Page 52

I stared in horror at my crimson-stained hands. So strange that such small, familiar hands with violently trembling fingers could be the source of death.

“It’s alright. You’re alright.” His fingers inched toward the handle of my blade. “Give me the knife, sweetheart.”

I obeyed, weeping through the sharp, burning pain in my side. When he’d taken the dagger, I dropped my hand to the wet, sticky spot of fabric covering the searing pain at my waist.

My muscles screamed with each shift of my body like a hot poker twisting inside me. I lifted my hands before my eyes. My breathing labored when I realized I couldn’t tell the blood of the man I killed from my own.

Gavin circled to my front and followed my bloody hands to the stab wound low in my abdomen.

Within seconds, his usually tan skin bleached white.

“No,” he croaked. Hands that had been steady while slaughtering over a dozen men now shook as he reached for the hem of my sweater.

All of him in a panic. “No, no, no, no—”

“Gavin—”

“No!” he bellowed, lowering me to the ground, crumbling to his knees along with me. He yanked away the black fabric, his breathing distraught and uncontrolled. Every trace of that savage warrior I knew was gone. “Please, no, no, no—”

“Gavin, breathe!” I insisted, my voice stronger this time.

The wound burned, but I pushed through the pain, caring little about it when he was struggling to merely breathe.

When I could see something inside him had just snapped .

I had never imagined he was capable of feeling such debilitating shock.

The cutting pressure was awful to bear, but I was only a little woozy. I felt the blood seeping rather than gushing. The blade hadn’t gone that deep. Tears blurred my vision, but I knew—

“I’m okay.” I lifted my quaking hands to his face and forced him to meet my gaze. “I’m okay.”

His wide, wild eyes studied the wound as he touched the skin around the puncture. As if he were trying to hold me together. Fix me. I had done the same when I accidentally stabbed him. When I thought he might die, I knew I never wanted to feel that fear again.

And now I saw that same terror mirrored back at me, magnified a hundred-fold.

“I’m okay,” I whispered again, even as I cringed at the pain.

He huffed out a relieved breath, assessing the wound with clearer eyes. It would need to be treated fairly quickly to avoid infection, but it was low, above my hip, where there were no vital organs or arteries. It hurt like hell, but it wouldn’t kill me.

“Ella,” he breathed.

“Yes.”

“You’re okay.”

“Yes.”

He gripped my face with his hands and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Neither of us cared that he was covered in blood.

“You’re okay,” he reminded me again, or himself, or both of us. One more stolen kiss to my forehead. He carefully laid me down and removed his jacket. He folded it so the clean interior faced out and tucked it beneath my head. “Don’t you move.”

I obeyed, staring up at the gray sky of fading dusk, focusing only on my breathing.

When he returned moments later, he knelt beside me with a roll of cloth bandages and his canteen.

He gave me his hand to squeeze as the biting-cold water cleansed the wound.

I clenched my teeth but hardly made a sound.

He stuck his hand beneath me to help arch it so he could wrap the bandage around my torso.

I tried to lift a hand to his wounded bicep. “What about your arm? ”

“Fuck my arm,” he grumbled, grasping my hand, holding my knuckles to his lips, kissing them. My insides fluttered despite the flaming poker in my side.

“Is our horse okay?” I asked, distracting myself.

“No.” He carefully wrapped another length of bandage around my torso.

“The arrows were poisonous. I got mine out fast enough, but she’s…

” A quick glance toward where she lay, and he shook his head.

“They got her twice. One in the shoulder, one in the neck.” A few more wraps of the cloth bandage around my waist, and he was done.

“This will have to do for now.” He lowered the hem of my sweater over the bandage to cover me back up.

“I know of a cabin a few hours east of here on foot. No one will be there this time of year. It’s not as far as I intended for us to make it tonight, but it’s safe and remote. We can rest there.”

I stood with his help and limped over to the black mare. Our bags were still attached to her saddle.

Her eyes were closed. Peaceful, as if she was sleeping. But her strong chest didn’t rise and fall and no misted breath blew past her nostrils into the cold air. Blood trickled and glistened out of each of her wounds.

“Did she feel much pain?”

“From the initial arrow hits, yes.” He kept a firm grip on my elbow while I knelt beside her. “But she fell asleep, and the poison stopped her heart. She went peacefully.”

Cheeks wet with tears, I studied the long, powerful form of a creature that had been so wild and free. I would hold on to the sweet moments she had given me. And when I dreamed of freedom, I would think of her. It wasn’t right for her to leave this world empty, not after what she had gifted me.

“What do you need?” he asked, seeing me search for my knapsack.

“My bag.” The cold dirt crunched beneath his feet as he reached for it. “There’s a blanket inside—violet and maroon. ”

He reached over the mare’s body, opened my bag, and withdrew the quilt. “This is from your home in Warrich.” He knelt down at my side and rested the quilt in my open arms.

“I don’t know if that was ever my home.” I unfolded the quilt and draped it over the mare’s head and neck. “Is it stupid? It was—” I sucked in a tattered breath. “It was mine and Ollie’s. I just want her to have it.”

“No.” He intertwined his gentle, calloused fingers in my disheveled hair and kissed the top of my head. “Not stupid, Ella.”

I rested my hand on her side, shut out my tears, and prayed, “May you outrun all your burdens in the land of the gods.”

For me , I added in silence, hoping that Soltum, God of Animals, would find a way to get those words to her, wherever she was. Outrun them for the both of us.

I turned to rise, using his thick, solid arm as support. “I don’t know how far I can walk.”

“We’re not going to find out.”

The ground slipped out from under me, and I found myself cradled in his arms.