Vyra

I sat on a long wooden bench in the castle infirmary, my feet dangling limply above the ground.

The Alpha faced away from me, his shoulders working as he shuffled through supplies. He pulled out a long thin needle and thin thread.

"I found it." He said, walking over to the candlelight and burning the metal until it glowed. I was surprised Seren knew how to clean the needle, considering infections were unlikely for Lycan due to their quick healing.

Seren walked over to me, eyeing my place on the bench before pulling over a stool in front of me. So tall, he was nearly level to my face.

His hands lifted, shaking. He made several attempts to place the thread through the small loop at the top, and failed. When he finally pulled the thread through, the tension in his body remained. Was he nervous? Was he afraid of blood?

The last thought made me smile, but I quickly hid it.

He licked his lips. "I've never stitched any wounds before. I've never had to."

I shifted forward, "I can do it myself."

Seren was right that our physical contact should be limited. Every single time he touched me now, I felt the bond screaming at me to prolong it.

The Alpha pulled back, preventing me from taking anything from him. His eyes flickered to mine, and I went still.

"No, let me. Just tell me what to do."

Did he have to stare at me so intensely? To be fair, I don't think he could turn it off.

I decided there couldn't be too much harm in him closing the cut for me.

"Well first we need to clean the wound." I said, gesturing to the now soaked material on my arm. I pulled it off and placed it to the side.

He looked horrified. "How?"

"Is there any alcohol lying around?"

He found a bottle of spirits, quickly. He listened to my instructions, pouring the clear liquid over my wound. It sizzled and burned, but I knew it was clean.

Seren dropped the bottle to the side, resuming his position beneath me. Staring into his eyes for too long made me dizzy, so I focused my forearm.

"Start in the middle of the wound. Pinch the skin together, and go deep enough the thread won't rip through." I was nervous, though not for the pain. I've been through this before. "Space the stitch slightly apart, and don't pull so hard that the skin becomes raised."

"The teacher becomes the student. How satisfied you must be." Seren considered, hovering the needle above my skin.

The slight tremor in his hand told me he was stalling. So he could run a sword through someone but a tiny needle was his downfall?

"I'm just pleased that my skills are of any use for once." I said, distracting him with conversation to make him less queasy.

"You're-." He paused, closing his eyes tightly. A silent struggle ensued, before he decided he would speak. "Without thread, fabric would just be fabric. Knots are temporary and fleeting. Threads are permanent. It brings things together that wouldn't otherwise bond." He shook his head at me, serious. "Weaving isn't useless."

I wanted to laugh, but my heart stalled. It would have been easy to write off his speech as a form of pleasantry, but the man meant it.

If I hadn't found his sketches, a talent anyone else would deem useless for an Alpha, I wasn't sure I would have seen his sincerity.

I never received a simple thank you from any of the Lycan I weaved materials for. I wasn't sure what to do with his acknowledgment.

"In a Clan where people can speak through their minds, shift into giant beasts, and rip out other's throats with their bare hands, it feels that way."

"Without clothes they wouldn't be able to half the things you just described. I mean they could but-" he cut himself off, grimacing at the visual.

My laugh tumbled out of me, sudden and real. Seren didn't join in, his expression changing into one of intrigue.

I leaned back, wondering if there was something on my face. "What?"

His silver irises nearly disappeared in the low light, his pupils taking over. "It's nothing. You just laughed. You don't do that often."

My smile vanished. "I could say the same about you."

Seren looked away first, coughing to clear his throat as he decided to finally sew up my arm. He leaned in, grabbing my forearm delicately with his large hand and bringing it closer to his chest.

His thumb ran near the sensitive edge of the cut.

I could see his pulse in his throat.

"Seren." I started, "Stick me with the needle or I will do it myself."

The man nodded, swallowing. He held my wound together with his other hand, and quickly pierced the skin.

It was a little deeper than I had wanted, and I couldn't help but bite the side of my cheek until it bled.

"I'm sorry." Seren went pale. He pulled the thread through, watching it soak red. "I know this probably hurts more than getting the cut."

You weren't afraid when you were chasing me through the forest and I was scratched by branches. You weren't sorry when you dragged me to my parent's grave.

The fragmented pieces of Seren tried desperately to fit together in my mind, and they just couldn't.

"It's alright. There is nothing else you can do to take the pain away, so just get it over with." I said icily.

He noticed my shift in mood, and made several more stitches into my skin. He was careful, but moved quickly.

Each stitch was neat and well spaced.

Pragmatic. Perfection. Of course, the Alpha would execute something he just learned at the level of a master. He wouldn't have it any other way.

That was a trait all the Seren's I knew possessed.

"That's something you'll learn to conquer through training. Your body forgets pain so you can hurt yourself, over and over again." He changed the subject in time with his next puncture, "Is sewing clothing different from stitching skin?"

"Yes, I've had to stitch myself a few times. It's not like anyone else could do it."

Silence followed with a quick intake of breath. The sheer unsettling feeling of knowing I was different washed over me.

Neither Sonya or Petir were hybrids. The Mistress —my grandmother—was playing an act. I was left to take care of my human frailty.

"There's something covetable about the ability to scar. Sometimes I think we forget that we are not mortal invincible."

He meant the full blooded Lycan. I learned early on 'we' from their mouths was the implied absence of myself.

"You have a scar." I said it before thinking, my eyes already searching and finding that small, shiny mark on his upper lip.

"From when I was younger. I hurt myself doing something I shouldn't have. Until we are thirteen, we heal slowly. It prevents our bones from setting improperly." His posture stiffened as caught me looking at it, "You noticed."

My cheeks heated, and I hoped the candlelight hid it from his view. He was nearly finished stitching me up. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

"What was it that you shouldn't have been doing? You're not one to break rules." I asked, trying to distract him from the fact I was staring at his mouth for far too long.

Seren paused. I he was going to leave me a quarter undone before he picked up again. "How would you know?"

The intention was clear in his voice, if not a little bitter. Maybe it hurt his ego when I admitted I rarely paid attention to him before chaos struck down on us.

"Mmm. You're right. I don't."

"I don't break the rules. I simply mold them to my liking." Seren softened his previous blow, a rare smile flirting at the corner of his full lips. "What, did you think I was this uptight as a kid too?"

His father made sure I never got the chance. I was threatened to stay away from his son any time I looked in his direction.

My arm was entirely sewn at this point and still he held me within his hands.

"I don't really know much about you Seren. Other than what you choose to show me." I confessed.

Before I could protest, he lifted the thread to his mouth and snipped it with his teeth. He tied the end of the thread into a tight knot, and scraped his stool back from the table.

The entire time I wanted him to give me space. Now that he had, I felt impossibly cold.

It was silent as he got up to put away the tools. He turned to me, back leaning against the wall. His expression wasn't unkind, but there was obviously something that was bothering him.

It was like I was no longer there with him.

I nearly got up and walked out, thinking I was dismissed, before his voice filled the room. I stopped dead in my tracks.

"One day I went walking out into the woods further than I should have been, escaping some history lesson. I wasn't allowed to go walking into the forest by myself at that age, it was dangerous." he paused, silver tracing over me. "The threat wasn't bears, or boars. It was a little girl who I was meant to avoid at all costs."

Realization left me bleeding all over again.

"Seren." I shook my head.

I wanted him to stop talking. Needed him to. It felt like we were hanging on the edge of a cliff and he was prying my fingers loose one by one.

He seemed to deliberate for a few moments, before continuing anyways. Not in a malicious manner, but because he wanted to let it out.

"I usually followed the rules, but I was curious. She was so far away from our pack and much too close to the water. I watched her until I figured out she was collecting rocks and lining them up, which I thought was so deeply strange." he smiled, the dimple in his cheek filled with shadow. It disappeared as he stared off in the corner of the room. "She fell in so suddenly, I had only a second to react. The lake was nearly frozen, so I had to dive in at the same spot."

No. No. No.

It couldn't be. I stood shaking in the middle of the infirmary. If the foundation crumbled around us I wouldn't have noticed.

Seren crossed his arms over his chest, my ears ringing as he confirmed my fears.

"I dragged her body onto the snow, and out of the water. I waited until she coughed, but I couldn't bring her back to warmth. That would have shattered the rules. So I left her there, in the snowy bank, freezing but alive. My bloody lip was the only indication any of it happened."

It was him. And he stood there before me like it was nothing, when it was everything.

He saved my life not once, but three times when he had every reason in the world not to.

"How-" I started, choking on the words.

Seren ran a finger over his scar, tracing the memory.

"I think you fight better when you're unconscious."

It was beyond me how it could make a joke at a time like this. Slowly, the perceptive man realized the weight of the story he told on me. It was obvious, as surely my expression was both horrified and completely disoriented.

I gave him the scar that haunted my dreams.

"You saved me. I never knew who, no one else was around. Why?" My voice was a raspy whisper. "Why? Tell me why you spared me."

I wanted an answer, and I wouldn't let him evade it this time.

The Alpha shifted, rolling his shoulders. The light in his eyes turned to controlled arrogance.

"Relax, Vyra. It's best we keep things that don't matter in the past. I was a child then, I didn't see you as a threat."

"And now?" I backed him into a corner.

My hands were kept in fists at my sides as I took in breath, his stance, the time it took for him to come up with a response.

And still, he managed to strike true and cut deep.

The Alpha closed the distance between us in several strides, and I refused to fall back.

He looked down at me, his hand raising. My mouth fell open when he gently tugged on several strands of my hair hanging over my chest, bringing me closer to him.

He left me with a clear warning.

"I wouldn't make the same mistake again."