Chapter 86 Chapter 86
Chapter 86 Chapter 86
E L A R A
"Come in," Kane called, his voice steady despite everything.
The door creaked open, and Sera swept inside, her presence as commanding as ever, trailed by a young maid clutching a wooden bowl and a folded towel.
Sera's eyes flicked straight to Kane, assessing him with that cool efficiency she wielded like a blade. "I've sent for the healer," she said, her tone clipped and professional, "but it's best we address the injury before it gets worse."
She didn't so much as glance my way. It was as if I were a shadow on the wall, invisible and irrelevant. The slight burn, a reminder of my precarious place here, Luna in name, but still an outsider to some especially her.
I swallowed the sting, focusing on Kane instead.
He nodded, a brief incline of his head, and Sera turned to the maid. "Fill the bowl with the mixture. Let's get to work."
The maid bobbed her head and hurried to the side table where a pitcher of some herbal concoction waited that I hadn't taken note of, pouring it into the bowl with practiced hands.
Sera moved to Kane without hesitation, kneeling beside him on the floorboards. Her fingers, steady and sure, reached for the hem of his shirt. "Lift your arms if you can," she instructed softly, and he complied, grunting as the fabric peeled away from the wound.
I stood frozen a few paces away, my hands curling into fists at my sides. The injury looked even worse in the lamplight, a raw, inflamed gash, the wooden shard dark with crusted blood.
Sera probed gently around the edges, her touch clinical, murmuring something about infection as she dipped the towel into the steaming mixture and began cleaning the area.
Kane's breath hitched, but he didn't pull away, his gaze fixed on some distant point across the room.
Part of me wanted to shove her aside, to take over, but I knew better. Sera was pack-born, trained in these matters, while I... I was still learning the shape of this world.
Still, watching her hands on him, so close, so intimate in their necessity, stirred a knot of unease in my gut.
The steam from the herbal mixture curled up like ghosts in the dim light, carrying a sharp, bitter scent that stung my nostrils.
Sera's hands moved with practiced precision, dabbing at the ragged edges of the wound, drawing out flecks of dried blood and grit.
Kane's knuckles whitened on the bedpost, his body rigid, but he made no sound beyond that initial hitch of breath. I couldn't stand it anymore, this helplessness gnawing at me like a beast in the dark.
"Isn't it better for the healer to..." I started, stepping forward, my voice cutting through the tense silence.
Sera didn't even look up, her interruption slicing my words clean in half. "Right, let's wait for the healer. By then the Alpha would have bled to death."
Heat flooded my cheeks, a mix of frustration and embarrassment. "That's not what I mean," I shot back, my tone sharper than I'd intended.
She paused then, her cloth hovering over Kane's skin, and finally turned her head to fix me with those cold, unyielding eyes. "I've been treating wounded warriors long before you got your first fuck, so do your duty by standing there as a fucking Luna that you are."
The words hit like a slap, raw and venomous, stripping away any pretense of civility.
I stared at her, mouth agape, disbelief crashing over me in waves. How dare she?
I was the Luna, bound to Kane in blood and ritual, yet here she was, dismissing me like some pampered outsider.
My pulse thundered in my ears, a retort bubbling up my throat, something about respect, about my place at his side but before I could unleash it, Kane's hand shot out.
In a blur of motion, he seized Sera's chin, his fingers digging in just enough to tilt her face up to his. His eyes burned with that feral intensity, the Alpha uncoiling beneath the pain.
"Watch your tongue while you still have it," he growled, low and lethal, the threat hanging heavy in the air like the promise of violence.
Sera's expression didn't flicker, but I saw the subtle tightening of her jaw under his grip.
The maid froze mid-step, bowl trembling in her hands, and the room seemed to shrink around us, the fire's crackle the only sound breaking the standoff.
Sera's eyes widened just a fraction, but her voice came out steady, laced with that false deference that grated on my nerves. "I am sorry, Alpha," she said, her words smooth as oil. "I didn't mean to upset you."
I frowned, watching the way her gaze flicked back to the wound almost immediately, her hands resuming their work without a hint of genuine remorse.
She wasn't apologizing to me, or even for her sharp tongue, she was worried about Kane, about keeping him calm, about not crossing the line that could cost her more than a bruised chin.
It burned in my chest, this dismissal wrapped in loyalty to him alone.
Kane's grip loosened, releasing her with a deliberate slowness that spoke of restrained fury.
He leaned back against the headboard, his breath ragged but controlled, and Sera wasted no time.
She pressed a fresh cloth to the entry point, murmuring something about steadying him as she gripped the protruding shaft of the arrow.
The muscles in Kane's jaw clenched, a low rumble escaping his throat, not quite a growl, but close as she twisted and pulled.
The arrow came free with a sickening wet sound, blood welling up in its wake, dark and sluggish.
I stepped closer despite myself, my eyes drawn to the gash now exposed. The flesh around it looked inflamed, veins spidering out like black ink beneath the skin.
Poison.
I realized with a chill snaking down my spine, that's why his body hadn't healed itself back together like it should have.
Sera moved with unflinching expertise, packing the wound with a poultice that smelled of crushed herbs and earth, her fingers deft as she stitched the edges with a bone needle and thread.
The angry red began to fade almost at once, the skin pulling together under her touch.
She knew what she was doing, alright, better than I'd given her credit for, even if her mouth was a weapon all its own.