Page 26 of Hexbound

"Smashing," Verity replied, though her face was pale and she couldn't take her eyes off the ripe body at her feet.

He staggered to his knees beside her. "What happened?" She was bleeding, one hand clapped around the wound as she gasped.

"Tried... to teleport." A quiver went through her, sweat dampening her hair. "Something happened. It stopped me from moving more than a foot."

The manacle. Guilt soured his mouth. "Let me see."

Crying out as he touched her shoulder, she shook her head. "Shoulder's fine. Just... bruised."

Which left the bloodied gash against her side. Bishop gingerly peeled away the black cambric. Verity paled as a wash of fresh blood wept from the slash along her side.

Wadding up his coat, he pressed it to her side. "Hold here."

"Bloody hell," she said, pressing against it and then swaying.

"Don't tell me you're squeamish." She'd cut through flesh constructs as though they were bags stuffed with straw, after all.

Verity cringed. "It’s the blood. My blood."

Looking around revealed that most of the fight was done, the denizens of the Dials bellowing in victory as they raised pitchforks and bludgers in the air and danced around the greasy flames of the burning flesh constructs.

"Come on then, Miss Hawkins. This looks done and I'd best see to that wound." Reaching under her, he drew her lean frame into his arms, settling her there as he stood.

Verity squeezed the flex of his bicep through his coat. "I would say... 'my what big muscles you have,' but frankly... I think I'm going to... faint."

Which she did. Promptly.

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Chapter 6

"HOLD STILL," Bishop said, peeling back the rough linen bandage he'd administered in the carriage.

Verity winced, turning her head away so that she wouldn't have to see the cut. Light gleamed through the windows of his parlor. "I am."

"The bleeding's stopped, but the edges of this look raw and—"

"Stop!" she yelped, fanning her face.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling ill?"

"I don't particularly like to... talk about blood," she admitted, swallowing the lump of bile in her throat. "Or wounds."

"For all your bluster, I thought you were invincible. Well, I don't want you fainting on me again, what with all of your delicate sensibilities. I'll stop."

"Bishop," she growled, her cheeks heating. "If you ever mention this to anyone, I will personally find Zachariah and get him to hex you. Again."

Resting her skull against the daybed, she took low, steady breaths as Bishop examined her injury. She needed to take her mind off it. She was feeling that dizzy, breathless sensation again and fainting once was one thing. To do it twice was mortifying. "Do you think that our presence in the Dials had something to do with the flesh constructs attacking?"

Dark eyes flickered up, then returned to their purview of his work. "Perhaps. I'm fairly certain that the necromancer controlling them was using the Chalice to do so. Though I do wonder why they'd attack us?"

"Taking care of loose ends, perhaps." Which meant her. Verity frowned. "What if I know something important but I can't remember—" She hissed out a breath as he dabbed at the slash along her ribs with an alcohol-soaked cloth. "Hell, Bishop. Some warning next time."

"Sorry." He squeezed her hand as her back arched off the daybed. "Agatha's working on how to revoke your compulsion. If you do know something, she'll help you recall it."

"I hope so," she said, remembering the way those flesh constructs had torn their way through men and women she'd grown up with. Not all of them were friends, but when an outside threat attacked the Dials, the Hex banded together as one.

Was it her fault that those constructs had attacked in the first place? She felt ill again, and it had nothing to do with blood. "I wish I'd never gone along with this commission." Murphy dead, the Hex attacked, a demon on the loose....