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“Do you think of anything besides sex?”

That earned another grin, this one toothier, but more innocent. “Food, sometimes.”

“Hm.”

Outside, the birds fell silent after a sudden burst of fluttering wings, and Leif heard the crack and rustle of drake wings, instead. Two drakes calling back and forth to one another, grumbling cries that were conversation, rather than warning.

Ragnar’s gaze lifted to the window, expression going serious. He stood, and walked around the end of the bed. He hid it well, but Leif didn’t miss his limp; it was of the sort that would plague him permanently, Leif thought; a stiffness that would haunt him after a long day, the kind best treated with a warm bath and a stack of pillows, afterward, a good rubbing-in of liniment. Leif pictured himself rubbing it in, working it deep into the bend at the back, and down his calf, over his shin; could imagine the low grunt as the cool tingling took hold, and the tension slowly eased.

Ragnar unlatched the window and pushed its halves open; leaned on the sill and gazed out at whatever lay beyond. “She’s got five total,” he said, and Leif blinked away the haze of imagination to realize he spoke of Amelia’s drakes. “The big one – Alpha” – he snorted – “and then his four girls.” He shook his head, marveling. “They showed up when the dust was settling. We didn’t have any carts, so one of them picked you up in her claws and carried you here to the manor.”

“Likely,” Leif said, and Ragnar shot him a look. “Seriously?”

“Aye. You were dead to the world.” He held his gaze a moment longer, driving home his worry. Then turned back. “She’s been out scouting again. No one will tell me – I’m only the man wearing the collar, after all – but I get the impression they’re wanting to get on the road again, and we’re causing a delay.”

“I am, you mean.”

“If there’s no you, there’s no pack,” Ragnar said, firmly. “They can leave if they want, but I’m not letting you out of bed while you can’t even sit up on your own power.”

“Yes, Mother.”

The corner of Ragnar’s mouth twitched up, but his gaze remained trained out the window. Leif wanted to get up and join him, but knew that was beyond his abilities, at the moment.

Ragnar lifted a two-fingered wave, and then turned back into the room. “She’s coming up here, I expect.”

“You sound eager about that.”

Ragnar shot him a smirk. “And you smell it.”

~*~

Amelia glanced up at the façade of the manor as she mounted the side terrace steps, and saw a pushed-open window on the second floor, long hair lifting in the breeze. Ragnar offered a two-fingered wave: Leif was awake.

She gave a salute of acknowledgement and jogged up the last two steps and through the open terrace doors into the ballroom…which had been transformed into a surgery in the past few days.

It had been a battered, sorry rendezvous party that had trooped back into camp three days before. Amelia had flown on ahead, and sent back wagons for the wounded unable to walk…and for the dead. She’d cursed and fumed over the lives loss, but it was the mental picture of Leif stretched out on the road, unconscious and shredded, that haunted her nightmares. She’d looked at his torso, and then had to look away, retching before she could steel herself. The problem, Ragnar had said, was that a man who was only a man would have bled to death long before, and so the drakes would have given up the effort far sooner. A cleaner corpse would have lay where Leif’s devastated, but somehow still-breathing form had.

But even with his supernatural healing abilities, he’d been in far worse shape than any of the other wounded. And so she’d instructed Valencia to take him carefully into her claws and carry him back to the manor, so he could be seen to faster. Amelia had landed, slid down off Alpha’s back, checked to see that Leif was still breathing – impossibly, he had been – and gone pelting up to the doors, shouting for aid.

It had been Colum and Leda, surprisingly, who’d stepped up as physicians. Bookish Colum who’d studied anatomy and medicine, and who had a strong stomach, and steady hands. And Leda, whose needlework was unrivaled in the Valley, and who could stitch skin as well as fabric. The two of them had seen to Leif, while Amelia flitted about, fetching warm water, and clean bandages.

By the time they were ready to move him upstairs – men were already setting up cots and laying down old rugs and drapes to serve as drop cloths in the ballroom – a cloud of dust had heralded Shadow’s sliding stop in the yard, and it was Ragnar who’d climbed out of the saddle – and promptly collapsed when he tried to put weight on his bad leg. A nasty compound fracture he tried to ignore as he crawled up the stairs, wild-eyed and as lathered as Shadow, sweating and shaking and in dire need of reunion with his alpha.

The other wolves had followed him, on four legs, and milled about the yard, shooting nervous and worried glances toward the house. But none were in such a state as Ragnar. Amelia had stood behind him herself, holding him down by the shoulders while his leg was reset, cleaned, and stitched. Save one whimper when Colum put the fractured bone back in place, he made no noise while they’d worked, and after, when Amelia suggested food, or a bath, he’d wanted nothing but to be shown to Leif’s side.

As the day wore on, the others had finally arrived, sweaty, and exhausted, and banged-up. The wounded were helped into the surgery and seen to. The well went off to bathe, and sleep, and confer with one another. Amelia called a meeting that night, and together, she, and Reggie, and Connor had relayed the whole story to Edward, Leda, and Colum.

Leda had pressed a hand to her lips, eyes wide with shock.

Edward had shaken his head, braids rustling against his back, and murmured, “Gods. What next?”

“We catch our breath,” she’d said, on a deep exhale, and gladly accepted the cup of wine Colum set down before her.

Three days had passed, since. The men had rested, had healed up. Amelia had gone scouting in every direction, spending long hours on Alpha’s back, scanning the ground for anything unusual. She’d spoken with the farmers herself, asking about the girl who’d blown up, but no one knew her or was missing her. It was a mystery, still.

They’d buried the dead, and tended to the injured, and talked, tentatively of their next steps. And all the time, a pall had lain over the house, while the Crown Prince of Aeretoll lay unresponsive in his bed. No one asked the obvious, most pressing question: what if he didn’t wake? What if the heir of Aeres died? Or remained vegetative?

Amelia didn’t want to consider having to tell the king in person.