Page 24

Seventeen

B riar had never been a caretaker before.

She always thought that if she got roped into it, she would do a purposefully lackluster job.

But she found herself putting all of herself into taking care of Wick as he healed in their tiny cave behind the Yedzeva ravine, catching him rabbits to eat.

Fluffing up his nest with new stolen clothing.

Polishing his horns. Bandaging his wounds.

Taking quick breaks to rub herself clean with snow, rushing back into the cave as fast as she could, not only because she was freezing, but in case he needed her.

Gathering herbal creams from the village to soothe his burns, rubbing them on him every morning and night.

Wick insisted they were helping, but he also said Skullstalkers healed much faster than humans, so Briar couldn’t tell if his rapid healing was because of her or not.

“There’s no other way out,” she told him as she rubbed oil into his horns. There was nothing medical about it, she just saw some oil when she was sneaking around the village and decided to treat him.

“I’ll sneak us out at night,” she continued. “No problem.”

Wick raised his head to give her an amused look. He had spent the last few days in the shoddy nest Briar had built him, insisting that it was truly the best thing anyone had ever done for him, even though there were times on that first day when he was practically sitting on the ground.

“ You will sneak us out,” he repeated, lowering his head again so Briar could resume her work on his horns. “Where will I be? Hiding in your pack?”

“You know what I mean.” Briar rubbed an easy circle around his horns, careful of a burn creeping up near the right base.

“I’ll guide us out,” she corrected. “You know how many times I’ve had to stealth my way out of someplace? And I’ll do it again. Nobody will see us. Not the townsfolk, and not…”

She trailed off. Wick picked up on it, like always.

“You said he was gravely injured,” he said.

Briar shrugged. Renault had been gravely injured, and she wished he’d injured him more. The lipseed-stinking bastard.

“So were you,” she said. “And you’re fine.”

“I heal quickly,” Wick said. “Even from Malblossom.”

Briar snorted, rubbing his horns harder.

She had been going over those flowers in her head, mapping them out until she could recognize them on sight.

She had even crept back to the ravine and examined the net.

She had seen something like it before, but only in passing.

She never paid much attention to monster hunters.

According to Wick, many of them didn’t even carry Malblossom nets.

There were not many rules for fighting Skullstalkers, except to pray to whatever god you believe in and hope your death is swift.

“My eye is already back to normal,” Wick continued.

Briar tilted his head up to check. Wick’s eye was back to normal, not counting some discoloration at the edge.

She stood back, holding her shiny hands at her sides as she examined the burns peeking out from the bandages. The burns were no longer black or angry red, but a vivid pink. On a mortal, it would be unheard of. She had never been so happy that he was a Skullstalker.

“And the rest of you?” she asked. “How’s the pain?”

“I am fine.” Wick smiled. “Itchy. But fine.”

She smiled back. Of course she did. She always did, even when it took everything she had in her not to burst into tears. Every time she looked at him, her eyes were drawn to the lone wing at his back. Even if he was facing her, it was unmistakable what she’d done to him.

She couldn’t get past it. She took his limb . He should be cursing her, swearing revenge.

“Briar,” Wick said. “I said I am fine .”

Briar breathed out hard through her nose. Then she smiled harder, forcing any uncomfortable emotion underneath it.

“I know what would make you feel even better,” she said.

She pressed her oil-slick hand to his belly, avoiding the bandages. They both watched it slide down, reaching under his loincloth and closing around his length.

Wick’s eyes drifted shut. The tension in his face drained away, and Briar felt something in her own chest loosen.

It was not easy, fucking when Wick was injured like this. But it was the only time Briar had felt okay since she cut off Wick’s wing.

Seven days after the ravine, they finally made it back to the mountain path.

“Told you we wouldn’t get caught,” Briar whispered.

Wick grunted. He had been shockingly quiet as they crept through the dark village of Yedzeva. Hadn’t bumped into anything. He had even stopped Briar before she stepped into a noisy child’s toy—one of the many advantages to being able to see in the dark.

Briar waited until they were further down the path before dropping back to her usual volume. “Are you sure you don’t need to rest? Give us an hour, and we should be safe to camp.”

“I can keep going,” Wick said.

Briar eyed his wounds. They had run out of bandages the night before, so the burns stood out clearly on his skin. They were calming down much faster than they would on a mortal, and his most recent arrow wound was already growing new skin. And his wing…

Briar cleared her throat. “We’ll see how you feel in an hour. Do you want any more rabbit?”

Wick gave her an amused look that Briar took to mean, I barely need to eat once a month, mortal. Stop offering me food.

“Just being polite,” Briar muttered. She took a strip of cooked rabbit meat out of her pocket and bit into it.

The moonlight was brighter up ahead. The further Briar walked, the more she realized that it wasn’t a trick of the light: the moonlight cut off in a sharp line.

She looked up. The cliff looming over Yedzeva stopped directly above them.

“Still standing,” Wick said.

Briar nodded. “Guess the ritual worked. The mountain’s wrath won’t strike them down this year.”

She meant it as a joke. But Wick stayed there, staring up at the cliff with that same strange look he had adopted several times when they talked about the mountain.

Briar shifted nervously. She wanted to get away from the village.

She wanted to get back to Marigold and hand over the flower.

She wanted their curses gone so she could stop worrying Wick was going to go feral and rip her throat out every time they had sex; there had been some close calls, the amulet flickering so hard she worried it would fail like it had in the ravine.

She cleared her throat.

“Any voices?” she asked, dreading the answer.

Wick shook his head. After one last lingering look, he turned back to the path and continued walking, only a small limp in his step.

It was light outside when they finally set up camp on a mountain edge.

Briar yawned, staring out at the land below. If she squinted, she could almost see Marigold’s cottage through the distant trees.

She pointed. “How long do you think it’s going to take us to get down there?”

Wick gave her a long look that she eventually translated as, Any long distance I’ve ever traveled, I have flown there. I have no reference for long-distance travel on foot.

“Right,” Briar muttered, ignoring a stab of guilt. “Never mind. I’ll set us up a nest.”

“You do not have to,” Wick said. “I have slept on the ground many times. You have watched me.”

“Yes, but still.” Briar took the pack Wick had been carrying and dumped the stolen clothes out on the ground and piled them into the best nest she could construct. It still looked awful.

Wick sat down in the middle and held out an expectant hand. “Do you want to mate first? It is another day.”

“Charmer,” Briar said. But despite her tiredness and her sore hole, she wouldn’t say no to a nice fuck right now. She deserved some reward for all that walking.

She took off her pants and started to climb on top of him. But Wick caught her waist and lowered her into the badly made nest.

“I will take you with my tongue first,” he said firmly.

Briar let out a surprised laugh. “If you say so.”

Wick nodded. But Briar could see how slow every movement was, how careful he had to be with anything that might pull his shoulders, where the deepest burns were.

Briar closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on how his huge hands dipped underneath her shirt to explore her breasts.

“You just want to fuck me deeper,” she said breathily. “The more you stretch me, the more ridges you can fit inside.”

Wick made a noise against her belly. He would not take her shirt off—she hadn’t throughout the last few days, except to take a freezing snow bath—but he did push up the fabric, kissing and nipping at her skin.

“That is part of it,” he admitted. “But mostly I just missed how you taste.”

With that, he moved down and pushed her legs apart. He rubbed her skin, something he had started doing when he noticed her shivering on the second day. His hands were some of the least burned parts of his body, but she could feel the puckered edge of a burn on a few fingers.

If it pained him, he showed no sign of it. He nuzzled her thigh and pressed his tongue to the sweat gathering there.

“I missed how you squeeze around my tongue,” he continued. “There is nothing like it. I do not often hunger for food, but I hunger for this.”

Briar wanted to make a joke about how she shouldn’t have hunted for so many rabbits over the past few days. But then Wick’s tongue ran over her folds, and the words trailed off into a moan.

After, Wick bundled her in that fur robe and held her close.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, as he often did.

Briar propped her chin on his chest and smiled. “Only the good kind, big boy.”

He frowned. “I still do not understand what you mean.”

Briar rubbed her eyes. It was hard to think after she’d just had her brains fucked out like she’d been wanting for days. She liked riding Wick, but there was nothing quite like being held down and fucked.