Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
ELIZA
I’m not human.
Blood roars through my temples, vision darkening for one moment, two, before I start breathing again.
A dust cloud is all that remains of Daisy and the saddlebag with my phone. Tempest stomps, teeth baring when I step closer to find his phone—if he even brought it.
The world slows to the space between heartbeats, Kael’s face red and hard, teeth grinding and breath coming in sharp exhales. Sweat pours from his skin, body tense and writhing with each surge of pain.
“What do I do?”
“Use my belt. Tie it off.”
His words sound distant, like I’m floating far above him. But I still remember my rattlesnake training.
“No,” I gasp, breath coming almost too fast to speak. “A tourniquet could do more damage. Cut off circulation.”
“Tie it off,” he growls, nodding toward his waist. His other hand tries to grip the bite, fingers shaking and failing.
“God, this isn’t right.” My voice trembles as I work to free the leather, wrapping it around his arm and pulling tight.
“Tighter!”
“You’ll lose your arm.”
“Tighter.” It comes out guttural. Final.
The blood drains from my face. “I’m trying…” I shake my head. “We need an ambulance… now.”
“No. Mags, that’s it.”
“But how do I reach her? Did you bring your phone?”
He shakes his head, neck muscles straining against another pulse of agony.
“Knife. Whiskey.”
I can’t move, stuck to the spot.
“Now. The knife. Whiskey.” His eyes dart to Tempest.
My breath hitches in my throat as I try again, moving one tentative step toward the proud mare.
She shrieks, eyes fiery and wild. Feet pawing the air.
“Lord help me, Tempest!” he grunts low and hard. Eyes squeezed shut, words flowing. Strange. Unrecognized, like a language that doesn’t exist.
Tempest’s ears twitch forward; her body relaxes, muscles no longer so taut beneath her ebony hide. His voice is low, soft though gravel edges it. Like he’s hypnotizing her. Maybe me, too.
Something washes over me. A calm I shouldn’t feel. Not now. Not like this.
“Whiskey. Knife,” he orders again, expression tortured.
My heart thuds as I take first one, then two steps toward the mare, palms facing her until I touch shivering black hair. I work my way slowly to her side, opening the saddlebags.
Sun-warmed leather creaks as I reach inside. Trembling fingers find a cold glass bottle, then an intricate bowie knife sheathed in buckskin.
My stomach drops when I kneel before Kael. Suffering animates his features, face caked with sweat and dust.
I pass him the uncapped bottle, watching as he fights to suck down a shot. The sounds he makes are more animal than human.
Tears track down my cheeks. No phone. No ambulance. No reason in his actions.
His turquoise eyes meet mine, bloodshot. He misses the knife. Tries again, using his teeth to pull it from the sheath.
Before I can protest, he slices deep above the cluster of puncture wounds, letting out a deep-throated scream. Then his head dips, latching onto the laceration. He sucks between fits of pain, spitting into the sagebrush next to us.
My bottom lip trembles, whole body quaking. I look up, saying a silent prayer. Above me, a lone raven circles, its shadow scraping the ground between us.
“Better.” The word comes out all wrong.
The flesh around the bites is already darkening—angry.
Not just bruised.
Rotting.
My stomach twists, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. I fight through sobs, trying to keep it together. My hands fumble, loosening the belt. Then removing it.
He reaches for the whiskey bottle. Misses.
The last thing he needs. But how can I deny him when the entire world is falling apart?
Sniffling and crying, I cradle his head, bringing the bottle to his blood-soaked lips. His hand grabs mine, sorrow behind his eyes. “Don’t know the last time… someone cared.”
That breaks me.
I bite my bottom lip, fighting the urge to scream or wail. Everything has slowed down now. Everything feels… over.
He lies back against a thicket of scrub brush and sage, his face glistening with sweat. His cheeks are wet with tears and dust. Shadows grow long, passing across him like a heavy pall.
I fight a sob, helpless…
“What do I do?” I whimper.
His eyes burn into me, whites red and bulging. “Don’t cry. Not for me.”
Now, I’m wrecked, wiping my nose with my sleeve. Unable to talk.
“Shh.” He winces. “You deserve better.” His voice falls away, his eyelids drooping closed.
I hold my breath, hand coming to his chest, waiting for him to breathe.
He doesn’t.
Neither do I.
I go dizzy, vision darkening at the edges. Until I gasp for air. Still, he doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
His pulse stutters… too fast, like it’s tripping over itself. Then, finally, he gasps, breath rattling in his chest.
“Don’t. Leave,” he whispers.
I breathe through my mouth, trying to speak. “Never. But we have to get help.”
He shakes his head, pulse fluttering at his neck.
“What then?” It comes out ragged.
His voice throbs. “Lie with me.” His arm comes up, motioning. “Please, primrose.”
But when we touch, we burn.
I don’t say it out loud because admitting that would change me in ways I can’t accept.
“Please.”
I fill the hollow at his side hesitantly. As I feared, our flesh throbs and pulses together. Hot, live electrical impulse. I gasp, but he doesn’t hesitate, arm drawing me hard against him.
“I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t make you watch…” He stumbles over his words. I strain to make them out. “But I need you.”
The last confession takes something from him. He goes silent.
A long inhale. Then an exhale. Warmth and breath—the steady beat of his heart—wrap around me.
His body relaxes beneath me, need vibrating clean to my bones. And something else, like a distant hum. A consecration.
His head falls forward, pressing a scarlet kiss to my temple. “Sorry,” he whispers, voice cracking.
“Don’t apologize for being hurt.”
The words land, but he doesn’t speak.
I listen to his breath heaving in his chest, pulse impossibly fast as slanted rays of light give way to the black of night. Then, his arm jerks—uncontrolled—like something inside him misfires.
Hours pass.
I don’t know how long.
Every moment is waiting for the next breath, counting the space in between.
The skin around his wound is puckered, drawn back. Impossibly dark.
I can’t look anymore.
The stars glitter overhead. Too beautiful for this night. They shouldn’t be allowed to shine like this.
Not with Kael fading next to me.
Tempest grazes across the field. I squint to make out her shadowy form, glossy coat glistening in the full moon’s light.
I stir, try to sit up.
I need to get help.
I’ll walk out. Whatever it takes.
But Kael’s arm is an iron band that won’t budge an inch.
His voice comes out low and dark. “Don’t go.”
I fight back tears, body sizzling against his. My hand comes up, feeling his forehead. It incinerates my palm.
Oh, God… he’s not going to make it. Maybe not even long enough for me to walk to the neighboring ranch.
The thought of him dying alone… I can’t.
“Kael,” it comes out like a soft keening against his chest.
He doesn’t respond now beyond a faint pulse and shallow breaths.
My head grows heavy on his chest, the heat of him somehow pulsing through me.
That’s when I see it. In the obscurity of night, the marks on his chest pulse and glow faintly… so faintly I strain to see them. Like symbols or glyphs, reminding me of the mark in the field.
I reach out tentatively, touching one luminous swirl. It brightens, parting beneath my fingers, then surging again. Like something that moves through me, settling beneath flesh and bone.
My fingers dip again. This time the light almost wraps around them. Stardust written in flesh. The broad expanse of the Milky Way overhead translated into line and space, shape and swirl.
I’ve lost my mind.
His hand comes up, covering mine, pressing my palm against the glowing symbols. They throb beneath my hand.
“Stay,” he repeats.
I raise my chin slightly, steeling my voice. “You have to promise to stay, too.”
He tries to laugh. It comes out dry. Empty. “Only thing worth staying for.” He works hard to pat my hand. “You.”
I strain to hear the soft-spoken words.
Did I imagine that?
The pressure from his hand fades, his breath barely a thing. Like his lungs won’t fill.
“We have to get you to the hospital.” My voice breaks over the words. “I can’t let you die out here like this.”
But he only pulls me closer, pressing me so tightly against him. I strain to breathe.
His skin cools. Then burns again.
When sleep loosens his grip, my eyes are too heavy to open.
I fade into dreams of dust columns and sidewinders. Whiskey and a restless man caught between two things he can’t reconcile—duty and desire.