Page 6

He nodded and passed me the spool and hook-shaped needle.

With trembling fingers, I accepted them and began to sew the wound closed. Pulling the gaping flesh together was an arduous chore, but the man helped by pinching his friend’s abdomen while I worked, and I managed to seal the wound tightly. My sewing was sloppy at best, but at least the bleeding had slowed.

I taped a patch of gauze over the sewed gash, then went about tending to the other, smaller cuts across his body. The passed-out man had a muscular build, looking formidable even in this state. And naked as he was, every sculpted inch of him was fully exposed to my wandering gaze as I strived to patch him up. He looked like a warrior, his thick raven hair caked with dirt and blood.

What could have possibly defeated such a man as this?

When that was finally done, I turned to his conscious companion, getting a good look at him for the first time. He had a similar build, though slightly leaner. Where his friend had black hair and a chiseled face that leant itself to a cruel beauty, this man’s hair was a soft brown, his features less harsh, pretty in a gentle way.

I peeled my gaze from his face and scanned his body for wounds, which turned out to be plentiful but less critical.

“Okay, let’s get you tended to now,” I said.

He rose and let me guide him to a nearby armchair, where I poured over each cut, cleaning and bandaging them.

“Thank you,” he said as I applied the last bandage to his upper arm. “After finding the village empty, I really didn’t think I’d find anyone here.”

“Yeah, I’m... uh... I’m the last one,” I said, my voice tight. But I didn’t want to talk about that. “What did you say attacked you?”

He cocked his head at me, frowning. “A cusith.” He said the word as if I should know what that was.

I shook my head.

“You really don’t know what a cusith is?” he asked with a note of astonishment.

Again, I shook my head.

His eyebrows flared. “Wow. That means they haven’t ventured this far yet. You’re lucky.”

I cleared my throat. “Whatisit?”

He sighed, grunting as he shifted on in the chair. “The only way I can describe it is a shadow-beast, a hellish demon. They were thought to have been eradicated centuries ago, but in recent months, they’ve come out of hiding and began terrorizing inhabited areas. We didn’t expect to encounter them in your neighboring forest.”

I wracked my mind for any mention of such a creature in Varinya’s history, but the black wolves were the only threat I’d ever heard of.

“Do you think this...cusithis resurfacing because the black wolves are gone?” I asked.

Something flickered in his green eyes when his gaze slid to mine, seeming to assess me for a moment. “I don’t know.”

I pursed my lips and looked down, my gaze falling on his fully nude lap. I snapped my head to the side and shot to my feet.

“I’ll get you some clothes,” I blurted out, my cheeks burning as I refused to look at him.

Skittering upstairs to my father’s old room, I hoped to find some garments that would fit my guests. I hadn’t been in my parents’ old bedroom in months, and the moonlight pouring through the windows caught the thick dust that hung in the air, forming cloudy blocks throughout the space.

Echoes of my father’s voice sounded in my head, treasured memories flashing behind my eyelids. I bitterly pushed them away and began to dig through his clothing chest. I found two pairs of trousers and two button-down white shirts that might suit the men downstairs. Then I fled the room before grief could capture me in its snare.

They were exactly where I’d left them. I went to the conscious man and handed him the clothes first while struggling to avert my gaze from his raw, masculine form.

“These should fit you,” I said as he accepted them.

I turned away as he put them on, setting the clothes for his friend on the arm of the couch and covering him with a blanket.

“I’m Aliya,” I offered, my back to him.

“Tannin,” he replied. “And his name is Jax.”

Tannin and Jax.The first people I’d seen or spoken to in four-hundred-and-twenty-two days.