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“Yank the stitch, p-pull it tight. If I’m careful it’ll heal all right…” Annette didn’t know why she still sang, or even what lyrics flowed from her lips. She only knew that singing kept her hands steady while she pushed the needle into Felix’s skin and tugged the thread through his flesh.
A growl rumbled low in his throat. He smacked a hand over his mouth, muffling a pained whimper that couldn’t escape her notice.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She kept her eyes on the exposed muscle, the slow ooze of blood from the wound and the unmistakable burns. His blood stained her hands a sickening red.
“Y-you stopped singing,” Felix complained.
Annette bit her lip, annoyed despite the fear curdling in her gut, despite the tears running down her cheeks, despite the frustration filling her that any ability she had to heal was mediocre at best and useless at worst. She tried so hard to remember Mercie’s advice, but when Felix returned to their cottage with a bleeding, burning gash on his shoulder and fell into her arms without so much as a “hello”, it flew from her mind.
He slumped mostly upright in their bathtub now, his head lolling as he shifted in and out of consciousness. Annette wished she could do something for the pain, but every time she offered him a cloth to bite on he refused.
“Fine, bite your tongue,” she’d grumbled. “Give me more work to do.”
Now her fingers pinched his split skin together while she sewed him shut, her task illuminated with a few precious candles.
“I killed him,” Felix told her in a dazed sort of voice. His hair hung in a damp curtain around his face, wet from the rain that still pounded against their roof. “He thought he could…trespass on our territory.” His lips curled into a snarl before morphing into a grimace.
A thrill filled Annette every time Felix called it their territory, for it wasn’t so long ago he still called it his. Even now, with him bleeding under her hands and more unconscious than awake, it brought a fleeting smile to her lips.
She leaned forward and brushed a kiss on his forehead before murmuring, “You’re an overprotective fool, Felix.”
His hand caught her at the back of her neck, holding their faces together with startling strength. His unsteady breath wisps across her cheek while his fingertips tease at the hair on the nape of her neck. “For you…Annette.”
A shiver traveled up her spine, but now wasn’t the time to indulge in such feelings. “Felix…I’m trying to stitch you up, so”—she yanked on her last stitch—”let me go?”
He winced - maybe she was a little too harsh, she thought when shame bit at her - but dropped his hand. “Can you at least…sing again?” he asked in a small voice that dug a stake through her chest.
Annette forced a smile onto her face. “Maybe,” she said, “if you behave.”
Felix sighed, his glazed amber eyes falling on her as she tied off the thread. “I was too slow this time,” he admitted.
His almost nonchalant concession sent a rush of hot anger through her blood, so sudden Annette snapped, “You let a silver weapon graze you, Felix!” She cut the thread with a knife before setting aside the needle and grabbing a rag. Her breath too harsh, she busied herself with soaking the rag in a basin of warm, soapy water. “I-it’s not like you to be careless,” she added as an afterthought. “It’s not…not like you, and trespassers are almost normal here, but for one to be carrying silver, it—”
“A hunter most likely,” Felix growled. His eyes flashed, the pain clearing in favor of anger, and he struggled to sit up. “I’ll have to patrol for others; they always move in packs, like wolves themselves.”
“Oh no you don’t.” Annette planted her hand against his bare chest and pushed him back down. “You’re not going anywhere until you heal.”
He bared his teeth, pointed canines catching the candlelight and glinting with promise. “How will I keep you safe if I can’t go on patrol?”
Annette rolled her eyes. “I’m sure I’ll manage for a few weeks. Besides,” she injected as much cheer as she could muster into her voice, “you heal quite quickly, so—”
“Not when it’s silver,” Felix said through gritted teeth. He buried his face in his hand. “It’ll be a while before I’m at full strength again.”
Annette’s abdomen lurched unpleasantly, with no small amount of fear. Silver…Felix’s magic blood enabled him to heal at an unnatural - inhuman - speed from anything but a silver weapon. And hunters were always bad news.
She should know; her father was - had been - one.
While she thought and fretted, she wiped away the blood drying around his new stitches, gently scraping his skin clean. The burns from the silver stood out against his pale skin, and Annette didn’t doubt those and the wound itself would leave a scar.
Maybe if she was as adept as Mercie…
Felix’s fingers found her chin and tilted her head up. Her breath caught in her chest when their eyes met, taken aback by the tenderness in his expression. “I know what you’re thinking,” he murmured.
“What?” Annette said, her voice low. If she spoke any louder, she felt she would break whatever spell the rain and the low light cast on them.
“You…I…I mean—” He cut himself off to clear his throat. “It’s not your—I mean, thank you.” His lips quirked into a slight smile. “This wound would’ve killed me if you weren’t here to stitch me up.”
His smiles were rare, but they never failed to fill Annette with warmth. Felix smiled when he meant it, so she recognized it for an assurance.
But the last thing she wanted to consider was his death. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and her lips found his pulse - strong and steady - near his throat.
A shiver wracked his body against hers as his uninjured arm wound around her back and he buried his nose in her hair. She could feel the heat of his skin through her blouse, hear him inhale to take in her scent, so she sank into his embrace with a sigh.
The rim of the bathtub dug into her abdomen, but Annette had no desire to pull away from Felix anytime soon.
She hummed low a few notes without tune before she softly sang of the lone wolf rebuilding his pack. She lost track of how long she sang, how long she and Felix held each other, and she didn’t stop until long after the candles sputtered out and his lips silenced her with kiss.