Chapter 20 #2
Then a strong arm circles around me and pulls me back from the monster. I lean into whoever my hero is, but the moment I feel tempted to see who it is, there’s a wicked hiss against my ear.
“Back off!” My hero growls, and I know it’s Cait.
She doesn’t let go, simply pulls me further away from my would-be murderer.
Somehow, she fights off the dracaenae while keeping me pinned to her side.
When I finally open my eyes, I see her snarling face and wrathful eyes.
There’s the promise of death in the glare she gives the monster, which she makes good on in a heartbeat.
Cait’s great axe swings with fury, slicing the dracaenae’s head clean off her body.
I watch in horror as the creature’s head rolls onto the ground, its fangs still bared, and its eyes wide open.
The monster’s body collapses next to it, and blood oozes from its headless neck.
The wind halts, just as dead as my attacker is.
It reminds me of the harpy, and I have to turn away to keep from screaming.
When I do, I’m face-to-face with Cait. Her face is splattered in the dracaenae’s blood.
That should be disgusting, disturbing even.
But in this moment, my hero looks like a glorious angel fresh from battle.
In an instant, her expression flips from wrathful to worried.
No, more than worried. She’s looking at me like I’m a treasure she almost lost.
“Are you okay?” she asks in a desperate whisper, cupping my face in her hands so she can study me closely.
Our lips are so close now that it would only take an inch of craning my neck forward to kiss her. The temptation is stronger than I care to admit.
“Did she bite you or scratch you or anything?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “She didn’t touch me.”
“Oh, thank God,” Cait says. Tears well in her eyes and then she hugs me tight. “I thought—” Her words halt, replaced with gurgling.
Cait lets go of me and staggers backward. Her eyes widen as she grabs her throat with one hand. At first I think she’s choking. Then I see dark blue spidering up from her collar to her chin. There are ragged claw marks on her indigo-colored arm.
Shit.
I lift my staff. “Restoration!” I shout. Nothing. Why? This is clearly poison of some sort.
Cait falls over; her whole body spasms on the ground, but she makes no sound. I’m not sure she can even breathe.
Desperate, I get on my knees next to her and press my palm against her arm. It’s as hot as a pot pie despite the bitter gusts that had only now stopped battering us.
“Restoration won’t work! It’s a curse!” Guy calls out as he rushes over from wherever he went. “Remove Hex,” he says with a wave of his staff.
Cait makes a choking sound and then draws in several deep, rasping breaths, clutching at her chest. She rolls over onto her side and vomits up something as blue as her arm. That’s when her skin returns to its normal hue.
There’s still the gash though, so I shout, “Heal Major Wound” and the jagged claw mark disappears. I stroke Cait’s arm where the wound once was as she takes long, steadying breaths, then I look up at Guy. “How did you know? This had all the markings of poison. It still looks like she was poisoned.”
“Because we’ve met one before,” Guy says. “In Paeonia. They’re much higher-level monsters than you find in this area.”
Cait grabs my arm and uses it to get to a sitting position. Her skin is still so hot. Is the hex truly gone? Does it take a while for its physical effects to alleviate?
“Are you okay?” she asks me in a croaking whisper.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I’m perfectly fine! You’re the one that needs tending.”
At this point, the entire party has reached us. I wonder what took them so long, but I’m grateful that Cait was there as fast as she was. A second longer and I might not be here to help her to her feet.
“She’ll need a bath,” Sylvia says, putting an arm over Cait’s shoulder.
“I’ll heat some water,” Tara says and runs off.
Joshua looks at Cait with a pained expression. “You should have let me handle it. I’m wearing metal armor.”
Cait shakes her head at him. “You were all too far. There wasn’t enough time. I…” She looks at me and then lowers her gaze. “I couldn’t take that risk.”
Well, fuck my heart. I want them both now.
Guy was right. The wind didn’t knock over our tent.
In fact, it was cozy and warm inside. Dolius, not having a magical camp like ours, wasn’t as lucky.
His tent was in tatters within an hour of us setting everything up.
Cyrus had been smart, though. He attached his to his carriage on the side blocked from the wind.
He was gracious enough to let Dolius stay with him.
This morning, we’re all far better rested than any of us could have expected. Cait seems fully recovered, too. When she tells everyone good morning, it’s in her usual popular girl voice and not in the hoarse rattle from last night.
And Dolius and Cyrus? Well, they’re both smiling as though they’d won the lottery.
Maybe they did. I check my quest log and sigh.
Nope, I still gotta take them to Dardanus, and I don’t see anything about Dolius’s feelings on love.
I squint at the back of his head and think really hard about love in a pathetic, impatient attempt to make him have feelings already.
There’s a chilly breeze, but it’s nowhere near as violent as it was. Something light might fly away if we’re not careful, but my aching legs don’t have to struggle against it like they did last night. I remember how it halted the moment Cait slayed the dracaenae.
Cait…
I watch her fill her bowl with Sylvia’s new batch of boiled grains. She seems so normal right now, when last night she’d shown what a complete badass she could be. That wasn’t her typical battle rage. She’d put herself between me and certain death and saved me. She was…She was…
So hot.