Page 11 of Untamed

Arlo goes still for one beat, then crouches to pick it up without coming back into my space. “All right. No blanket.” The refusal hangs there with nowhere to go because he doesn’t punish it, doesn’t sigh, doesn’t tell me I’m making this harder. His gaze drops once to my bare body and returns to my face so quickly there’s nothing to fight in it.

“You’re naked,” he says. “I’m ignoring it because your back is infected and neither of us needs another fight.”

I turn with nowhere useful to put that feeling and brace myself on my hands, arranging my body so he can reach the wounds without telling me where to put anything. Arlo settles behind me. “I’m touching the first dart. Just the plastic.” His fingers close around the shaft, then stop completely. “Ready?”

I’m not, but I nod. The first pull burns all the way to my spine, a hiss forcing between my teeth while Arlo’s purr deepens behind me. His free hand stays off my body even when my shoulders lock, which leaves me with only the pain to fight instead of pain and someone else’s grip. He waits for another nod before he takes the second dart.

The third is worse. Swelling has closed around the shaft, forcing him to work it loose a fraction at a time while I dig my fingers into the rug and try not to see white gloves doing the same thing for reasons that had nothing to do with helping me. When I raise one hand, Arlo stops so fast the plastic doesn’t move another millimeter. When I lower it and nod, he starts again.

By the time the final dart comes free, blood is running down my side and sweat has gone cold along my spine. Arlo swears behind me. I turn enough to see gauze already red beneath his hand, and whatever he reads on my face makes his voice settle immediately. “It’s ugly. That’s all.”

He cleans each wound with the purr still moving under his breath, careful without treating me like I might shatter. A flinch makes him change the angle. My hand lifting makes him stop. Nobody has ever started working on my body and then continued acting as though I still owned it once they were halfway through, and I end up staring at the rug because I've no idea where to put that.

“Done.” He tapes the last gauze into place. “Water first. Food if your stomach can handle it.”

Arlo stands and offers me a hand, then starts lowering it as if he remembers halfway through that I may not want to be touched. I catch his wrist as his hand drops. He braces without grabbing me and lets me decide how much weight to give him.

My legs shake the second I stand. I’m taller than he is, broader even without the bear, but fever and shifting have hollowed me out until the size feels useless. The couch is only a few steps away and I still barely make it there with his hand at my elbow before dropping onto the cushions.

He brings water, bread, and something warm enough that the smell turns my stomach less than I expected, then takes the chair across the room instead of sitting beside me. It’s exactly the distance I’ve spent days demanding from him. Now that he gives it to me without argument, I hate how empty the space feels. I eat anyway while Arlo opens his book again, and several minutes pass without a page turning.

“You’re pretending to read.”

My own voice startles me more than his face does. It’s rough from disuse, lower than I remember, and for one stupid second I almost look around for whoever said it. Arlo closes the book carefully, surprise flashing across his expression before he gets it under control. I point the bread at him, making it clear my first voluntary sentence isn’t becoming an event, and whatever he was about to say disappears behind his teeth.

“Good,” I tell him.

My own voice hangs strangely in the room after I stop talking, rough enough that I barely recognize it. Arlo doesn’t stare or smile at me like I’ve performed some miracle for him, which makes it easier to finish eating without wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. After that he leaves my silence alone too, taking an answer when I give one and letting the rest stay mine.

Then his chair shifts against the floor and my attention snaps up toward him. He’s already turning toward the dark hallway when pressure closes around my ribs, sharp enough that the words come out before he gets more than a step away. “Where are you going?”

“To bed.” Arlo stops beside the chair instead of continuing, and I look past him toward the hallway where the light from the living room gives out.

I glance toward the dark hall. Staying human already feels like enough work without sitting out here alone, but shifting again means giving up speech and hands when I’ve only just started using both. I don’t want that either.

Arlo watches me for a second, then turns around and comes back without making me explain. He drops down onto the far end of the couch, leaving plenty of space between us as I settle back into the cushions and keep eating.

Chapter Eight

Arlo

Orion is stretched across the hallway when I come downstairs, one foreleg blocking half the path to the kitchen and his head resting on the other. His amber eyes follow me without the rest of him moving. A week ago, the scrape of my heel against the floor would have brought him upright before I reached the first step; this morning, one ear turns toward me and settles again.

I step over his paw and make it to the coffee maker without having several hundred pounds of bear at my shoulder. That should not feel like progress, but it does. Orion knows where I am, the front door is locked, and for once he seems willing to let those two facts be enough.

“You planning to stay there all morning?”

His chest gives a low vibration against the floor. I’ve learned enough of his sounds to know that one means he has no intention of moving for my convenience.

“All right. I’ll work around you.” I reach for the coffee tin, and his nose twitches at the sound of the lid. “You’re not getting any.”

Orion lifts his head. For a second I expect the usual stare, but his shoulders shift instead, his spine bowing as the bear begins to give way beneath the fur. The change moves through him without the panic I’ve seen before, slower because nothing is forcing it, and by the time his paws narrow into hands he’s kneeling on the rug with his hair hanging over his face.

He stays there for a moment, breathing through the last pull of the shift. Human skin still seems to land badly on him some days, but he doesn’t bolt for the bear again. His hand drags through his curls, pushing them away from his eyes as he looks toward the coffee.

“You said I wasn’t getting any.” His voice is rough from sleep, but there’s nothing hesitant about the sentence.

“I said the bear wasn’t.”