Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ilay panting in the grip of my enemy, his bulk pinning my arm to the flagstones in the wide entrance hall, his hot blood soaking through my shirt.
“Get up,” I hissed, the adrenaline fading and my racing heart painting a rapid tempo against my ribcage.
Hendrix said nothing, did nothing.
I turned to look at him, the darkness of the castle making it near impossible to make out his features, but I found his eyes closed, that penetrating glare at last removed from my skin.
“Hendrix?” I breathed, rolling towards him and shaking his shoulder to try and rouse him, but it did nothing more than stain my hand with more of his blood.
My other arm was still pinned beneath him, his bulk immobilising me as I lay in the deep shadow of his muscular frame.
“You need to wake up,” I grunted, trying to tug my arm out from under him and gasping in alarm as he slumped over, his weight falling onto my right side, his face pressing into the crook of my neck.
The heat of him drowned me, my throat bobbing as the rough graze of his stubble caught against my ear, a knotted lock of his hair brushing against my lips.
“Hendrix,” I grunted, trying to push him back, my skin too hot beneath his, my body prickling at the contact. Still he didn’t rouse, didn’t speak, didn’t do anything at all other than crush me into the flagstones and bleed all over my clothes.
The sound of metal clinking together drew my attention to the amulets which had tangled with my own. How tempting it was to just let him die, let him succumb to his wounds and relinquish his hold on the Bear and the Fox. I could be the owner of three amulets by morning.
But as the thought occurred to me, my gut twisted in denial.
The key. I needed his key. That was all there was to it.
I drew in a deep breath, then with a surge of effort managed to shove him back enough to allow me to crawl out from under him. His forehead thumped against the flagstones, and I felt a little guilty before remembering the sting of his blade when it had cut into my arm.
With a curse, I turned from him and hurried away into the castle. I was familiar enough with it to be able to gather what I needed from the kitchen, then I ran to the drawing room where I made quick work of lighting a fire in the hearth.
I laid out the bandages and tinctures I’d pilfered, then returned to find my patient still lying face-down in the entrance hall.
I tried calling his name again and got nothing. I poked and shook him, even managing to roll him onto his back and slap his smug face, but there was no satisfaction to be had from the strike as his head only lolled to the side.
“Shit,” I muttered, wondering if I was already too late to save him. He’d lost a hell of a lot of blood and his pallor was more than alarming.
There was no way I was going to be able to carry him, so I took hold of his wrists and started pulling.
By the spirits, he was one heavy bastard.
I grunted and cursed from the strain of tugging him along, my heels digging into the floor and muscles bunching from exertion as I hauled his ass back into the drawing room.
The fire was crackling in the hearth, growing nicely and beginning to warm the room while illuminating it with its orange glow. I hauled Hendrix over to it, depositing him on the rug and dropping down to kneel at his side.
I picked up the knife I’d grabbed from the kitchen and quickly sliced his shirt open, cutting the sodden black fabric off of him to reveal the extent of the wounds beneath.
I hissed a sharp inhale as I took in the injuries across his chest and abdomen, his powerful body sliced open in six lines which marked the passage of the Dragon’s talons across his frame in two groups of three.
The first strike had carved a path from the ribs on his left side across his chest and up to the shoulder of his right arm. The second had scored a path across his abs, curving down towards his right hip.
Blood oozed from the wounds, and I snatched the bottle of iodine I’d found, dousing them all with it and recoiling as Hendrix flinched, a grunt of pain escaping his lips, though he remained unconscious.
“You deserve this,” I told him, the cut on my arm burning as if to remind me of the truth to my words. “You’re a mean bastard who uses other people for your own gain. It’s no wonder the Fae cast you out.”
My gaze flicked to the tattoo which framed his eye for the space of a blink before I snatched it away again.
Lying there he looked too fragile, too perfect, to be worthy of the insults I flung at him.
It wasn’t right that he was so beautiful.
His face was a lie. Hell, his body was a masterpiece of deception too.
I swallowed thickly as that intrusive thought pushed its way through my mind. I hadn’t removed his shirt so that I could become distracted by the allure of his powerful body. It didn’t matter how attractive he was. He was still a beast no matter the frame his monstrosity was packaged in.
I inspected the newly cleaned wounds and was relieved to find that only two of the gashes were deep enough to need closing. The others would heal on their own with bandaging and time.
I had no thread or needle to stitch his wounds and no real knowledge of how to do so even if I had. Instead, I placed the blade of his dagger into the heart of the fire and waited.
Hendrix remained still beside me while the blade slowly began to glow with the heat of the flames until I finally drew it out again.
“This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch,” I warned him, but of course he remained unresponsive. For his sake, I hoped he stayed as such.
I took a steadying breath and moved closer to him, aligning the flat of the blade with the still-bleeding wound before gritting my teeth and pressing it down.
Hendrix bucked beneath me, a cry of pain escaping him as he lurched upright, his green eyes flying open, hand lunging for me wildly. I jerked aside but he caught a fistful of my hair and tugged me so close that his forehead pressed to mine.
“If your aim is to kill me then I suggest you do it faster,” he snarled as the scent of burning flesh rose between us and I pulled the blade from his skin.
“What’s wrong, did the scary Fae need me to hold his hand while I fixed him up?” I bit back.
He bared his teeth and I bared mine in reply. Several seconds passed between us, the air in the room sparking with tension and hatred, his abhorrence for my kind warring with my despisal of his until he finally broke our stare and looked down to his wounds.
“One more to go,” I told him, and he spat a curse.
“Get on with it then.” He slumped to the rug once more and I thrust the dagger back into the flames.
I said nothing, only watched the blade until it glowed and I tugged it free again.
I positioned it over his chest, glancing up to find him watching me with sharp intensity. Sweat slicked his inked skin, his whole body tense with agony, but he said nothing to stop me as I prepared to cauterise his next wound.
His fingers flexed at his side as I lowered the blade and some madness struck me because I clasped his hand in mine a moment before pressing the searing metal to his skin.
Hendrix bellowed in pain, his body tensing, spine arching and hand snapping closed around mine so tightly I was afraid he might break bones. I withdrew the blade and tossed it aside, a shudder rolling through me at what I’d done.
The Fae slumped back onto the rug, unconscious once more though his hand still kept mine captive.
I hesitated before pulling my fingers free, offering him a final squeeze as I withdrew.
It was more than he would have done for me, but I didn’t have to lower myself to his level.
The Fae were cruel and heartless but humans were not, and I wouldn’t allow him to take my humanity from me no matter how little he was deserving of it.
I focused on cleaning the blood from his skin and bandaging his wounds. He didn’t wake again.
When I was done, I cleaned the cut he’d given me too, finding it thankfully didn’t need stitches and wasn’t all that deep. Not that I hated him any less for what he’d done just because he’d failed to wound me deeply enough to scar.
Finally, I stood, backing out of the room and heading in search of a bath to cleanse myself of the blood and grime coating me. I was exhausted, aching and bruised but even in my fatigued state, a smile found me.
I’d captured the Dragon. My task here was far from lost.
My dreams were filled with a silver wind which swept through immense tree trunks, whispering and calling out my name, laughing at me as I ran to try and catch it, but I always failed to keep up.
And songs sung by children in haunting melodies which threatened to drag me from my sleep but never quite managed to rouse me entirely.
I woke in a cold sweat, my heart racing and instincts screaming at me to move.
I pushed out of the huge bed and crossed to the window where the pale light around the edges of the shutters announced the arrival of dawn once more.
It took me a few moments to unbolt and draw open the heavy shutters and I squinted into the dim light while my eyes adjusted. A frown furrowed my brow as I peered out over the top of the tangled rose garden into the depths of the forest beyond.
There was something in the trees out there.
My eyes skipped from trunk to trunk, hunting shadows and seeking answers. A flicker of something white had my pulse skipping over itself and I reached for the window latch so I could throw it open and gain a better look.
I cursed as the latch failed to move at my tug and gave it more of my attention, finding the thing half melted and fused to the window frame.
“What in the name of all the spirits…” I muttered, checking the next window and the next. Anger rose within me as I discovered every window in my room had been fused shut, making them impossible for me to open.
My gaze roamed over the forest again, hunting for any sign of what I’d thought I’d seen, but there was nothing there, only endless trees swaying in a slight breeze.
I turned and strode from the room, the large shirt I’d slept in billowing around my frame and tickling my thighs while my bare feet pounded a path along the carpeted floor.
I stormed down the stairs, heading for the drawing room where I’d left Hendrix recovering from his wounds and hurling the door open so hard that it crashed against the wall with a loud bang.
“You melted the window latches?” I demanded, striding into the room and throwing the curtains aside to reveal him cursing from within the blankets I’d given him.
“You kept trying to run off,” he grunted as though his actions were logical and not at all insane.
“How did you manage to do that? Is your Fae Art fire?”
“I am well-endowed in many forms of power, little human. I’d have thought you’d have realised that by now.”
I scowled at his less-than-forthcoming answer – though it was hard to see much of him in the gloom of the drawing room.
“I agreed to stay here, didn’t I? We’re working together now, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he said, though the word was laced with amusement. “But I secured the castle before our deal was struck. If you’ve forgotten, I wasn’t in much of a position to do anything last night.”
I had no idea what this beast was or wasn’t capable of.
The wounds the Dragon had given him would have been more than enough to kill a human and truthfully, I’d believed they would have been enough to end him too.
But he’d made it through the night, and his sharp tongue hadn’t softened in the slightest despite his injuries.
“Is this the part where you thank me?” I asked.
“Thank you? For what? Helping haul my ass back here so that I could recuperate in peace rather than having to face the forest at night while bleeding all over the foliage? You brought me back here to serve your own ends and don’t pretend there was any other reasoning to it.
So tell me, have you managed to summon the Dragon yet? ”
I pursed my lips, not wanting to answer that question because the truth was that I’d tried and failed. For hours I’d sat up in my bed, my fingers coiled around the Dragon amulet, the hum of its power buzzing in my veins as I tried to figure out how to call it forth, but nothing had worked.
“I haven’t attempted it yet,” I lied, and he smirked at me like he knew, and of course he knew.
The bastard knew everything. He was utterly insufferable even while lying on the floor surrounded by bloodstained sheets.
So yes, I had tried to summon the Dragon last night before I’d slept and no, it hadn’t worked, but I’d planned on figuring out the rest of it today.
“How many years did you study Summoning before entering the Great Hunt?” he asked.
“It was my understanding that anyone could enter the Hunt?” I shot back. “I know that many Champions spend years training for battle and other matters but-”
“But you thought reading a few books and being determined was enough to see you through this forest and save you from the inevitable death awaiting you here? By the spirits, are all humans this wilfully stupid or is it a trait you alone cherish?”
“I’m not stupid,” I growled, ire prickling at me at his dismissive tone.
He knew nothing of me and my past, had no idea what my family had suffered through and why I’d had to come here or why I couldn’t tell my parents that that was what I planned to do.
“I trained in my own way and what I read on the subject of Summoning seemed more than sufficient to-”
“If it was sufficient then you would be able to call forth your Dragon, wouldn’t you?”
That fucking smirk. If I could go back in time, I’d drag him out into the woods and leave him there to be devoured by the forest instead of having saved him from it.
“Then what are you suggesting?” I ground out, not wanting his help in anything but finding myself stuck seeking it time and again.
“Breakfast,” he grunted. “I won’t be back to my full strength for several days. So I suppose you’re in luck, Ferris Creed, because I have time to kill and you need to learn how to Summon. So be a lamb and go fetch us a feast, then we can begin.”
“You expect me to make you a meal while you just lie there and do nothing?” I demanded.
“I was planning on bathing to remove the blood from my skin. We can swap jobs if you prefer but I’m not certain I’ll be able to keep the food dry if you insist on giving me a sponge bath while I prepare it.”
I scowled at him but refused to dignify that with a response, turning away to find us some breakfast and leaving him to the impossible task of rinsing himself clean – he may have been able to remove the dirt from his skin but he would still be rotten to the core beneath it regardless.