“Wait.” I pull my hand back, my heart tripping over a beat. “Did you actually poison me?”
She laughs loudly at that and leaves me on my cot. At her worktable, she has two large wooden frames filled with two dozen or so vials just like the one she made me drink. She corks one last vial and sets it into the far frame.
“How do you feel?” she asks. “Good enough to explore my skirts, so I’m guessing it’s working?”
The room comes into focus a bit more. I hadn’t realized my vision was blurred. “My eyes are clearing. My head doesn’t ache anymore.”
“Good. Now, get up, you lazy bull, and help me with this. We have some townsfolk to save.”
She hefts one of the wooden frames and starts out the door, her skirts swishing around her lovely backside.
“I’d follow you anywhere, Mistress Tully.”
I can’t see her face, but somehow I know she’s smiling.
We workour way around Rustion’s estate and the homes and shops nearby. Everyone who is given a vial manages to get it down. I love watching Tully interact with her fellow townsfolk. She knows them all by name, knows their lives.
“You know, Minotaur, you’re the only one who complained of the taste,” Tully whispers to me as a young wolf shifter downs his potion.
I give her a fake scowl. “I didn’t complain. I can’t help sleep-induced sputtering.”
We leave the home with a wave and hurry toward the next house.
“It burns,” she says, moaning and mimicking my deeper voice and making a face.
Keeping my stash of vials safely braced under my arm, I chuckle. I pull her close to speak into her ear. “I’ll make you moan in full tonight if you let me.”
A shudder rolls through her, jangling her load of vials, and her breath catches. Satisfaction dances through my blood and my cock starts to stiffen.
A human female with dark hair opens the home’s narrow door and comes out with arms wide. She looks about Tully’s age, likely in her late twenties since she is human.
“Hello!” the female says. “I’m so happy to see you, Mistress Tully.”
Tully makes a shooing motion and the woman leads us inside.
“Good to see you, Rychell. How is Nate doing?” Tully asks.
“Not well, I’m afraid.” The hitch of a swallowed sob breaks her words into pieces.
Rychell takes us into a room off the main sitting area. A large bed with a multitude of pillows and blankets sits near the far wall. A small, male blue pixie appears to drown in the swathes of comfortable items.
Tully wastes no time in dosing the youngling with her potion.
“How old is he now?” Tully asks her. “Did the birth mother ever contact you?”
“Nate’s just turned seven. Yes, she did. We arranged visits. She’s on her way here now, actually. She’s too young to see her child suffer like this.”
Tully places the cork back into the empty vial and tucks it into the frame sitting on the bed beside her. “I don’t think such a thing gets easier with age.”
I keep my mouth shut because this is a conversation between close friends and I really don’t belong here. Tully may say she’s not a good person, but she’s wrong. Every word from her mouth is either the honest truth someone needs to hear or the good advice they require. She might not hug and grin like most, but her words and her deeds speak loudly to her heart.
She turns toward me like she somehow knows I’m thinking deeply about her. Those bright green eyes shoot lightning through my chest.
Gods, she is so gorgeous. Inside and out.
Rychell is saying something and then the little pixie is sitting up and reaching for her.
“Thank you so much, Tully,” Rychell says through her tears. The youngling is nearly strangling her with his hug.
