“Yes.” Fleance’s voice sounded as though his throat was full of stones. “And you’re not weak. No one could think that.”
“I feel weak.” She felt as though her body was sucking into itself, becoming brittle and fragile beneath the smothering white dressing gown. She’d deliberately not gotten properly dressed because she thought she knew which way this evening was going to go. What a joke. “And I hate it.” She swallowed, her mouth a tight, unhappy line. “I hate feeling as weak and useless as everyone thinks I am.”
Fleance wrapped his hand gently over her leg, where the bandaged bite was covered by her dressing gown.
*Sheena…* Fleance tipped her head up so she was looking into his eyes. They were gray-blue, without a trace of hellhound fire. *You’re not weak. You’re going through something no shifter—no person—should have to endure. A hellhound attacked you. Weren’t you just talking about being easy on yourself when you’re getting over bad stuff?*
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. *That was advice for you, not advice for me. I—*
Her leg throbbed, and images filled her mind. A rush of rotting black fur. The fetid, sweet stink, like a weeks-old dead thing rolling over in brimstone-bubbling water. Her sheep trying to run. Claws scraping the ground. Teeth. Teeth that seemed too big for the creature’s sunken jaws, flashing close, jaws wide as a tunnel’s mouth—
“Fuck this,” she muttered, and pulled her dressing gown up so she could get at the bandage. She tore it off. “I’ve had bites before. None of them hurt for this long. Something’s wrong.”
“No, it can’t be—”
They both fell silent.
The wound was clean. It had started scabbing over, which accounted for some of the scrabbling, itchy pain, but something was clearly wrong.
Dark lines ran out from the three sharp cuts in her leg.
“No,” Fleance whispered, his voice hoarse.
“It looks infected.” Sheena’s voice whined in her ears, tight and nasal. “But it can’t have gone that bad so quickly, could it? It feels… hot…”
She trailed off. Fleance’s face had gone gray. He rubbed the back of one hand over his eyes as though he was trying to change what he was seeing.
“It’s exactly what mine looked like,” he said. His voice was as ashen as his face he lifted one hand to shiver across a row of scars on his neck and shoulder. Sheena had noticed them before, but now she guessed without him saying anything what they were. Bite marks. “I thought I was dying. Out in the middle of nowhere, attacked by a wild animal. I had no idea about shifter healing. I had no idea about shifters. I thought I was bleeding out and I think it being a dangerous wound meant I turned more quickly, because Rhys only got bitten on the hand, and it took weeks for his hellhound to… You don’t want to hear this,” he said, suddenly changing course. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his forehead and groaned. His voice cracked into a pained rasp. “I should have gotten us both out of there the moment Parker appeared. If I’d acted faster, I could have kept you safe. I wasted time fighting when I should have—I’m so sorry, Sheena. I didn’t save you.”
He pulled his hand away from where it had been resting on her leg. The golden cord in her chest tensed, as though the physical connection had strengthened it and now it was straining to cross the space between them.
Sheena snatched his hand back and twined her fingers between his.
“But you said it was impossible. I’m already a shifter,” she said, and the words echoed in her ears.
Fleance’s eyes looked haunted. “Can you find your sheep?”
She tried. God, she tried. But there was nothing inside her but emptiness… and the smell of smoke.
Her shoulders tightened. “How is that even possible? My sheep is like…” She waved her hands as though she was literally trying to pick up the words she wanted. “God, I don’t know. My cousin Aroha is the one who’s into all that spiritual stuff. It’s a reflection of my soul and part of it, too… how can you get a new part of your soul? Or if it’s a reflection of your soul, does it change who you are totally?”
She stopped. Fleance had gone gray; his face looked like a skull in the light sifting in through the window. She swallowed. “I didn’t mean—obviously you didn’t change who you are, when you became a hellhound shifter…”
“I don’t know if you’re right or not.” His expression was still locked in harsh, fleshless angles, but his voice was strangely soft. Sheena pulled him closer and he moved reluctantly, as though his muscles were as paralyzed as his face. “I was eighteen when Parker turned me. I’d just lost my parents, the house I grew up in… I don’t know if I am the same person I was then. Sometimes he feels like a different person.”
Sheena wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t say that. I’m talking rubbish, ignore me.”
He shivered against her, once, then relaxed and turned towards her. He rested his head on hers and murmured, his breath rustling against her hair: “You might be right.”
“I’m never right about anything,” she said quickly.
“But if you are, this is the first time I’ve ever been truly glad Parker turned me.” He lifted his head and she looked up to find him staring
