Chapter 18 #2
Her eyes burnt and she had worked her fingers raw.
The cut down her arm screamed, and the bandage she wore was saturated scarlet.
Hunched over Trewoofe, she finally looped the last stitch into place, tying it off with a knot.
Avice straightened her spine. She blinked several times as the blood rushed back to her head.
She rolled her neck, trying to rid herself of the throbbing pain that radiated there.
She palmed her eyes, dropping her hands and opening them only when she heard Trewoofe’s voice.
“Are you well, little witch?” he croaked.
She smiled down at him. “I am better than you, I think.”
Avice admired her handiwork. His chest and abdomen looked like a blanket that had been patched one too many times.
The scar down his midline now criss-crossed with several new wounds that would also scar.
She set to bandaging him up again, to keep the wounds protected, layering calendula flowers into each wrap.
She stuffed the final wrap with wool to help absorb blood that may ooze through.
Her gaze travelled up, and their faces met. Large dark circles bruised under his eyes, and his cheekbones were hollow. Avice pressed her hand to his forehead.
“You are still cold to touch,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“The pain does not seem too bad, but I am freezing,” he replied, fangs still chattering.
Avice rubbed her stinging eyes with her fists. Her task complete, exhaustion seeped into her numb legs, and her arm throbbed again. She still needed to give him his tea, she stood up abruptly, and her world spun.
“Avice!”
Avice!
And a chirp, sounded all at once.
She clung onto the stone side of the hearth.
“I am alright,” she reassured, as her vision steadied. “I had been in one place at a strange angle for far too long.”
Bramble stepped down from the pallet and nosed at her. Are you sure?
She smiled down at her familiar. “Yes, I am fine,” she promised, and glanced at the steaming cauldron. “Yarrow tea…” She rubbed the back of her neck, glanced at her bloody arm, and inclined her chin at Trewoofe. “For both of us and then sleep is the best medicine.”
“I will do whatever you say, little witch.” He looked up at her, half-asleep, through his white eyelashes.
The way he said it made her toes curl in her boots. It reminded her she was still wearing them, and she kicked them off by the hearth. Padding through her cottage in her stockings, she gathered cups and a ladle and served two cups of the analgesic tea.
Avice sat beside him. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and scrabbled to grasp the cup. He managed to take it with his claw tips, and it was dwarfed in his massive hand.
“It is very hot. Do this.” She blew onto the surface of his tea. “To help cool it down…”
He nodded and copied her. The steam dissipated with his puff, before he brought the cup to his lips and lapped at it with his forked tongue.
“Like this.” She blew on her own tea before bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. “You can drink more at once that way.”
“Ah!” Trewoofe mimicked her and let out a delighted murmur. “This has a much better taste than the willow bark sludge.”
Avice snorted into her cup. “I know. I added some honey to it as well, for you.”
Even seated, he towered over her. He beamed down at her as he drank, his red gaze never leaving her face.
She met his stare, a smile dancing her lips.
She held the look for as long as she could, before her eyes began to burn again.
She rubbed them with her free hand and tried to ignore the headache throbbing at her temples.
She opened her eyes and studied the almost man who was in her bed.
She noted his trembling body and decided right then what she would do about the sleeping situation.
Avice had planned to rest on the floor and let him have the pallet to himself.
She knocked back the last of her tea and held her hand out for his cup.
Trewoofe downed the liquid and handed it over, arching a questioning eyebrow at her.
She placed the cups beside the pallet. “I cannot do anymore today,” Avice admitted. She ran her gaze over the silver-stained bedding and cloak. “We both need to rest, and you are still cold.”
“Yes…?”
Avice sighed. Clearly, Trewoofe was someone she had to be direct with. “Move over, Lord. We are sharing the pallet; two bodies together are warmer than one.”
A grin cut across his handsome face. “Oh! Yes, of course.” He wriggled his huge body over, leaving her a slip of space next to him. He patted the furs. “Plenty of room.”
She pinched her eyebrows together. “Why do you look so pleased?”
“No reason.” He settled onto his side, as Avice had suggested earlier, so his horns did not get in the way. His bandaged chest faced her, and he flung his arms open. “I will definitely get warm if you are close to me.”
Avice shot him a withering look. Worry gnawed at her.
The thought of being discovered by a villager with a ‘man’ in her bed, and one who was clearly of magic origin, made her reconsider sleeping on the floor.
She shivered as her mind flashed to the gallows and the glint of the iron-barred cages next to it.
“Little witch?” he asked, curling his fingers and coaxing her over.
She sighed. Trewoofe’s bandaged arms looked so inviting. Avice had never been held before, and part of her had always wondered what it would be like to sleep in a lover’s arms.
Trewoofe is not a lover.
She brushed her fingers over her pendant, looking back and forth between her lap and him.
He could be.
Avice rubbed her eyes again before letting out a breath and slipping into his welcoming arms. She settled with her back against his chest, and his ice-cold feet pressed against hers, making her shiver.
Trewoofe let out a sigh into her hair, sending strands of her locks fluttering around her face.
He wrapped his shaking arms around her. She waited until his breathing evened out, before finally closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep herself.