“No, you’re not dead.” He shifts me back slightly so we can look at each other. I break my attention away from the fantastical scene around me and to him as his eyes flicker over me, searching for something. My head is leaned under his shoulder, and we’re both sopping wet.
I search for clues, an emblem of understanding. He doesn’t look like he usually does either. A faint line of stubble lines his jaw, and his eyes are bloodshot, but the most obvious difference is the large scar cutting across his left eye. It slices his brow, crosses his eye, and snakes all the way down to the side of his jaw.
I lift a heavy hand to trace that strange scar. The skin is thick and risen under my fingertips. It must’ve been a very deep cut. His jaw tenses slightly under my touch. “Dreaming,” I mumble, letting my hand fall limp to my lap.
He shakes his head with a soft laugh. “You’re not dreaming. This is real.”
“Real?” I ask, furrowing my brow as I peer around once more. “Doesn’t look real.”
“Real,” he reiterates. He grabs my hand and smooths a thumb across my palm as if to convince me, and I frown. Itdoesfeel real.
The air is chilled, especially with the sopping wet state of my dress plastered against me. I shiver, teeth clattering. “I’m wet.”
“Sorry about that,” he says with another laugh. “Sorry, I can’t dry you. I didn’t realize that spell would put me so close to overexertion, or I probably would’ve done this differently…”
Everything starts to come back. Dying. I was dying or…I was turning into a monster. And the last thing I remember. Hunger. Deep, carnal hunger. I suck in a sharp breath as I palm at my face. “Hey.”
“Am I a monster?” I rasp.
“No, no, you’re not a monster. You’re perfectly normal.”
I hold up two trembling hands, disbelieving when they look…like hands and not claws. I twist them and stare down at my palms, twisting them back. He grabs my hand and tugs it down as he leans over to make eye contact with me. “You’re not a monster. Promise. You’re not going to be a monster.” He taps a finger against my lips. “But your lips are turning blue, and I need to get you out of these wet clothes.”
He pulls my hair out from the back of my neck and wraps it around his hand to wring it out before re-situating me between his knees with my head leaned back against his chest. My mind is still lagging behind, trying to catch up with reality as he begins tugging at the wet fabric and slips it over my head. It starts to settle in as I’m sitting there in only wet, clinging undergarments, the white splotchy mark of the daemon peeking out from the fabric that wraps my breasts. He slips his hand under the fabric at my sides, and a flush works over me, a flit of panic.
“Wait—“ I push back feebly, trying to stop him from finishing. “I can do it.”
He stops and lowers his hands. “Can you?” I heave a deep breath, coaxing my mind, my body to cooperate with me. “Can you sit up?” He draws a cloak from the ground, and drapes it over me before shifting out from behind me, still holding a hand against my back. Pebbles and sticks prod my hands as I shift my weight back against my palms, wobbling slightly. He positions himself into a crouch in front of me, hesitant to let me go.
“I’m fine.” Slowly, he shifts his hand back, rises, grabs something off the ground, and places an article of clothing in my lap.
“Here, put this on. I won’t be far, so yell if you need me. I’ll be right back.”
I assess the garment in my lap. “This is your shirt.”
He grimaces. “Sorry. Working with what we got here.”
I’m still slowly crawling out of the blur in my mind, so I just nod, and he retreats. He’s wearing only his braies that sags down his hips with the weight of water dripping from them. I watch his back disappear behind the scenery of monstrous trees.
Where in the hell are we? I pinch my arm, and it hurts. The wind stirs, culling a shiver out of me and reminding me of the task at hand. Moving slowly and awkwardly, I shuffle out of the wet undergarments.
My belly is pale again with no purple bruise. I run a hand over it. No pain. His shirt is large enough on me that it drapes to my knees. I still feel entirely too naked with nothing underneath it but the strong smell of him permeating from it is oddly comforting. Sucking in a deep breath, I clumsily work up the buttons before bracing myself against the ground and tugging the cloak over my legs.
Appearing only a minute later, he wears dry pants his chest bare. He rolls a log closer to the fire, draws his own cloak off the ground, and lays it sideways in front of it. “Where are we?”
“The Ettin Woods.” He picks me up before I can speak any protests and settles me back against the log across his cloak. Leaning down into a crouch, he pulls my cloak up over me, and adjusts it across my legs as I stare at him blankly.
“The spell I used to heal you has to be done here, at this river.” He points his thumb behind his back.
For several seconds, I’m speechless, staring at him in dumbfounded silence. “H-heal?” My voice is still little more than a rasp, vocal cords seemingly damaged from the lack of water and acidity of bile and blood.
“Yes, heal.”
“But the healer said that wo—“
“A different kind of healing. You feel better, don’t you?”
I feel exhausted yet not painful—nothing like I was. I nod slowly, and he flashes me a tired grin, looking every bit as exhausted as I feel. “But…you left.”
