Page 8

“I tried to, but I only had some water, so I used it to lower his fever. I think he’s bleeding from his leg, but I can’t reach,”

I explained, making sure to show him my bruised wrist that kept me connected to the other side of the bed frame.

Markos was paralysed for a long moment, the only thing moving was his gaze, which spun from where I had shown him Dahr’s suspected injury, towards me, then back again. His pupils dilated, as though he was looking through me rather than at me and I could almost touch the thoughts he was spinning in his mind.

“Who else knows about this?”

He asked, tone as harsh as his leader.

It was my turn to blink at him, partly surprised and partly shocked. Had he not seen my situation? Had he not realised that I was tied to the bed? Probably understanding the futility of his question, the leader stood from the side of the bed where he had rushed to Dahr and turned towards me.

“I will be back in a few minutes. Stay with him.”

He pinned me with a sharp gaze and did not break a move until I replied. “I will.”

A few blinks later, the tent flaps opened again, this time to bring in both Markos and his mate. Karisha’s hair looked dishevelled, and her dress did not carry any of her usual adorning details. I assumed that she was in the process of getting ready for the day when Markos required her assistance.

Greeting me with a quick smile, Karisha was careful to take a seat on the mattress next to me and open a small wooden box, which she carefully placed by Dahr’s side. Within it, there were various potion bottles which reminded me of a herbalist's bag.

Her slender fingers grabbed one of the bottles and unscrewed the cork slowly, as though it carried something beyond precious. The tribe lady grabbed a vial and poured some of the contents into it, allowing me to see the liquid inside and making me gasp at the sight of it.

It looked like a ray of sunshine dropped into that glass vial, illuminating the entire tent with its shine. I had never seen such a thing in my entire life, nor had I heard of magical potions actually existing. Because there was no doubt in my mind of the unnatural origin of whatever that liquid was.

“Is that…”

I stopped, realising my vocabulary didn't own a word to describe what I was seeing.

“Firelight,”

Karisha answered for me, earning herself a warning from her mate.

“What?”

she snapped back at him as she moved closer to Dahr, whose head Markos had already lifted to prepare his mouth.

“She was with him the entire night, she has a right to know,”

the tribe lady admonished her partner. In a normal situation, I would have displayed a beat of pride, but I was too fascinated to witness what was happening in front of me to pay attention to anything else.

Karisha placed the vial to Dahr’s mouth and poured its contents down his throat, after which she massaged along his trachea until an audible gulp told us that he had swallowed the liquid.

“Will he be alright?”

I inched closer on the bed, my full attention pinned to Dahr’s skin. Which started losing its crimson burn and returned to the golden-kissed colour I was so used to seeing. All in the span of a few seconds.

Karisha didn’t have time to answer, because Dahr’s grunt announced his awakening. His long lashes fanned on his cheeks, and he grunted low, the sound of a beast in pain.

“Where does it hurt, cousin?”

Markos jumped into action and started patting the area around his right thigh, where I had struggled to reach.

“It’s Kleram’s dagger. It ripped into my thigh,”

Dahr’s low murmur announced, and both Karisha and I looked in awe to see Markos ripping at the leather trousers to find a blade embedded deep within Dahr’s muscle.

How did he even walk with that?

He must have been in so much pain.

I mentally cursed myself for not making a harder effort to stretch and check his leg. I could have maybe saved him hours of pain.

What came next was a thing of nightmares, but also the scope of dreams. Both Karisha and I grimaced when Markos started pulling the blade out of Dahr’s thigh to leave a long trail of blood and puss as he did so. We shrieked at the sight of such gore and my captor groaned from the bed, his body shaking once again with new pain.

Instinctively, my hand moved to grab his in an attempt to settle him, but I quickly realised what I had done and let him go. Just in time, because his body started glowing, just like the potion had a minute before. It looked as if a ray of light travelled through his body and moved through his muscles, slithering down his torso, alongside his hip and through his leg, until it found the source of the injury.

When the light got to the bleeding thigh, a deep spark moved through his tissue, suturing the wound with its shine. I struggled to keep my eyes within their sockets, the wonder of what I was witnessing too great to even react. That could have been a fatal injury. And they healed it in a minute.

Everything started spinning around me and I had to grab the mattress with both hands to hold myself. It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room and I needed… I needed…

“He will be alright,”

Karisha’s hand wrapped over my own, squeezing me tightly to bring me back to reality.

“Cousin, what were you thinking?”

Markos leaned over and admonished Dahr, who had just opened his eyes with a heavy blink.

“I can’t do it anymore…”

Dahr’s heavy voice sounded like a crumbling mountain, all his strength and determination depleted.

“Not with this one…”

Markos’ eyes snapped to me for a moment, before he turned his attention to Karisha and ordered her to take me away.

“She is tied to the bed,”

his mate observed and pointed to the leather binding and my swollen wrist.

“Not with this one…”

Dahr continued.

“I wanted to stop myself…”

“Get her the fuck away!”

Markos shouted, sending chills down my spine and forcing his mate into an upright position. Then, he circled the bed and moved over to my side.

I was still shaking when he pulled a knife from his waistband and started hacking at my binding to get me free, but even though I was terrified of his reaction, I couldn’t keep my attention away from Dahr.

“I like her too damn much, cousin. More than all the others.”

“There,”

Markos lifted the ripped leather rope and my wrist along with it.

“Take her to our tent and wait there for me,”

he ordered.

Even though I wanted to stay, Karisha started dragging me away, her hand wrapped with mine in a slow and kind invitation, so different from her mate’s.

“Come, Nora. Please, come with me. Let’s get out of here.”

Having no other choice, I followed Karisha out of the tent, not without sparing a final glance towards Dahr, who was still lying in bed, struggling to awaken from his feverish state.

“Will he be alright?”

I asked the tribe lady as I trailed her steps and walked the short distance from where Dahr’s massive tent stood close to the one she and her mate were sharing.

I took a second to look around and take the day in. The entire camp was placed on a sandy area by the beach, with rocks and heavy terrain protruding through the region. There was never a town settlement here due to the heaviness of this terrain, which made it impossible to build on.

The town of Enderflagg was mostly famous for its hefty stone conglomerate, which had attracted many sculptors and artists throughout time, due to the quality of the rock and the ease with which it could be carved, so much swifter than marble.

Seeing these people here, struggling to make a living on a rejected land brought a layer of sadness into my chest. They had to work from dawn till dusk and struggle for every meal, sweat in the harsh sun and carry supplies for miles. I didn’t envy their lives, though, I supposed they wouldn’t want to be in my situation either.

“Don’t worry,”

Karisha finally replied once we got to the comfortable shade of her tent.

“The firelight helps him to recover completely,”

the tribe lady said as she moved around the tent, fumbling to find this or the other.

“Is that some sort of magic potion? Is that why he is recovering so quickly?”

I did not lose a breath to ask, needing to know what my eyes had witnessed.

Karisha stopped then, slowly turning to me with a tight smile.

“There are many things I can’t tell you, unfortunately. I am already on thin ice from the other day.”

“Can you tell me about that? Can you tell me why?”

I pushed, desperate for any sort of information that I could get my hands on.

The woman gathered all her necessary accessories on a small table and, once she was done, she started working on her completed look for the day.

“Dahr did not expect you to behave, as far as I’m told. He thought you would try to escape in the first few minutes and would have to get back into the tent. When he saw you at the edge of the camp…”

she sighed while tilting her head to fix the second earring.

“let’s just say he did not expect you to be there.”

I huffed, angered by the situation. Why even give me a bit of freedom if all he wanted to do was take it away? Though, my track record did show that I never followed orders, so he must have wanted to play the card of the benefactor and blame me for not taking advantage of the freedom he gave me.

“I will order a change of clothes to be brought for you and organise a bath. And then we have to look at that arm,”

Karisha grimaced when her eyes dropped on my swollen wrist. I looked at it as well, noticing that the veins had become purple and long lines of scratches adorned most of my arm, covered by green hues.

“A bath?”

I asked instead, unsure if I had heard her correctly.

“A proper bath?”

Karisha chuckled at my enthusiasm.

“You deserve one, you might have saved our camp leader’s life,”

she dipped her chin to me slowly, in the only verbal thank you I knew I would get.

Her gratitude, however, was more than obvious.

After a plentiful breakfast that we shared together, Karisha had two tribe men carry a bronze tub into the tent and a few females filled it with hot water and soap, until a proper bubble bath was formed.

As soon as I received the go ahead, I launched myself into the tub and allowed my body to rest for the first time in a week. I let relaxation pour over me while Karisha pampered me further and shared some of her creams and oils with me and even washed my hair. We had a long chat about my curls and how I trained them to stay out of the way and we compared beauty secrets, chatted about skincare, fabrics and any other light conversation.

Once I got out of the bathtub and dried myself, we had lunch together and continued chatting, both of us deeply enjoying this bonding over girl-talk. Karisha was as sweet as I initially suspected and was not afraid to share all her secrets and opinions, desperate to have another woman to discuss what I assumed she had to keep to herself in a camp surrounded by mostly men.

There were lots of women as well, but from what I had seen, they all had specific tasks and treated Karisha like a supervisor, a position which she put herself in every time she was outside, probably with the need to display herself as a strong tribe lady.

With me however, she let herself be. And I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the company, the normalcy of chatting away and eating with another woman, the insignificant secrets she let drop from time to time.

Once our bellies were full and we indulged a lot more than we should have in sweets, my new friend offered to treat and bind my wrist for me.

“Will that solution work on me too?”

I dared ask, even though I already guessed the answer.

“It only works on Grannicus,”

she said without admonishment and invited me to join her on the bed, where she had brought gauze, binding and an oil bottle.

Her gentle hands started massaging my wrist and, even though it hurt, I enjoyed the sensation and let myself be pampered once more. I didn’t know how long this gratitude would last, so I planned to take as much enjoyment from it as I possibly could.

“Don’t you have a camp medic?”

“We do,”

Karisha replied without distracting her focus from where she treated my wrist.

“Dahr however, cannot be healed with natural medicine.”

I kept silent, hoping that she would tell me more.

“Dahr is a gentle soul,”

she sighed.

“He punishes himself a lot, and he doesn’t realise how grateful we are to have him among us.”

“I tried to shout for help,”

I felt the need to say as she moved to bind my wrist. I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t try.

“No one seemed to hear me. No one came,”

I explained. I wasn’t expecting Karisha to smile at my confession.

“Dahr told Markos that you like to sing at night. I assume he didn’t want the others to hear, so he sealed the sound.”

I blinked widely at her.

“Sealed the sound?”

It wasn’t the most unusual thing I had heard all day, but still, it piqued my curiosity.

“I’m sure you know by now that Dahr has specific strengths…”

she let the information drop without offering more. Indirectly telling me that this was something I had to discover for myself.

“How long have you known him for?”

I asked instead.

Karisha did not hesitate to tell me her life story, which stretched through the entire afternoon. We talked and we snacked on dried fruit, we drank wine, and we chatted some more.

I found out that she met both Dahr and her mate when she was a teenager, living in the captain’s camp. Dahr had always been kind and respectful towards her, even before Markos asked her to be his mate. I enjoyed listening to her voice, finding out about a new way of life and traditions and absorbed every information she dropped.

That was, until Markos entered the tent. Fury exploded on his features when he walked towards me, grabbing my arm in an abrupt movement, spinning me towards him so I could fully face him. I tried to shake away his hold, but his fingers slipped to my newly bound wrist and squeezed on the injury, keeping me in place.

“Markos, she is hurt!”

I saw Karisha stand from the bed where we had spent most of the afternoon in protest for the commotion that interrupted our chatter, but her mate paid her no attention.

“You will keep your fucking mouth shut from now on, is that understood?”

he spat, his rage-possessed gaze telling me that I had very little option but to agree with the tribe lord.

“Whatever you told him, whatever lies you spun to cloud his judgement, you will take them the fuck back and act like the prisoner you are,”

his voice rasped, fury clawing at his throat.

“Is. That. Understood?” he pressed on my wrist with each word to cause waves of pain that flew through my entire arm and up to my shoulder.

To sum it all up as though my silence hadn’t been enough confirmation, Markos slashed the air with a final threat.

“Otherwise, you will have to deal with me.”

Karisha wanted to intervene so many times, but I assumed she was bound by tradition and the fact that her mate was too enraged to even try to reason with. Still, I appreciated her intent.

“Say your goodbyes,”

he ordered to no one in particular.

“I’ll take you back to the tent.”

I grabbed hold of my injured wrist and pulled it to my chest, covering it with my good hand for extra protection before I turned to Karisha and thanked her for the day. The tribe lady smiled and gave me a long hug, which did nothing but annoy her mate even more. Still, once she finished and told me that she would be available to help with anything I needed, the stunning blonde moved over to her mate and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“How is he doing?”

she asked softly, her calm-inducing voice layering with her mate’s angst.

“He’ll be fully recovered tomorrow,”

Markos replied, his tone of voice just a little bit softer.

“Shouldn’t we give him a night of rest? She can stay here for the evening, share the tent with me…”

The calm she had managed to induce over the tribe leader evaporated when he snapped.

“You know he has to spend every night with her, you know he—”

“Maybe Nora is different,”

she interrupted with care, ensuring that her tone remained soothing, yet firm. “Maybe—”

“I’m not willing to bet your life on it,”

Markos closed the argument and placed a small kiss on his mate’s cheek before he stepped toward me.

“Move,”

he ordered, and when he saw that I was still grounded in place, he grabbed my good hand and pulled me towards the exit.

I had a few steps to look around and observe the sun setting over the camp, the bloodied warriors returning from training and the women that waited for them, the small fires that started to take life in front of every tent and to breathe in the scent of cooked meat, before we reached the large centric-built tent I had spent my days in.

“Remember what I told you,”

Markos halted my steps by the entrance flaps, this time grabbing my shoulder to keep me in place. His voice was a whisper, but a lingering threat sliced through his words.

“Keep your fucking mouth shut, or you will have to deal with me. And I will make sure you understand what real pain is.”

He pushed his calloused fingers into my shoulder blade and reached deep within the tissue, up to my tendons, which he made a point to play with and twist as though they were mere strings.

It took everything in me not to shout in pain.

“This is the best it will get for you; do you understand? You will not go free, and you will not leave this camp.”

The pain he was forcing me into along with the reality of my situation sunk in deep, my body and mind fighting not to crumble under the weight of my future.

“Is that understood?”

he asked softly while releasing his fingers from my skin. I barely had enough strength left to nod, but he must have taken it as a confirmation, because he lowered his hand onto my back and pushed me in.

The relief I experienced when I got rid of Markos’ presence quickly vanished at the sight of Dahr, still lying in bed, his lower body covered with a thin satin sheet. Impulse pushed me to rush to his side, if only to make sure that he wasn’t burning up any longer.

“Dahr?”

I said his name slowly when I reached the side of the bed. I didn’t want to approach too fast and did not really know how to react, the tribe lord’s threat still buzzing in my eardrums.

“Are you well?”

The warrior moved his head to the side at the sound of my voice and opened his eyes to me, blinking darkness in my direction.

“Why aren’t you scared of me, March?”

he asked, voice heavier than usual.

“Why didn’t you try to escape or fight your way out of here?”

The thought that pain might be causing him to sound so harsh jolted my spirit and gave me the courage I needed to take a seat at the edge of the bed, closer to him than I ever dared before. While he was conscious, anyway…

“I’ve been scared all my life,”

I confessed.

“Guess I got tired of waiting to die…”

Dahr chuckled at that, nodding slowly to me. His sweaty hair was splayed out on the satin pillowcase, drawing waves of darkness. His bedding felt weird, so at odds with the fur lined covers he had before. It made him look inadequate, his stature too rough against the delicate setting.

“Death and I are old friends at this point,”

he confirmed, as if understanding exactly what I meant.

I doubted he did, but I did not push. This wasn’t the right time to share my story, nor did I think he would want to hear it.

We shared a comfortable silence for a long while, the both of us content with the other’s statement and the wordless understanding we had come to reach.

Dahr however, broke the string of peace we had created.

“Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you just leave me here and go?”

he pressed

“I didn't think about it,”

I replied, partly ashamed of my statement. Could I have escaped? Could I have taken the opportunity to disappear into the night? Would I have had a chance?

He shook his head then, a vindictive tone dominating his speech.

“I don’t deserve your compassion.”

The man looked at me as though he was judging me, as if I had disappointed him for not doing what I had threatened to accomplish so many times.

I shrugged.

“Maybe not, but you have it anyways.”

I wanted to tell him more. So, so much more, but Markos’ threat stopped me. Whatever had happened, he considered me guilty. And he had the power to make my life a living hell.

Out of cowardice or simple idleness, I did not want to test him. I couldn’t truly say that I enjoyed my prisoner’s life, but in the grand scheme of things, I had been treated fairly and did not plan on worsening my situation. The warning to keep my mouth shut returned to memory and, unsure how to break the connection I was so easily forging with Dahr, I faked a yawn, even though it was barely dinner time.

“I think I would like to go to bed now and let you rest as well. Last night took a heavy toll on the both of us,”

I said and stood, twisting my bound wrist to prepare it for another round of binding.

“Your bed is freshly made. There is also dinner and drinks, should you require anything throughout the night,”

Dahr pointed to the smaller bed he had brought in for me.

“Thank you,”

I said and, making a split-second decision, I offered him my left hand this time, choosing to keep my injured one free and hoping it would heal soon.

I was expecting the leather strap to catch my wrist, but instead, Dahr moved from the bed into a more upright position and grabbed my hand in his.

Shock spilled through my veins at the feeling of his skin against mine and I remained petrified when I saw him lifting my hand to his mouth to place a gentle kiss on my knuckles.

“There is no need for that any longer,”

he offered.

“You are free to enjoy this camp as you prefer.”

Before I had a chance to react or to try to control the desperate beating of my heart, Dahr settled back into bed and wished me a good night.