Chapter 20 #2
“We need to get to those trees.” She nodded to the copse of black willow ahead. “It should be dry enough there to wait out the storm.”
He nodded and followed her in. Copper moved faster as the swamp receded. The rain fell in fat, cold droplets, and the air shook with a deep growl of thunder.
The fog lifted ever so slightly the farther they rode from the swamp.
The towering dark shadows slowly resolved into the copse of black willows that she remembered from her trip with Toby.
When she and Toby had last been here, the sun had been shining and they’d made fishing poles from the flexible branches.
They’d camped that night beneath the stars, toasting their catch over a fire.
That wasn’t happening tonight. They’d be lucky to find enough dry wood to start a fire.
When they reached the stand of willow, Casrian dismounted and came to her. He pulled her out of the saddle and into his arms, carrying her beneath the scant shelter of the trees. The leaves on the willows were mostly gone, but near the trunk he found a dry spot to set her down.
It was a measure of her shock that she didn’t have it in her to fight him at all, not even when he pushed up her breeches to examine her calf.
Her skin was red, splotched all over. It felt like she had a sunburn from her ankle to her knee. There was a patch of scraped skin all the way down her shin from where she’d driven the walking stick to pry herself free.
“It doesn’t look so bad,” she said.
Casrian scowled down at her leg like it was a mortal wound. “We need to clean it. Who knows what was in that water.”
She laughed a little hysterically. “Giant snakes. At least one of them.”
Maybe more. The water was so dark. It could have been hiding anything.
His gaze flicked up to meet hers. “I’m more worried about the kind of foulness that will cause infection.” He searched over her face, dropped his attention to her chest where she’d wrapped her arms around herself to stop the shaking. “You look like a drowned rat.”
“I feel like one.”
She tried for a smile but her teeth were chattering too hard.
Casrian didn’t smile back. “Take off your clothes. I’ll bring you a blanket and some water to wash out the wound.”
He turned around and headed toward the horses. She glared at his back and used the tree trunk to steady herself as she climbed to her feet.
Her fingers were numb, and she fumbled the buttons.
Casrian returned with the blanket and waterskin which he placed on the ground near her feet.
Then he pushed her hands away, quickly unbuttoned her jacket and slipped it from her shoulders.
He dropped it on the ground and then pulled at the tie that held up her breeches.
He made quick work of it, silent, not even looking at her.
Just pushing the breeches down her legs and tossing them aside.
Her boots were still tied to the saddle.
She’d never had the time to put them back on her feet.
Her shirt was wet and clung to her body.
She imagined he could see everything, but he kept his gaze locked on her face as he stepped back.
His expression was hard, angry. She didn’t know why he was angry.
It wasn’t like she’d summoned the monster snake.
“Can you manage the rest?” he asked brusquely.
She nodded, and he moved away to tend to the horses.
She waited until his back was turned before she pulled the shirt over her head and wrapped herself in his thick woolen blanket.
She was still shaking when she sat down on the ground and started to wash the scrape on her leg.
He’d brought her bag to her and she fished out the salve and some clean cloth.
She truly needed a bath, but the salve would help to ward off infection until she could clean it better. The bandage would keep the dirt out.
Casrian returned after a while and placed the saddles on the ground beside her. He draped oilcloth on the nearest branches to create a makeshift tent and then went off into the woods with the waterskin and her muddy clothes to look for fresh water.
She shivered beneath the blanket, staring out into the rain. The fog was dense now. She couldn’t even see the swamp anymore. She was glad they’d cleared it when they did or they might never have made it out at all. Another chill shuddered through her, and she clamped her teeth closed.
Right.
Best to not think about that. She needed to focus on getting warm.
She squeezed all of the water she could from her braid and then rummaged through her bag for an old rag she’d packed as a washing cloth.
Her hair smelled like swamp and there was dried mud on her feet, but it was the best she could do until she could clean herself in the river.
If she ever dared to go back into the water, that was.
It certainly wasn’t something she was going to do now with night coming on.
She dressed in her spare shirt and breeches, pulled on fresh socks, and shoved her feet into her mostly dry boots.
She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and sat down just as a dark form stepped from the fog.
Her heart stopped and didn’t start beating again until the shape resolved into the witch hunter, waterskins slung over his shoulder, her wet clothes folded over his arm, and a determined look on his face.
He hung her clothes over one of the lower branches and set the waterskins down by their bags before crouching in front of her. He took her hands in his and cursed.
“Your hands are like ice, and I can’t start a fire in this. What a miserable fucking day.”
His hands were warm and calloused, but gentle where they cupped hers. She smiled. “Language, Captain.”
His blue eyes flashed up to meet hers. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
“I’ll be okay,” she told him, pulling her hands away and tucking them inside the blanket. “The storm sounds like it’s moving off.”
The roll of thunder was distant now, muted to a low growl. Hopefully, the rain would stop soon too.
“I’m going to change into dry clothes. If you can’t get warm, you need to let me know and we’ll try something else.”
She almost asked him what else there was to try, but then she thought about the heat she’d felt radiating from him and decided not to think about it.
She huddled into the blanket until the coarse wool scratched at her cheeks and listened to the tap of the rain on the oil cloth.
She watched Casrian grab a dry shirt out of his bag and walk a few paces away to the edge of their shelter.
His back was to her as he hung his wool coat on a branch and drew his damp shirt over his head, revealing broad shoulders and the long valley of his spine. She was momentarily mesmerized by the way the muscles in his back shifted as he dragged his shirt across his body to dry off.
Why did he have to look like that?
She didn’t want to be attracted to the witch hunter. It’d be easier if he were ugly or smelly or foul. Anything other than the golden god of a man who made her insides feel funny every time she looked at him too long.
Temptation of a carnal nature wasn’t something she had much experience with. Toam wasn’t exactly bursting with strapping young men. Tilly was always telling her she should go find a handsome stranger in Sulen to have a little fun with. But she’d never met anyone she wanted to be with in that way.
Maybe that was it.
She’d spent years neglecting her natural urges and now they were welling up at the sight of the first handsome man to cross her path.
It didn’t mean that she liked him or wanted to act on it.
It just meant that he was pretty to look at.
So long as she didn’t let it go past looking, she’d be fine.
Stupid to feel anything more than that for a man who’d hurt her mother.
One who’d hate her if he knew what she was.
It wasn’t like he was interested in her anyway.
You must know what you look like…
But he’d only been rattling off a list of attributes that she might be able to use to find a place in the capital. In some old, desperate man’s bed.
He hadn’t offered her his bed.
He didn’t look at her like he wanted her anyway. Mostly, when he looked at her, it was with a mix of irritation and appalled fascination. Her tangled hair and the smell of swamp water weren’t going to change that.
She stared fixedly out at the rain and tried to ignore the sounds of the witch hunter undressing only a few feet away.
“Do I need to change this bandage?” he asked.
“Is it wet?”
“Everything’s wet,” he said. “Will you help me?”
“Sure.”
She turned to him and froze. He was facing her, and she tried to figure out where to look when all she could see was the broad slope of his chest and the bands of muscle on his abdomen. There was a golden line of hair that arrowed from his navel into his breeches and she…
Nope.
It wasn’t safe to look there either.
She forced her gaze up to his face but that was no better because his expression told her he knew what she was thinking and was deeply amused by it.
Bastard.
“I’ll grab the salve.”
Rifling through the bag, she found the jar at the bottom beside a clean bandage.
When she turned back around, Casrian had seated himself on one of the saddles. “Are you sure you’re up for this? It can wait until later.”
“Light’s almost gone.” She gestured toward the woods, at the darkness closing in with the storm. “And the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can put your shirt back on.”
He searched her face. “Do you want me to put my shirt back on?”
Her mouth went dry. So dry she couldn’t immediately answer.
“I can probably do it myself,” he suggested mildly.
“You’ll only mess it up.”
She reached for the bandage and started to unwind it, trying to ignore the warmth of his body. When the bandage was off, she set it aside and bent to examine the wound, wishing there was more light. She bent her head so she could get a better look and sniffed. She didn’t smell any rot.