Chapter 6: Steady Hands

"You're going to want to hold still."

The man on my table, tall, broad shouldered, with a gash along his forearm deep enough to need real stitches, doesn't flinch. "Wasn't planning on moving."

"Good. People who say that are usually the ones who move the most."

He almost smiles at that, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth. I don't know his name yet, only that he arrived twenty minutes ago with Jaxton at his side, blood soaking through a makeshift bandage from some training accident at the border camp. Jaxton stands near the doorway now, arms crossed, watching in silence.

"Marcus," the man on the table finally offers, like he read the question on my face. "Jaxton's second."

"Delaney." I thread the needle, focus narrowing to the wound in front of me. "This is going to hurt for a second."

"Already hurts."

"It's about to hurt more precisely."

I press the needle through skin and he grunts but doesn't pull away, doesn't so much as tense the muscle under my hand. Good patient. I've had fighters twice his size cry over less.

Jaxton hasn't said a word since he walked in. I feel him watching anyway, that steady weight of attention I've felt every time he's in a room with me lately, patient and unhurried in a way that sets my teeth on edge more than outright staring would.

"How'd this happen," I ask, mostly to fill the silence.

"Sparring accident," Marcus says. "Knife drill gone wrong. My fault, not his." He nods toward Jaxton without looking at him.

"He's being generous," Jaxton says. "I telegraphed the strike. Should have caught it before it landed."

"Nobody's perfect," I say, tying off the first stitch. "Even Alphas."

"Careful." There's something almost warm in his voice now, a note I haven't heard from him before. "That sounds dangerously close to a joke."

"Don't get used to it."

I keep working, drawing the needle through clean lines of skin, and for a few minutes the clinic falls into the kind of quiet I actually like, the sound of my own careful breathing, the soft rustle of gauze, Marcus's steady exhale every time the needle passes through.

My hands are good at this. Steady, sure, exact in a way nothing else about my life has felt lately. It's the one place I still recognize myself completely, the one skill nobody's rejection or ambition or bond has managed to touch.

Then my fingers start to shake.

Not much. A small tremor, barely visible, the kind I've been fighting off for two days now since I healed that fighter at the border and something in my chest hasn't fully settled since. I press my lips together and steady my grip through sheer will, refusing to let it show in the stitch line.

I don't think anyone notices.

Jaxton notices.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't ask if I'm alright, doesn't hover, doesn't do any of the things people do when they want credit for caring. He simply steps forward, quiet as anything, and reaches for the metal tray of instruments beside my elbow, steadying it with two fingers before it can rattle from the vibration traveling faintly through the table.

I glance up at him, surprised.

He doesn't meet my eyes. He's watching my hands instead, the careful line of my stitches, like he's cataloging the exact moment my grip faltered and decided the most useful thing he could do about it was hold something still instead of drawing attention to it.

Something in my chest loosens, just slightly, at that. I don't examine it too closely.

"Almost done," I tell Marcus, voice steadier than I feel. Two more stitches, careful and even, and I tie off the last knot before reaching for the gauze.

"You've got good hands," Marcus says, flexing his fingers experimentally once I finish wrapping the wound. "Didn't feel half of that."

"That's the idea."

"Better than our healer back home, no offense to her." He hops down off the table, testing his weight on the arm carefully. "She's good with broken bones. Not so good with a needle."

"I'll take the compliment."

He nods his thanks and steps out to give his arm room to breathe outside, leaving Jaxton and me alone in the clinic for the first time since the morning he told me flatly that he thought I was his mate.

The silence stretches longer this time, no patient to fill the gaps, no Marcus to soften the space between us.

"You didn't have to do that," I say finally, nodding at the tray still under his fingers.

"Do what."

"Steady the tray. I had it."

"Your hands were shaking." He says it plainly, no accusation in it, no pity either. Just an observation, laid flat on the table between us. "Wasn't going to make you say something about it if you didn't want to."

I don't know what to do with that. Most people either ignore it entirely or make a production out of asking if I'm alright, and either reaction usually leaves me more exhausted than the tremor itself. This is neither.

"It's nothing," I say anyway. "Overworked. Long few days."

"Didn't ask for an explanation."

"I know. I'm giving you one anyway."

Something in his face shifts, not quite a smile, but close enough to it that I feel it land somewhere in my chest.

I start clearing the tray, gathering used gauze, capping the antiseptic, anything to keep my hands moving under his gaze. He doesn't step back to give me room. If anything, he moves closer, reaching to help gather the scattered instruments without being asked, his fingers brushing mine as we both reach for the same pair of scissors at the same time.

The second our skin touches, the bond flares.

It isn't subtle this time. It isn't the quiet hum I've been carrying around in my chest for two days, easy enough to ignore if I keep myself busy. This is sharp, immediate, a jolt of warmth that rushes up my arm and settles somewhere behind my ribs, so intense my breath catches audibly in the quiet clinic.

Jaxton flinches too, fingers freezing against mine, his whole body going still in a way that has nothing to do with control and everything to do with shock.

Neither of us pulls away right away. We just stand there, hands still touching over a pair of surgical scissors, staring at each other while the bond pulses between us, visible almost, like something you could reach out and touch if you tried.

"That," Jaxton says quietly, voice rougher than I've heard it, "was not subtle."

I can't find a single word to answer him with.