Page 88 of Wolves of the Rising Moon

The sightof the steeply pointed mountains, the boreal line of trees, and the cabins dotting the rocky face, brings a joy in my heart I can only describe as homecoming.

This is where I belong. Where the air smells right and the larch trees are just growing their needles back.

Silly trees.

Eden—or perhaps it was Julian—arranged for a chopper to take us from the Cranbrook airport up our mountain so we didn’t have to hike it with a wounded Champion.

A Champion whose arm is almost completely covered in new raw skin by the time we get back to the healer cabin.

Mari, who I’d caught up on the flight over, looks gaunt and pale. Peaked, even.

She knows what’s coming, and I don’t blame her one bit for not looking forward to it.

“Get take him to the nest,” she says, and I resist the urge to point out the island would be better. It’s higher and more central to all the potions…

But it’s likely she chose the nest for the sheer comfort the pile of communal blankets offers.

It’s pack. It’s home. It’s family. And she is gonna need every bit of comfort she can get.

Once Jonah and Rafe arrange Drago in the nest, Mari addresses them. “I don’t think either of you wants to be here for this,” she says, hands on her hips, still pulling her delta energy despite how terrified I know she is.

Rafe glances at Jonah, and Jonah crosses his arm. “I’m not going anywhere,” Jonah says.

Rafe agrees. “We’re all in this with you, man,” he says to Drago.

Mari rolls her eyes. “Fine. But stay out of my way.” She turns that sharp tongue and gaze toward me. “It’s up to you, but I think you should probably not see what’s about to happen,” Mari says with a surprising amount of empathy and softness.

I grab her hands in mine. “I’m not letting you do this alone, dummy.”

Her hazel eyes brim with wetness. She yanks a hand out of my grasp and wipes them away without saying another word on the matter.

“Gimme the arm,” she says, and Jonah hands her the cooler.

Eden had really thought of everything. The cooler and ice were waiting on the jet when we boarded.

Mari settles down next to Drago in the nest, and I sit on the other side of him, facing her.

Jonah and Rafe hover around the edges before Mari glares at them and they both find stools to sit in.

She unlatches the cooler and her face goes from a little gray to appallingly green as she stares at Drago’s dismembered arm. I’m about to reach over and offer to take it out off the ice for her, but she powers through, picking it up and choking back a gag as she lays it on the nest next to Drago.

She lines up the arm with the freshly healed stump and then takes a long pull on a pain relieving draft. She finishes the entire bottle and offers a second to Drago.

He takes it without question.

“This is gonna suck,” she says and pulls a scalpel from the folds of the nest.

I reach for her over Drago’s body, expecting her to ignore me or roll her eyes. Because healer magic is the most ridiculous, painful, archaic way to do this. Mari can’t simply magic the arm back where it goes. She can’t say a spell or rub some herbs on it.

Mari has to cut away all the healed flesh, focusing all her energy on the mending so Drago’s natural wolf magic can do the rest.

All the while, she’ll take on most of the pain.

Because that’s how fucking healers work.

Mari takes my hand in her non-dominant one and squeezes the ever-loving shit out of it.

The first few slices are the worst, and I squeeze back through all the screaming. I fall forward when Mari takes a break, catching myself with a hand on Drago’s good arm.

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