Chapter 388

ARIA

vory made a sound that was controlled relief.

‘He came,” I said, which was not a profound observation but was what came out.

‘He always comes,” Ivory said, quietly.

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Vina arrived from the upper slope with Jordan behind her, moving fast but not in wolf form – they’d shifted back at some point during the descent and come down in human form with three guards and, remarkably, a stretcher that someone had thought to oring in the thirty seconds between Kael receiving my message and leaving the pack grounds.

Nina’s eyes swept the scene with the professional efficiency of someone whose job required instant assessment in exactly these situations. She saw Ivory and the angle of her shoulder and her expression did one quick thing – the fast, private version of fear, mmediately managed before returning to the operational neutral.

‘Stretcher,” she said to the guards, without needing to explain further.

The attacker was still on the ground, the wolf standing over her with the specific quality of a predator that had made a decision about its prey and was maintaining the decision. She was injured. Multiple points of damage – the crossbow bolts had done their work and the wolf had done additional work on top of that – but she was conscious, and even injured and on the ground she had he eyes of someone who was still calculating.

‘It doesn’t matter,” she said, and her voice came out ragged but clear, the voice of someone using the last of something to say the hing they’d come to say. “If he comes for you, Ivory. His curse will still kill him.” She looked at Ivory with the specific directed hatred of someone who’d been carrying it for a long time and was finally in the same space as its target. “Everything you did for him. Everything you sacrificed. It didn’t fix anything. The curse doesn’t end with the bond. It ends with the caster. And the caster-”

She stopped.

Or was stopped – the light that flared around her was the same harsh color as her defensive power, but this time it was internal, and it lasted about three seconds, and when it faded she was gone.

Not dead. Not injured further. Gone. A displacement or a transport or something in that category, the kind of power that moved a person from one place to another quickly when staying was no longer viable.

The wolf snapped at the empty space where she’d been with the frustrated energy of something that had been interrupted mid-

purpose.

“Gone,” Jordan said, unnecessarily, from the edge of the terrain.

Nina was already crouching beside Ivory, who had allowed herself to sit back against the rock formation with the careful movements of someone whose shoulder had reached the limit of what could be managed standing.

“Dislocated,” Ivory said, before Nina could ask. “Impact from the bolt. Aryada’s shield got most of it but not all.”

“How long has it been dislocated?” Nina asked, checking the joint with the careful gentleness of someone who’d had this particular person as a patient before and knew what careful meant in this specific context.

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Chapter 387

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“The whole time,” Ivory said.

“The whole time,” Nina repeated. The two words landed with the specific weight of someone who was filing a complaint but choosing to file it after the medical situation was addressed.

“We were busy,” Ivory said.

“You were running on a dislocated shoulder,” Nina said.

“I used the other arm,” Ivory said.

“That’s not ” Nina stopped, took a breath, continued with the assessment rather than the argument. “The guards are going to get you on the stretcher. Don’t try to help them.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Ivory said.

“You’re an invalid with a dislocated shoulder who’s been running obstacle courses,” Nina said, with the flat authority of someone who had run out of patience and was operating purely on professional function. “Get on the stretcher.”

The wolf had moved away from where the attacker had been. He was covering the flat ground with the systematic quality of a predator confirming that the threat was gone – checking perimeters, scenting, moving in the careful pattern of something that hadn’t fully accepted that the target was no longer present and was making sure.

Then he turned back toward us.

Toward Ivory specifically.

He covered the distance between them in about four slow steps – the deliberate pace of something that had shifted out of the attack mode and into something different. The wolf was still huge, still the piece of night that had come down the slope and gone through a power barrier without stopping. But the quality of the movement had changed.

He made a sound that I didn’t have a word for. Not a growl – softer than that. Lower. The sound of something that had found what t was looking for and was acknowledging the finding.

He pressed his massive head toward her.

vory was on the ground, Nina supporting her, waiting for the stretcher. She looked up at the wolf with an expression that I wasn’t prepared for not the clinical composure, not the controlled grief, not any of the managed versions. Just open. The face of someone who was in pain and was looking at something that made the pain more bearable and was letting that be visible.

She reached out with her working hand. Her fingers found the wolf’s head.

“Good boy,” she said. Her voice was quiet. Not the healer’s voice, not the professional one. Something that had the texture of something old. “I’ve missed you.”

The wolf made the sound again. Lower this time. He pressed his head more firmly into her hand and his eyes closed briefly with the specific quality of something settling.

I was watching this and experiencing approximately seven things simultaneously, some of which I had names for and some of which I didn’t.

I didn’t reach out. My hand had moved slightly – the instinct to reach toward him, the pull of the bond – and then the wolf’s eyes opened and found my hand and everything about him changed.

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Chapter 387

A/n; Kael wolf has not properly met Ivory in eight months, neither had she, awwn.