Margery blinked. Really? That sounds so cool.
Robena pushed at Donal’s hands, starting to panic. “No, no, no, I don’t—”
“I like stardust,” Margery murmured. “Maybe Donal should do the other cub first, and I’ll go watch Kinnon getting stardust.” She rocked as if to move.
The girl latched onto Margery tighter than a baby possum. “No, me first. Stardust,” she demanded of the healer.
His lips twitched before he lifted the gauze to expose sluggishly bleeding cuts. “Ah, not very deep at all.” He pushed the edges of one laceration together, as if gluing them shut, but as he held the wound, his other hand traced over the pinched line—and the skin melded together. The wound closed.
Tears prickled the backs of Margery’s eyes at the wondrous sight. No hurting for days, no scars for this little one. Thanks to the Goddess—and the healer.
“It sparkses in me,” the girl whispered…although her grip on Margery didn’t relax.
The healer’s deep chuckle was like dark velvet. “Excellent. Let’s do another scratch.”
Slowly, he healed the long ugly gashes until nothing was left. “There we go.” After giving the cub a smile, he turned to the boy. “Kinnon, your turn.”
The boy cub scrambled away from Nia to dive at Margery. She barely had time to free an arm to grab him.
Now she had two cubs in her arms. Big blue eyes, freckles dotting flushed faces, red-brown hair. She was holding littermates.
At the silence in the room, she looked up.
All the adults in the room stared at her.
As her face heated, she murmured, “Cublings like me,” and turned her attention to the little boy. With some repositioning, both younglings were settled and comfortable on her lap.
Thumb in his mouth, Kinnon stared up at her, big eyes heartbreakingly worried. With his other hand, he took one of her fingers and rubbed it against his cheek.
The curvy blonde had a melodious laugh. “That’s what Minette does with my hair. I bet he’ll be a cat when he grows up.”
“Any comfort I can give is good.” Margery bent to whisper to the boy, “The healer gave your sister tummy-sparkles. Do you want some too?”
Leaning against Margery’s left side, the girl cub was half-asleep, her tiny fingers still gripping Margery’s shirt.
Oh, she’d missed having little ones in her lap.
After eyeing his sister, Kinnon nodded.
Margery looked up. “We’re—” The healer was frowning at her, the warmth gone, his gaze assessing, and her words stuck in her throat. If she’d been unencumbered, she’d have moved back.
He turned his attention to the cub, and his tanned face gentled. “One helping of stardust coming up.”
As he repeated what he’d done before, Margery watched. It was fascinating how the flesh, then the skin, grew back together. When he was done, the only remnants of the slashes were blood streaks and pale pink lines.
“That is so wonderful,” she whispered.
He made an acknowledging grunt and ran his hand down the cubling’s soft red hair.
Yesterday, he’d eviscerated the arrogant male patient with his words. Today, he was so tender with the pups that her heart ached. And the way he could heal…
She thought of the wounds she’d stitched at the Scythe compound, leaving the inevitable scarring behind. The broken bones that she’d not had the equipment to ensure would heal right. Sorrow over what could have been fixed was a river, pulling her down into its depths.
Eyes stinging, she looked up.
A line had appeared between his dark brows as he studied her. After an intimidatingly long second, he went to sit beside the blonde adult. “What happened here, Emma?”
He examined the redheaded cub’s wound. Red hair, freckles—another of Robena’s littermates, Margery guessed.
Emma hugged the boy. “I was teaching scales on the piano, and a teen shifter ran in. Naked.”
“It was Athol,” Nia said.
“They crowded around him to say hi,” Emma continued, “but a car peeled out in the parking lot, and Athol panicked and trawsfurred and—”
“Slashed the cubs,” the healer finished for her. “Where is he now? He must be terrified.”
“The Cosantir caught him”—Emma huffed a laugh—“by the scruff of the neck and gave him a shake.”
Recalling the power around the Cosantir, Margery almost cringed.
“Poor Athol went limp as a terrified kitten,” Emma said.
Donal snorted. “Calum has that effect.”
“Indeed.” The clipped voice came from behind Margery.
She jumped, bouncing the cubs in her lap, looked around—and really did cringe.
The gray-eyed, dark-haired male who’d been behind the bar at the Gathering stood right behind her. The Cosantir of North Cascades Territory.
Her breathing almost stopped.
“Calum, is Athol all right?” Emma asked him. “It wasn’t his fault, he was just—”
“Panicking. I realize that. Since the Murphy brothers were returning from a run, they took him out for a lesson on being a panther. They can tell him he isn’t the only shifter to panic and lash out—Kevin Murphy’s first trawsfur was quite the mess.” The Cosantir had a deep voice with a faint English accent. After assessing the room, he took a chair, looking quite accustomed to having shifters laid out all around him.
Then again, since he supervised Gatherings, he was undoubtedly used to casualties, even if adults rather than pups.
His gaze landed on her boss. “Angie, might I have an introduction to your new waitress?”
“Of course.” Angie was repacking the first-aid kit and listing which supplies had been used. She closed the lid. “Cosantir, I bring you Margery Lavelle, a Dogwood villager who lived in Ailill Ridge over the winter. I hired her as a waitress at the diner and to clean Leo’s house in exchange for permission to live there rent-free for two months. Margery, meet Calum McGregor, Cosantir of the North Cascades.”
Margery held her breath as the Cosantir looked at her. The power simmered around him like heat waves from a fire. And the others had called him Calum.
Uh-uh. She’d never thought twice about calling the Rainier Cosantir Pete, but this one… She bowed her head properly. “Cosantir.”
“Margery Lavelle,” he acknowledged and leisurely studied the drowsy littermates on her lap. “It appears you have a way with cublings.”
“And a way with first aid,” Emma said. “No panic. Knew precisely what to do. Where did you get so skillful?”
“At the Scythe compound.” Margery didn’t explain further. No way. She wouldn’t fall into that trap again. She added hastily, “I only know the basics. It’s good you have a healer here. Really.”
“There are times Donal needs help,” Calum mused.
Donal had knelt beside the cub with a slashed arm. At Calum’s suggestion, the healer’s head snapped up. “No, I don’t,” he said sharply even as her own refusal escaped her lips, “No.”
Everyone stared at her. Again.
Her face heated. “I…I have a job. I work for Angie, and that’s what I want to do.” Her mouth tightened. She wouldn’t be forced back into being a banfasa. Maybe being a banfasa had been her life’s goal, but look how that dream had turned into a nightmare.