Chapter Text
“Jude, your brother wants you home. The alpha… it seems he’s woken up.”
The basket Jude had been holding hits the snow-covered ground at once, apples and pears scattering in every direction.
He crosses the village in record time. No one gives him a second glance; they’re all well acquainted with his antics. There isn’t a soul here who hasn’t watched him race through these streets before, either as a child with scraped knees, as a flushed-cheeked teenager, or as a man, still incapable of walking anywhere when he could run. A lifetime of following these same paths has made the village feel like an extension of himself.
This time, though, he runs so fast he barely registers the familiar faces passing by. The cold air burns his lungs, his boots slip against the packed snow, and by the time he reaches home, he’s breathless, heart hammering so hard it feels like it might burst.
“Jobe!” He exclaims, closing the door with one foot. “Jobe, I’m here, is—“
An exasperated shhhh comes from the guest room. Jude hangs his coat by the door as he joins his brother there.
Before anything else, he notices the alpha’s scent. It hangs heavy in the air, so strong it’s almost suffocating, pouring from the sweaty, groaning blond man sprawled across the bed.
Jude had caught only the faintest trace of that scent when he’d rescued him three nights ago. It was the weak but unmistakable note of smoked wood that had drawn his attention to a figure half-buried beneath the snow. So faint, in fact, that anyone else might have mistaken him for a corpse, with only the last remnants of his scent clinging stubbornly to the freezing cold. But Jude had knelt beside him and felt the ragged rise and fall of his breaths. It was clear, then, that if he didn’t bring the stranger home, the man wouldn’t survive the night.
Well, he would definitely not describe the scent as faint now. If anything, it’s overwhelming, impossible to ignore. It’s probably the strongest, most aggressive smell he’s ever encountered, from alphas and omegas alike.
If it had been smoked wood then, now it’s a whole forest on fire. Distress bleeds through the scent, sharp enough that Jude can almost feel it in his own body.
The alpha lets out another low groan. One large hand digs into the bandages wrapped around his abdomen — right where Jude’s mother had stitched and dressed the deep gash (not before scolding Jude for bringing a stranger, an alpha, inside their house). His eyes remain shut, face twisted in pain, as though he were trapped somewhere between consciousness and a nightmare.
“Shit, shit. He’s scratching at the wound,” Jude blurts, promptly ignoring the lightheadedness the alpha’s scent had brought on.
“We should… we should probably change the bandages.” Jobe glances up from where he’s crouching beside the bed, looking to Jude for confirmation. “Right?”
“I… guess?”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m not exactly a doctor, mate, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Couldn’t tell,” Jobe mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes. Slimy fucker. “God, where’s mum?”
“We’ve got this,” Jude says, because he’s the oldest and has to take the lead somehow. He’s got this, being the one who dragged the stranger here; the alpha isn’t about to die on him now.
He hurries into his parents’ room and returns with the medical kit.
“Okay,” he whispers, dropping to his knees beside Jobe. “Okay.”
His hands tremble handing the material; Alcohol, fresh bandages, tape. He carefully peels back the old dressing.
Big mistake. The wound is deep, irritated, and blood swells up almost immediately.
Jude stares at it, hands frozen.
“By all means,” Jobe says dryly, “take your time.”
“Shut up.”
Hesitantly, he reaches toward the alpha’s abdomen. It’s all solid muscle beneath the pale skin, tensing under his fingertips. The instant the alcohol touches the wound, the alpha jerks with a groan.
His scent crashes into another aggressive wave and hits Jude all at once. The blood, the smell, the—
“Fuck, I’m gonna puke.” He slaps a hand over his mouth and shoves the supplies into Jobe’s chest. “You do it.”
Jobe stares at him.
“…Seriously?”
“Please.”
He complains but, thankfully, relents eventually. As a fellow alpha, Jobe is far less affected by the overwhelming scent. He takes the supplies, but the stranger groans again the moment his wound is touched, tossing and turning in the bed.
“He’s not gonna let me touch him,” Jobe mutters. “Must hurt like hell.”
Jude chews on the inside of his cheek, eyes darting from the stranger’s feverish face to the angry wound on his side.
“Wait.” He snaps his fingers. For once, his lifelong talent for getting injured comes in handy. “Remember that herbal painkiller Mum makes? The one with the leaves?”
“Uh… yeah, I think so.”
“I’ll go make some.”
Jude slips out of the room, grateful for the chance to put a little distance between himself and the suffocating scent. It hardly helps. The alpha’s distress has seeped into every corner of the house, clinging to the walls as stubbornly as smoke.
He heads straight for the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinet where his mother keeps bundles of dried herbs tied together.
He remembers watching her make the remedy countless times after he’d come home with yet another scrape or bruise, which, admittedly, happened rather often. Four leaves into the mortar, crush them into a paste, add a splash of hot water.
Easy enough.
Except… those had been scraped knees, or a twisted ankle after falling out of a tree. This alpha had half his stomach ripped open.
Jude stares at the bundle of leaves in his hand.
“…Right.”
He shrugs, then empties the entire bundle into the mortar. Better safe than sorry.
He’s just finishing the thick green paste when the front door swings open.
“Jude.”
His mother’s voice freezes him where he stands.
“What,” she says slowly, eyeing the enormous amount of herbs he’d pulverized, “do you think you’re doing?”
“…Uh.”
“Give me that.”
“Mum, finally!” Jobe yells from the bedroom. “Get in here!”
“The… guy. He’s, um, awake,” Jude offers, entirely unhelpfully.
She blinks once, then looks back down at the bowl in Jude’s hands.
“That much would’ve knocked out an elephant.”
He winces.
“I swear,” she sighs, taking the mortar from him, “what would you two do without me?”
Jude glances toward the bedroom. Despite it all, he smiles.
“Honestly? I’ve got no idea.”
By the time his mother finishes remaking the dressing, the room finally begins to settle. The herbal paste does its job quickly. The tightness around the alpha’s brow eases, the harsh edge of his scent softening ever so slightly until the pain no longer feels like it’s pressing against Jude’s own ribs.
Only then does he realize he’d been holding his breath.
“There,” his mother murmurs, tying off the fresh bandage. “That should keep him comfortable for a while.”
Jude is kneeling beside the bed once more, absentmindedly gathering the bloodied cloths scattered across the floor.
And then, the alpha shifts. His eyelids flutter open slowly, revealing, for the first time in three days, and for Jude, for the first time ever, pale eyes blinking into focus.
And it’s—funny, honestly. His scent is like fire, burning Jude from the inside out, only for his eyes to be the color of a frozen, icy sea. A deep blue threaded with gray.
Jude thinks of storms.
For a heartbeat, they simply stare at one another.
“Hey,” Jude says, offering an awkward, clumsy smile. It seems like the right thing to do. If he were badly injured, lying in a stranger’s bed with no idea where he was, he’d probably appreciate someone smiling at him.
The alpha studies him for another second, and his full lips part.
“Vakker,” he whispers. It comes out raw and throaty, but Jude hears it anyway, even if he doesn’t understand. It’s the only thing the alpha says before his eyes drift shut again.
Jude sighs.
“Great.” He looks up at his mother. “He doesn’t even speak English.”
A snort is let out as she finishes cleaning her hands.
“We’ll worry about that later,” he’s gently nudged with her elbow. “Go fetch me the clean linens.”
He’d been around her long enough to know better than to argue.