Akira Stone's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The cabin door was still swinging shut behind them when the knock came. Three hard strikes. Jasper set the satchel on the table and put himself between Akira and the door. He looked at her once. She read the order in it and lowered her chin, tucked her hands loose at her sides, and let her hair fall forward over one ear. Not hidden. Just softened. Jasper opened the door. His sister came in first. She was smaller than Akira expected, wiry, mud on her boots, a bandage looped around her forearm from something older than today. Her eyes went straight past Jasper and found Akira standing in his front room. Alive. Her mouth opened and closed once. "You said body," the second said behind her. He filled the doorway. He did not step in. "I said full sun," Jasper said. "I didn't promise you a body." The sister crossed the floor. She stopped an arm's length from Akira and breathed her in the way Jasper had in the shed. Her lip pulled back. "Elf." Akira lowered her head further. She kept her voice small and even. "I meant no harm. I healed your pup. He was caught in a wire." The sister's hand came up fast. It stopped short of Akira's face. Akira did not flinch. She had counted on the pause and it came. "Show me," the sister said. Akira reached slow into the satchel on the table. She drew out the bone needle and the twist of bloodroot and laid them on the wood. Then she turned her palms up. A thin line of dried blood still crossed one of them where the snare had cut her when she worked it open. "Front left leg," Akira said. "Above the joint. The wire went to bone. I closed it clean. He'll limp a week." The sister's throat moved. She looked at the needle. She looked at Jasper. "He came home limping," she said. Quiet. To him, not to Akira. "Front left." "I know," Jasper said. The second stepped inside now. He did not like the shift in the room and he wanted to put his weight back into it. "Pack law. Trespass is trespass. Doesn't matter what her hands did after." "My pup," the sister said, still quiet, still not looking at him. "Your pup is one wolf." "My pup is mine." She turned to him. "Go wait outside." He stared at her. He stared at Jasper. Jasper said nothing, which was the whole answer. The second walked out. The door slapped the frame. The sister looked at Akira a long moment. Then she picked up the bone needle, turned it in her fingers, and set it back down. "She stays until my pup walks," she said to Jasper. "After that, we talk again." She left. Jasper shut the door and leaned his forehead against it. Akira let out the breath she had been holding since the knock. She had bought a week. She had also just been claimed as pack property, and the second would not forget being sent outside. Akira spoke up softly, calling out after jasper’s sister “wait..! You’re hurt too… please i can help.. im an elven healer… the only reason i came into your territory was because i needed more bloodroot… one of my clan elders is gravely wounded… its the only cure and it doesn’t grow in our territory… i took the risk because i was willing to sacrifice myself to save my kin…