Page 35 of Moonless

I reach for his waistband. He catches my wrist, but my palm’s already flat against him through the cloth, and that’s all it takes.

His whole body locks. The sound he makes is low and cut off short, and he comes against my hand with his own fingers clamped around my wrist, holding it there while he shakes through it. The wet spot spreads under my palm. It goes on longer than I’d have guessed.

Then he throws my hand off him.

He’s on his feet before I’ve got my elbow under me, with his back to me and one hand against the nearest trunk. The claws go into the bark. Both ears are flat into his hair, and his shoulders move with his breathing, and he doesn’t turn around.

I sit up. “Was that me?”

“Don’t.”

“I’m asking.”

“I heard you.” The bark cracks under his hand.

However long he’s been alone in this mountain, I’d have gone off at a strong wind. So he’s angry. At me, from the look of it, for having a hand.

I tug the hem down and straighten the rumpled collar of my borrowed shirt.

“If you’re waiting for me to laugh, you’ll be at that tree a long time.”

He draws breath to answer and stops. Then he turns, and he’s down beside me with his hand on my sleeve before I know what he’s smelled.

A warm trickle reaches my ribs.

I look down. A thin dark line has soaked through at the seam.

“Oh.”

He opens the collar farther, and the movement stings. Underneath, the linen is wet along its lower edge.

The branch. I caught myself with the wrong arm.

“It pulled when I slipped.”

He presses the folded cloth back against the wound. His fingers stay flat.

He eases it free without looking at me.

“I can hold that.”

He takes my right hand and places it over the bandage. Then he gets one arm beneath my knees.

“I can walk.”

He lifts me, holding my injured arm between us where it won’t hang. His face has gone still, his ears low against his head.

“I ran on it. It opened. That’s all.”

He turns toward the slope with me in his arms.

I wait for him to tell me I shouldn’t have run. He’s had plenty to say about the water, and the forest, and everything that might have happened to me in it.

Now he looks past my head and walks.

The first rise takes us into thicker trees. I keep pressure on the wound while he climbs, turning sideways to carry me between two trunks.

“You can talk to me.”