Shattered

He sank his claws into the soft soil, gently turning it back and digging around the roots and deeper, then began to bend before a voice pulled him from his work and he stepped away, frame growing still as his head turned at the call of his name. Thoughtful eyes chilled as they locked with the green gaze of a wolf he didn’t fully wish to see near his pack and family ever again.

He regarded her with absolutely no warmth in his eyes, taking in the cuts and marks remaining from the raid. He could smell the beginnings of infection, see the inflammation. Coolly, he turned away, gesturing sharply with his nose toward a stand of Iris, their frilly blue flowers a sweet-scented flare of color among the rich greens of the foliage. “The Irises are that way. Blue flowers. If you even cared in the first place.”

His soft, deep, brogue-laden voice was flat, his body stiff and unyielding as he bent toward the Meadow-Sweet and opened his jaws in preparation to grasp the root ball in his jaws and rest it free of the soil. Inside his mind, thoughts seethed, his Healer’s nature warring with anger. It shouldn’t bloody well matter to him if she died of infection, said the anger. She’d brought them upon herself. Why hadn’t they been treated properly? Asked the healer he was.