Page 37 of Wolf's Bane
“I know I’ve been a terrible snob and I’m the last person you’d want to help,” Jase said.
“Miles is a friend,” she responded. None of this was for Jase Parkell. He could go rot for all she cared.
Travers helped Jase to carry Miles to the drawing room. Fortunately, the room was not far. They deposited the delirious man on a settee. “I say, life in the country is more exciting than I expected,” Jase said.
Solenne ignored his attempt at humor or whateverthathad been.
“Miss?” Cook asked from the stairwell that led to the kitchens below.
“Cool water, please, and a clean cloth. Miles?” Solenne knelt before Miles and held the man’s face in both hands. He blinked slowly and his pupils were wildly dilated. “Did you eat something in the woods? A berry?”
Although it hadn’t happened in years, flora near the nexus could shift. Benign fruit turned toxic overnight, just one of the many difficulties about life on the fringes of civilization. The sheep did well on because their stomach would digest most anything, nexus-twisted plants or not.
“N-no, no. I can’t…” Miles slumped back onto the settee. The bag on his shoulder slipped to the floor. “Bite.”
“A bite?” She frantically searched him for signs of blood and the cursed wolf’s bite. Other than mud and sweat, his clothes were pristine. The dark fabric hid blood too well. Perhaps it was a smaller creature. She tore at buttons to push open the fabric.
“Miss Marechal!” Jase gasped in shock.
“Now is not the time for decorum. We have to treat the bite.”
“Yes, of course. Allow me. I insist.” He removed his own coat and unlaced Miles’ boots. Constructed from sturdy leather, nothing should have been able to strike through the boot. Nonetheless, Jase removed the boots and stockings, and pushed up trouser legs to check his calves.
Nothing.
Solenne held Miles’ wrist to push up his shirt sleeves. The man hissed and jerked away, nearly knocking a fist into her. The bite was angry and red, possibly already infected, and large enough to belong to a wolf.
“What bit you, Miles?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “Luis needs…the bag.”
“Was it a wolf? A beast? This is important.”
“So is the armor I made for Luis!”
Exasperated, she dumped out the contents of his bag. An undershirt slithered to the ground, almost soundless as the fabric flowed. Dull gray, it looked very much like the often-repaired armor Luis wore, only new and whole.
“Did you make this?” She retrieved the shirt, the fabric flowing as smoothly as water in her hands. Made of one piece of fabric, it had no discernible seams. “This is remarkable. Did you recreate the carbon nanofiber?”
“A close approximation.” He sat up, wincing. “I spun the thread, and Mrs. Berry knitted the shirt. For Luis.”
Solenne set the item to the side. There would be time to wonder if Miles had been intrigued by the challenge of making the armor or if he had been driven by the need to protect Luis. “We need to get that bite cleaned. I’ll need to fetch my kit. Stay here,” she told Miles, then looked to Jase for support. He nodded.
“Miss, I will fetch what you require,” Travers said.
She shook her head. She didn’t know what she needed, exactly. Wolfsbane. Honey. “Yes. My kit. Wolfsbane. All of it.”
A feminine shout came from the other end of the house. Travers paled. “See to that. We’ll manage in here,” she ordered.
“What can I do?”
Cook arrived with the water and clean cloth on a dull metal tray. Solenne took the woman’s burden and set it on the side table. “Get his shirt off. Hold this to the wound until it stops bleeding,” she said.
Her workroom was at the back of the house, in the original part of the building. The last expansion nearly a century prior added the front rooms laid out in a logical grid, with a corridor running down the center and a large foyer designed to impress guests. Narrow, twisting corridors filled the older section.
Poorly heated in the winter and poorly ventilated in the summer, the family seldom used this section of the house, other than to store weapons and artifacts. Her workroom was at the very end, a room with tall, narrow windows that faced the morning sun.
She ran, skidding precariously as she rounded a corner.
