Page 71

He was now maybe twenty feet from the Cauldron wall.

He looked out over the field to the left of where he hid.

Bizarrely, he found he recognized it.

It was the last thing he thought before he passed out cold.

CHAPTER17

THE HINTERLANDS

“Savages,”Nick growled under his breath.

He bent over his mate in the flickering candlelight, using his vampire sense of smell and eyesight to look at the ragged wound in Dalejem’s chest.

“You’re going to have another scar,” he muttered.

Jem only nodded. His long body sprawled on the ancient oak table, his limbs entirely loose, his fingers open, his skin clammy. Nick suspected it was more from exhaustion than because Jem was trying not to tense up under the pain.

Nick hung over the sweating seer with tweezers he’d made himself, using their forge and a few horseshoe nails he’d hammered into the shape he’d wanted.

He plucked out another ball of iron buckshot, and glanced at his mate’s face.

Dalejem looked unnervingly pale, and despite his silence, like he was in a lot of pain.

He gave Nick a weak smile, then tried to joke.

Because of course he did.

“Remind me of this, my brother,” Jem said thickly. “When I complain about the humans from my birth world…”

“No,” Nick said, a touch huffily. “I won’t.” He glared at the other male. “You’ve told me far too much about those fuckers for me to cut them any slack, either…brother.”

Dalejem managed another smile. “Their crimes seem less bad in the moment.”

“I’m sure they do,” Nick grumbled. To distract the other male, he demanded, “Tell me again what made them accuse you of devil-worshipthistime, Jem? What the hell did you say to them? Or was it just your eyes?”

“No.”

“No, you didn’t say anything?” Nick pressed.

Jem gave an apologetic shrug. “I might have.”

“Youmighthave?”

“I was careless.”

“What does that mean?” Nick moved the oil lamp closer as he switched to a different part of the seer’s wound. He thought he had most of it, but he could tell from the wound’s scent that there was still iron in it, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

In this world, gunshots were more likely to kill his mate from sepsis than from the actual damage they did to his seer flesh and bones. That was true of most injuries here, unfortunately, but especially anything human-inflicted.

They should have moved to Asia.

At least people were fuckingcleanthere.

Dalejem let out a rolling chuckle, but it quickly turned to a pained groan when he moved his wound too much and hurt himself.

“Too true,ilyo,”the seer muttered regretfully around a gasp. “Too true.”