Chapter 11 #2
The world careened sideways, and she wasn’t on the horse anymore. Air was rushing against her. Her body was limp, and she prepared herself for the impact of the hard ground. But the next thing she knew, she was cradled in a strong pair of arms, her head lolling against someone’s chest.
Thomasin. The leather of her jacket was warm against Edith’s cheek, and the buckle of a dagger sheath poked against her temple.
“Stay with me, Edith,” Thomasin said, and she could feel the rumble of her voice.
Edith forced her eyes open. The lines of the tattoo swirling up Thomasin’s throat were mesmerizing this close-up.
She watched her throat bob as she swallowed and wanted nothing more than to press her fingers against Thomasin’s skin, to feel her heartbeat, to trace the lines of ink. It was such a beautiful neck.
She was lowered to the ground and, almost instinctively, she curled farther into Thomasin, refusing to lose the comfort of her touch. If she were in her right mind, she knew she would be embarrassed. But she was too fuzzy and hurt to care.
“It’s okay,” Thomasin soothed. One of Thomasin’s hands cradled the back of Edith’s head. One-handed, she shrugged off her jacket, then laid it beneath Edith’s head, sliding her hand out from under it.
“What’s wrong with her?” Jay kneeled on the other side of her. Edith was touched that he was so concerned. She considered him a friend, but she hadn’t been sure he returned the sentiment.
“Start a fire,” Thomasin ordered over her shoulder, then undid the top button of Edith’s blouse. Her knuckles brushed the skin just above Edith’s cleavage, making her stomach clench.
Thomasin delicately lifted the fabric of Edith’s shirt and pulled the collar down so that the blouse hung off the shoulder on one side.
Jay hissed at the same time that Thomasin swore loudly.
Edith murmured an apology, but she didn’t think anyone heard her.
“It’s infected. Edith.” Thomasin’s face moved into her line of sight, pinning her with a commanding glare. “You had better live so that I can kill you for not telling me,” she growled.
“I’ll make a salve,” Jay said, and Edith felt him move away from her.
She stared up at Thomasin, enraptured by the woman’s swift, urgent movements.
Thomasin dragged her hands through the tangle of curls, forcing them into a knot atop her head.
In her sleeveless tunic, her arms were on full display, the lean, powerful muscles rippling.
Her tattooed forearms flexed as she poured liquor from her flask over her hands.
“Hurry!” she shouted over her shoulder, before turning back to Edith. She drew a dagger from a sheath on her thigh. Edith couldn’t even handle thinking about her thighs right now.
Pain lanced through Edith, drawing a whimper from her lips, as the tip of the dagger prodded her inflamed wound.
The blade pulled at the thread of her stitches.
The tiny pressure of the string tugging at her skin before snapping under the dagger was near unbearable.
She squeezed her eyes shut until fingers replaced the blade.
Thomasin pried the cut strands of thread from her swollen skin.
Every touch felt like fire, and tremors overtook her limbs.
“I know it hurts,” Thomasin whispered. “I’m sorry. You’re doing so well, just a little longer.”
“Here.” She heard Worthing’s gruff voice.
Edith willed her eyelids to open. Half of her wanted to slip out of consciousness to where her body wouldn’t be screaming at her, and fear wouldn’t be gnawing at her heart. The other half of her was desperate to stay with Thomasin, to know what was happening to her. To know if she would live.
Through the tears blurring her vision, she saw a flash of molten red. The thing that Worthing had given Thomasin. Her mind couldn’t make sense of it; why Thomasin would be holding a white-hot dagger, the metal smoldering.
Thomasin took Edith’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, tilted her mouth open. A strip of leather was pushed between her teeth, and the part of Edith that wanted to stay awake vanished as she realized with horror what they were planning to do.
She tried to squirm away, but hands held her down. One on her good shoulder, one on her opposite wrist. Her feet too were quickly pinned after she started to kick out weakly.
Tremors became convulsions, and panic narrowed Edith’s already-dimming vision. She was a wild animal, thrashing on the ground. Panic and agony were the only things that existed.
Until the sharp angles of Thomasin’s face came into view, inches from her own face.
A hand brushed the sweat-soaked strands of hair from her face and then cupped her cheek.
Thomasin’s hazel eyes were soft and hard all at once.
Terrified, but determined. “I’ve got you. I’m going to take care of you.”
Something inside Edith unlatched. The panic was still there, of course it was. But she knew that Thomasin would get her through this. If there was anyone she could be strong for, if there was anyone who could make her strong, it was Thomasin. Edith nodded, teeth biting into the leather.
Thomasin’s hand flexed against her cheek, and then in a move that shocked Edith perhaps more than anything else, the woman bent over her and pressed her lips against Edith’s forehead.
Before she could even begin to have a single thought about it, though, her entire being was consumed with inescapable, torturous fire.
Her jaw clamped down, her scream muffled by the leather strap.
The smell of burning flesh invaded her nose, making her stomach heave.
The pain was fiery hot and ice-cold all at the same time.
There was no escape from it, no reprieve as wave after wave of indescribable anguish crashed throughout every nerve ending in her shoulder.
She made the mistake of looking down. At the sight of the red-hot dagger pressed flat against her wound, her ruined skin sizzling and bubbling, she finally lost consciousness.