sharp, dangerous eyes turn in his direction, lids wide and pupils unseeing. His tongue drags over his pup's face and hair. Cleaning her of Erik’s sticky gore. “Henry, I need you.”
The tongue pauses against Anna’s cheek. It’s fat and wide. It catches every bit of red, staining like wine. A low rumble trembles from Henry’s chest. A growl. As if John is going to take Anna from him.
Panic mounts. “Henry, Sam is hurt.”
The growl falters.
“Sam—your brother is dying. Please. Please. I need you. I cannot do this alone.”
Henry drags his tongue one last time over Anna’s cheek. Her cries haven’t stopped. Terror makes each wail a shriek of the damned.
“Henry!” John snaps. “Help me!”
Something finally gets through Henry’s dazed, primal brain. He holds Anna tight to his chest as he eases from the safety of the corner. No care is given to the corpse lying flat on the ground, lips parted in a beatific smile. Henry walks through the puddle of blood without hesitation.
“Just—tell me what to do to help him,” John pleads as he presses the ruined linen of Sam’s shirt to the sluggishly bleeding wound. “He cannot die.”
Henry’s eyes are still blown wide by instinct. The pinpricks of his pupils are beginning to ease and widen, though. He gazes upon Sam’s dying form.
“I…” His voice sounds nothing like his own. “Bottles. There’s—there’s decoctions and bandages. There.”
He nods at the back of the barn, where the mess of supplies forms a pile of detritus.
“Alright,,” John breathes. “Alright.”
Finding the bottles of herbal medicines and bandages is less difficult than John expects. They’re piled away in their own barrel, safe from the metaphorical detonation that just occurred without.
Henry sits beside Sam. He has tucked Anna into his shirt, tying the bottom to keep her from falling. Her cries have lessened to whimpers as she’s soothed by her dame’s skin and scent.
“Here,” John says as he drags the barrel over. “What do you need?”
Every word Henry chokes out between his remaining growls is obeyed entirely. John grabs whatever bottles Henry says and douses bandages in the stuff. He packs them into the crevasse in Sam’s chest, pressing them to cover the gore of his face.
The blood isn’t coming as much. John only hopes it’s because he’s staunched the flow and not Sam’s system running empty.
Together, Henry and John pull Sam’s body carefully onto a clean blanket usually kept for horses on cold winter days.
“Midwife,” Henry grunts. “She’ll help. House is… next to the village green. Get her.”
It sounds as if every word is difficult to say—and John has no doubt that’s true. There’s no possible way for him to repay Henry for this.
After getting the midwife’s name—Luciana—John leaves the barn and runs as fast as he’s physically able down the hill, across the bridge, and to the village green. Newly lit torches flicker to life as curious villagers peer into the streets to see what’s happening.
It takes pounding on a few doors to finally find the midwife. Luciana is a round, blonde, warm looking woman who takes a single look at John and collects a bag of poultices and extra bandages before she follows him at a quick clip.
She doesn’t bat an eye at the scene she walks in on. All the midwife does is scan the room, find Henry, and rush to aid him.
John doesn't know how long it takes to stabilize Sam. His hands work automatically at Henry and Luciana’s command. He changes bandages, pinches skin, puts pressure on the gouge in his love’s face. Every action is given the appropriate amount of energy and attention. It feels as if he floats through the entire process.
When all three of them settle back on their heels, morning has begun to pour into the barn through the open door.
Henry is tired. John can see the exhaustion in his face and the sweat that traps his greasy waves to his skin. His hands tremble as he ties the last bandage. He fumbles with the ends—tries to pull them around each other. Unsurprisingly, the bandage doesn’t stay and begins to unravel.
John takes over without question, tying the two ends tightly together and tucking the tails beneath the cloth as he’s seen both the midwife and Henry do.
Luciana herself is tired as well. Not nearly as much as Henry, so she’s the one that putters around their impromptu hospital gallery, cleaning up old bandages and empty bottles. She passes Henry and presses a kiss to the crown of his head—at which Henry only twitches. His eyes are closed, hands tucked around Anna who sleeps peacefully against his breast.
And John…
John isn’t tired. He’s wide awake. His hands do not shake, his mind does not falter. He focuses on washing Sam’s wound, now stitched closed in a neat line of—some sort of twine that John would rather not know the origin of.
He smooths out puckered skin, wiping away blood. A smear of dirt on Sam’s shoulder catches John’s eye. It’s nowhere near the canyon of Sam’s chest. John isn’t sure when that happened. Maybe when they were moving him?
“Sir.” The midwife’s rolling voice jolts John out of his aimless staring. “You should drink this.”
John takes the bottle and swallows the entire thing in a couple of gulps without question. It’s sweet, like wine, but there’s a bitter note that touches the back of his throat.
Once the bottle is empty, John removes it from his lips and chuckles weakly. “Lullaby. Really?”
Luciana rubs a matronly hand through his hair. Fresh bread tickles John’s nose—only a hint. Her scent must be strong if he’s catching it.
“You need sleep. I’ve seen the look on your face before. Once all that energy and focus leaves, you’ll be nothing but a corpse that’s still breathing.”
John slowly lowers himself onto the blanket beside Sam. His eyelids already feel heavy.
“Mmh. Thank you.” It was a kind gesture, though John would have been all too happy to lie down with his alpha of his own freewill.
Then again, if either healer had asked anything of him…
Shuddering out a sigh, John presses close to Sam’s bare side. His nose squishes against the clammy, chilled skin that stretches over strong ribs. Inhaling brings him memories of dank basements and fluttering torches. The fragrance eases him into sleep.
***
Henry stares at his pup. His eyes drag over bloody skin and curled fists. Her tiny mouth is screwed up in discomfort, and her eyes are glued shut.
He curls up in his bed, tucking Anna against his body. Carefully, Henry begins to groom her. His tongue cleans every bit of blood from her precious face. He laps at her eyes, allowing them to finally open for the first time since Henry’s dagger bit into Erik’s throat. He doesn’t stop.
Her giggles when he licks the fatty rolls of her neck make his heart flutter. He never once pauses in his duty, even when Anna squeals in laughter and wriggles like a worm.
He needs her clean.
He needs that fucker’s blood off of her.
The thought of bathing her in a trough doesn’t seem—good enough.
Slowly, he collapses onto his mattress, Anna in his arms. As Henry mindlessly licks at her hair, he wishes not for the first time that Hans was here. At his side. Praising him for taking care of their pup. Telling him how strong he is. How capable. The perfect mate. The perfect mother.
Henry exhales. Hot breath makes the damp brown curls on Anna’s head flutter. Both of his eyes are hot with tears and exhaustion.
Outside, birds sing as they wake for the day. The sounds of the village coming to life begins to swell. He can hear Luciana ordering the grooms about, taking no guff regardless of either of her genders. He can’t hear them, but Henry can feel Sam and John in the barn. Recovering.
Saving Sam had been the furthest thing from Henry’s mind as his hands worked all last night. More than once he wanted to snap at John to figure it out. More than once he wanted to hide away in the darkest corner of the barn so that he and Anna would be safe. Tending to injuries with his back facing the outside had been—
A soft keening whine fills his chest. Anna, naturally, parrots it back. Henry gasps for air as he presses his face into her soft, round belly. The scent of wildflowers and baby has his mind spinning.
He’s happy that he saved Sam.
He’ll be happier tomorrow.
Henry just needs to sleep.