carried across 43

 

43 Healing Factor 

Sera 

I spat a mouthful of dirt onto the packed earth. The taste of copper and dry soil coated my tongue. I stayed on my hands and knees for three seconds, forcing oxygen back into my lungs, before I pushed myself up. 

My legs shook. My ribs throbbed with a sharp, localized heat every time I inhaled. 

The last three days of training had broken me down to my base components. But a few things had changed. My coordination was sharper. My feet moved to the correct positions without me having to look down and check them. And I could see Yvara’s attacks before they landed. 

That was the result of Yvara’s constant, brutal repetition. I didn’t look at her hands anymore. I didn’t look at her face. I kept my eyes locked on her shoulders and her hips. I saw the slight dip of her left shoulder right before she threw a hook. I saw the shift in her waist right before she kicked. 

I saw it happen. My brain registered the movement. 

But seeing it wasn’t the same as dodging it. Most of the time, my body was just too slow. The gap between my brain recognizing the strike and my feet moving me out of the way was half a second too wide. The attacks landed faster than I could evade them. And Yvara didn’t reward my progress by easing up. Every time I blocked a hit, every time I showed I could handle the impact, she hit me harder the next 

time. 

Yvara circled me now, her boots silent on the dirt. I raised my arms, keeping my elbows tucked tight against my ribs. I waited for her shoulder to dip. 

She dropped her arms instead. 

“Stand down,” Yvara said. 

I kept my guard up. I didn’t trust her. Yesterday she had told me to stand down and then swept my legs the second I lowered my hands. 

Yvara let out a short, harsh breath. “I said stand down, Sera. We are done hitting each other for today.” 

I slowly lowered my arms. My shoulders burned with the effort. “What are we doing then?” 

“You are too slow,” Yvara said. She walked toward me, stopping two feet away. “You see the strikes. Your eyes are finally working. But you have the reaction time of a dead cow. Taya is going to hit you tomorrow. She is going to hit you a lot.” 

I clenched my jaw. “I know.” 

“Because you are an Omega, your natural healing is a joke,” Yvara continued. She looked me up and down. “A warrior takes a hit, the muscle knits back together passively in minutes. You take a hit, you bruise, and you stay bruised for days. You won’t last sixty seconds in a ring with Taya if you can’t heal fast enough to take the next blow.” 

1/3 

I stared at her. “I can’t change my biology. I heal how I heal.” 

+25 Bonus 

Yvara snorted. She crossed her arms. “You heal passively. You rely on your body to do the work in the background. That is lazy. Even a ten-year-old pup in Ironmaw knows how to force a heal. This isn’t a skill we leave just to the warriors or the men. It is basic survival.” 

“No one taught me that,” I said. “In the South, Princesses aren’t taught combat skills. We aren’t expected to fight.” 

“You are in the North now,” Yvara said flatly. “And you are fighting tomorrow. So you will learn it right now. 

She reached down to her boot. Her hand came up holding a small, wicked-looking hunting knife. The blade was dark steel, sharpened to a razor edge. 

I took a step back. “What are you doing with that?” 

“Give me your arm,” she demanded. 

I shook my head. “No.” 

Yvara stepped forward, grabbed my wrist with her free hand, and yanked my arm toward her. Her grip was like an iron vice. I tried to pull away, but she held me completely still. She pressed the blade against the inside of my forearm. 

She didn’t hesitate. She dragged the knife across my skin. 

I hissed, my teeth gritting together. She didn’t cut deep enough to reach a vein, but she cut deep enough to draw a solid line of blood. The bright red liquid welled up instantly, dripping down the side of my wrist and hitting the dirt. 

Yvara released my arm and stepped back, sheathing the knife. “Heal it.” 

I clutched my forearm, glaring at her. The cut stung. “I just told you I don’t know how.” 

“Then figure it out,” she said. “Or bleed.” 

I looked down at the cut. The blood was flowing steadily. I waited for my passive healing to kick in, but the skin just stayed open, stinging sharply in the cold mountain air. 

“How?” I asked, looking back at her. 

“Healing requires energy,” Yvara said. She tapped her own chest. “You have wolf blood in you. You have the mechanism. You just don’t know how to turn the engine on manually. Close your eyes.” 

I didn’t want to close my eyes with her standing there, but I did it. 

“Breathe in through your nose,” Yvara instructed, her voice dropping to a serious, instructional tone. Don’t stop the air in your chest. Push it down into your stomach. Find the center of your mass. You should feel a knot of heat right below your ribs. Do you feel it?” 

2/3 

+25 Bonus 

I breathed in deep. The cold air hit the back of my throat. I pushed my awareness down past my lungs. There was a faint, warm hum there. The same hum that vibrated when Fenris was near. 

“I feel it,” I said. 

“Good. Now pull that heat. Visualize it moving up your chest, down your shoulder, and into your arm. Push it directly into the cut. Force it.’ 

I focused. I tightened my stomach muscles, trying to push the warmth down my arm. It felt like trying to flex a muscle I had never used before. Nothing happened. The cut kept bleeding. 

“You aren’t trying,” Yvara said. “Push it. Demand the blood to stop. You control the body. The body does not control you.” 

I gritted my teeth. I took another deep breath, holding it in. I grabbed that knot of heat in my center and shoved it toward my forearm with everything I had. 

A sudden, sharp itch flared across my skin. 

I opened my eyes. I watched the edges of the cut. The blood stopped welling. Slowly, the two sides of the sliced skin began to pull together. It wasn’t instant, but it was visible. Within ten seconds, the open wound sealed into a thin, pink line. 

I let out a heavy breath. “I did it.” 

The second the words left my mouth, my knees buckled. A wave of exhaustion hit me so hard my vision blurred. My stomach let out a loud, hollow growl. My limbs suddenly felt incredibly heavy. 

Yvara nodded. “That is the downside.” 

I stayed on my feet, swaying slightly. “What just happened?” 

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