19. Raven #2
I grimaced. Chace couldn’t possibly be the only option left for me. No. He was an absolute last resort. Oh, how he would never let me hear the end of it. But remaining rooted in my current position, bleeding out on the street, was not a viable choice.
Could the Killian, the reaper of reapers, even reach me within the magically bound citadel?
I blinked and pushed my thoughts past the pain searing through me.
Maybe I could hide outside the pub until Aldine’s healer showed up. The woman would likely assist me. Possibly even help me somewhere out of sight, making Chace none the wiser.
Yeah. That’s what I would do. Seek the healer. She’d helped Aldine, so she should know how to help me.
I pushed myself to my feet. My muscles and bones hollered with complaints. Still, I slowly turned, placing the wall at my side, and shoved myself forward, hunched with a hand against the brick for support. Each moment, a battle of will over want.
To avoid being seen by the gate guards, I headed in the opposite direction from which I had come. And not having walked the path previously, I had no clue where I was going.
Maybe I’ll end up stumbling around until I pass out.
An only slightly better choice than remaining rooted in place and bleeding out.
Up ahead, a door opened, and someone stepped into the street.
Already dizzy with exhaustion…and pain…I failed to focus well enough, far enough, to identify the individual.
All I discerned was that, after taking one look at me, they popped back inside and closed the door, unwilling to come to my aid or help in any way.
I groaned. Continued moving forward.
Behind me, footfalls moved on the cross street leading to the palace gate.
Were they coming for me?
Fearful a soldier had finally ventured forward to check on me, I quickened my pace—or attempted to until my body protested.
I only needed someone to patch me up. Then I should heal rather quickly. A couple of days, maybe. Depending on the extent of the damage.
The existing issue―finding and getting to that someone.
At my back, the footfalls paused, shuffled, then moved toward me. I mumbled a barely audible curse and shivered against the falling temperature.
What would the royal guards do if they caught me? Would they toss me into a dungeon? Tortured or hanged? Simply killed on sight?
I tried to glance over my shoulder, but my footing slipped. My support crumbled. My unwounded shoulder slammed into the wall, and I started to drop. I caught myself mere inches from the ground, and another curse left my lips at little more than a moan.
“Raven?”
I tensed, sending lava-hot pangs ripping through my shoulder. With a whimper, I turned halfway and rested my weight against the wall.
Winter approached.
Seeing no point in trying to run from the inevitable oncoming questions and scrutiny, I chose to rest a moment and allow him to catch me.
“Surprise.” My voice rasped, rough with sarcasm, even as my brain scrambled for a viable story to spin.
Only my creative well had dried, and my delivery sounded…oh, so not right.
“What happened to you?” The tenor of his voice sharpened with concern and something else I couldn’t quite place.
He cupped my shoulder with unexpected gentleness and helped support my weight.
I didn’t meet his gaze but sensed his quick evaluation roaming over me, taking in the damage. He eased my hand away from the wound at my waist.
A muscle in his jaw ticced. “My gods! Who did this to you?”
I sighed, releasing all hope of avoiding the truth. At least, some of the truth, anyway. “A bunch of overzealous soldier boys.”
Boys likely five times my age and who probably hadn’t seen so much action in forever. A century, at least.
I glanced at the hand I had pressed to the wound. My palm and the spaces between my fingers were thick with crimson. So much blood. Too much blood. I shifted my gaze from my hand to my waist. The black of my attire was wet, the blood darkening the fabric. The world spun, and bile rose in my throat.
“I don’t feel so good,” I said, my voice small and distant.
“Understandable.” He shrugged out of his jacket and pressed the material to my wound. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. An artery, or something equally serious, may have been hit.”
The pressure had become a thousand knives stabbing at me. I screamed.
“I’m sorry. It had to be done to minimize the bleeding,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, Raven. You’re going to be all right.”
I laughed, but the sound bordered on hysteria.
People always said things would be all right when they desired it to be true but worried it wouldn’t be so.
Was Winter afraid I would die? I couldn’t truly die…
could I? I was a reaper—the one dealing with the dying, not actually doing the dying.
Plus, I didn’t see any Killian standing nearby to take my soul.
Probably couldn’t get into the citadel.
Only…
A flicker of movement in the shadows set in an alcove across the street caught my attention. Someone or something was there, camouflaged in the darkness, watching.
I shivered, yet felt hot, as if beads of sweat broke out across my brow. Then, in a flash, my teeth chattered, my body chilled to the bone. So cold that ice might as well have encased me.
Had the Killian come for me after all?
“Killian…” I said with the tiniest of whispers.
“What was that?” Winter leaned in and slid his arm around me, scratching the wound on my shoulder.
With a sharp yelp, I yanked away from his hold.
He shifted to examine my back and shoulders, then he adjusted to hold me from the other side.
Against my weak protests, he lifted me into his arms and dashed through the streets.
He navigated the roads and alleys with ease, weaving deeper into the unfamiliar territory of the citadel and away from Aoes’s pub.
Try as I might to pay attention to where we were going, my eyes grew in weight with each step. I felt cold, nauseous, and had never been more out of sorts in my entire existence. My head dropped against his chest, and I closed my eyes.
To the sound of heavy banging, I peeled my eyes open, sort of.
Where are we? Did I lose time?
Winter kicked his foot time and time again against a wooden door.
When it swung open, a blurry vision of an attractive woman, exotic in coloring, stood in the threshold.
Her upturned, whiskey eyes widened, and her mouth went slack.
He pushed past her without an invitation or a word of greeting, carrying me straight to the back room and setting me on a small rickety bed with care.
He took a step back and became little more than a haze in my unfocused vision. My sight narrowed, became unclear, and extra dark and fuzzy around the edges.
“Sorry to impose on you,” he said to the woman. “But she needs help, and I didn’t know where else to go. I thought maybe…”
“You presume too much,” the woman replied. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, and then you show up here with…with that stranger? What do you expect me to do?”
The woman stood beyond my line of sight, but I imagined her making a pointed gesture in my direction. Possibly to my rather unresponsive state.
My eyes slid shut, yet I continued to collect their words among the pounding in my head.
“Please,” Winter beseeched. “Help her as best you can. You know I can’t take her home. Especially not like this.”
His comment raised new questions in my mind, but all curiosity quickly became lost to the exhaustion and throbbing of my body.
Shuffling sounds replaced conversation, and minutes disguised as hours passed. A sweltering hand pressed to my cheek.
“Raven?” Winter’s voice sounded tender, beseeching. “I need you to take this.”
My eyelids fought against the effort to look at him. He held a small cup close to my lips.
“Can you do that for me?” His gaze pleaded for my compliance.
When I lifted my head ever so slightly, he tilted the cup to my lips, and I swallowed the liquid held within. Bitter with a touch of more bitter.
“That should help with the pain.” His horribly fake and unfelt smile bordered on sullen. He leaned in close, resting his cheek a breath from mine. “I’m sorry for what has to happen next.”