“I’ll be back. I want to try and find its trail,” Ryker said.
Ryker left, and Burtie took his place. “You’ll be safe here while he tries to find the demon.” He patted my hand and then rushed about his living space, placing a kettle onto a hook before swinging it over the fire. “Nothing can breach this place. It’s been enchanted every year for a decade by the fairies—one of the perks of having them as neighbors. Not even that vile creature who attacked you could get in here.”
Burtie walked back to me and waved his finger at my shoulder. “Let me see?”
I pulled my shirt off where it was already becoming glued to the wound that ran the length of me. It was red and angry but didn’t run deep. “Looks worse than it is.”
Burtie leaned close, squinting. “Well, thank magic for that. I’ve got something to take the sting out of it either way. I’m no healer, but I’ve got some family recipes that might help.”
Burtie returned to his kettle and filled a cup. He brought it back over, dropping a sachet of something into it before handing it to me. “Here, this will help ease the pain but not make you dull.”
I inched up and wrapped my hands around the warm cup, breathing in the minty scent of it and letting it cleanse the foulness that clung to my senses.
I jerked at a pelting sound at the door, spilling some of the brew on myself.
Burtie went to pat my shoulder but stopped short. “It’s all right. It’s just the fairies.”
He walked to the door. Sparks were flying frantically right beyond him. “I know, but it’s gone now. No, it’s all right. It’s not your fault.”
There was a flurry, the lights moving so quickly they seemed to light the entire door in a haze. “I’ll tell her, but I’m sure she knows.”
I went back to sipping the brew. A black ball of fur with a single yellow eye in the center of its head stared at me from underneath a chair near the fireplace. Actually, it might’ve been staring at my cup.
“You want this?” I asked, holding it out.
The sparks at the door were still flying as the ball of fur jumped onto the arm of the couch. It settled down and immediately lapped at the cup. It made a few slurping noises.
“Oh, no, Hadder, did you drink all her well water?” Burtie asked as he walked back into the room.
The ball of fur grumbled.
His hands went to his hips. “Is that how you talk to me? I should’ve left you back in the old country.”
The furball made noises that could’ve been arguing as it leapt off the couch and disappeared into the other room.
“Don’t mind Hadder. He came with me when I moved here,” Burtie said as he poured a new cup and handed it to me. “The fairies are upset. They think you’ll be mad at them now, and then Ryker will evict them from the grove because they sensed the darkness and fled.”
I shook my head. “I would’ve fled too. Only sane move there was.”
The pain was ebbing, but the soreness was rushing in to take its place. I grabbed the arm of the couch to help me up. Burtie took my other hand as I struggled to my feet. There was nothing I wanted more than to find my own bed right now, go to sleep, and hope I felt a little better when I woke.
“Thanks for the drink, Burtie, and for calling for help.” If he hadn’t, I wasn’t sure I’d be standing now. I might be lying bloody in that spot, never getting up again. Or worse, I might’ve let the creature in.
“Of course.”
I walked with care toward the door, my left leg going a little slower than my right. My right hip felt creakier than the rest of my body, not to mention the stabbing pain if I breathed too deeply.
“You sure you don’t want to wait here until Ryker gets back?” he asked, trying to hover as I made my way to the door.
I stopped to talk to him, mostly because it meant I wouldn’t have to move for a couple of seconds.
“It’s okay. It’s gone.” I turned back to the door and then paused for a split second before I opened it. What if I was wrong? Would it be waiting for me?
I couldn’t think like that or I might never leave Burtie’s again. I pulled the door open and walked out.
My entire life, I’d known one thing: if I saw the threat coming, I’d figure it out. The ones headed straight at me, about to shred, burn, or rip me to pieces? I could handle those. I’d darted this way and that and pulled off more than a few miracles. Over and over again, I’d managed to dodge them all and make it out—maybe by the skin of my teeth, but I was alive.
There’d been a ton of them, too. Slow and creeping starvation from a forever looming lack of food, because in a world that was constantly at war with each other, farming wasn’t a priority. The constant target on my back because I was a Wyrd Blood. Being marked for death by the Debt Collector.
After all those years of getting by, I’d almost been taken out by something I couldn’t even put a name to. But I guess that was how life went. It was the shit that came at you sideways, in your blind spots, that knocked you to your knees. The stuff you weren’t prepared for that left you reeling and groping, begging for mercy and crying uncle. Sometimes it was in the moments you were exhaling your relief that you caught a blow to the chest.
Twenty-Five
“Tommy, get out of my way, and tell your buddy to move too.” Ruck’s voice woke me from somewhere beyond sleep.
“Ryker said no one else was to come in,” Tommy replied.
My door rattled, as if someone had just leaned against it. Why were they all out there?
And why was the sun streaming into my room? I didn’t get afternoon sun, only morning. Had I slept away the whole day and night? I barely remembered getting back to my bed yesterday after I walked home from Burtie’s.
“He didn’t mean me. He meant the rest of the caravan you let in,” Ruck said.
“Tommy, let him in,” I called from my bed.
“Now step aside before I break your nose.” Ruck pushed the door open a second later. He walked to the window by my bed and pulled the fabric across it.
I heard someone yelling from the other side of my window and realized there had been another guard posted beside it. Had the guy been peeking in my window and watching me sleep?
“Thank magic you’re finally awake,” Ruck said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He tugged the blanket down to my waist. “I heard what happened, but you don’t look too bad.”
I glanced down and realized I had on a different shirt. “Has anyone been in here? And why are all these people outside?”
“Ryker posted them after what happened. As to visitors, who hasn’t been here? Ryker, Dez, Knife, the healer.” He paused and then started to back up. “Burn and Sneak, too. The lady that makes those good biscuits. She left a plate, but people kept eating them when they came by.” He pointed to an empty plate with crumbs.
I didn’t care that they’d eaten all my biscuits. I lifted my shirt, looking at my shoulder and seeing the marks were completely gone. Dammit, Ryker hadn’t even asked me. That healer probably robbed him blind, and I hadn’t been that bad off. Nothing a solid week wouldn’t have fixed up.
Wait, how had I slept through all of that? Burtie. So much for his drink not dulling the senses.
“You want me to go fetch you breakfast?” Ruck asked.
I stretched out stiff muscles. “No. I’m good, and it’s better if everyone sees me up. I’m sure the story is spreading with the spectacle outside my place.”
Several minutes later, I was exiting my place with Ruck and three guards following behind me.
I stopped and turned around. “I’m going to breakfast. You don’t need to come.”
They stopped and looked at each other. “But we’re supposed to report if you’re attacked,” one of them said.
“The food building will have plenty of people to do that. It’s all right.” I began walking with Ruck again. The group waited a good five minutes before they followed us. As long as they left a buffer, I could live with it. It wasn’t such a bad idea.
We walked into the food building, and Ruck shot over to the line. I paused, looking to that same corner that always drew my eye.
Marra had probably heard I’d been attacked. I didn’t want her pity, but I couldn’t stop from checking to see if it had softened her anti-Bugs stance a hair. Was there any part of her that still gave a shit if I lived or died? Or had we reached the point of no return? Either way, it would be a relief to have clarity.
She was looking right at me, the coldness in her eyes giving me a chill. She turned toward her friends. Fake Ruck glanced at me before he said something to her. Her head fell back as a smile lit her face.
I didn’t notice Ryker until his magic was hitting me like a brick to the head. His hand went to my back as he stood beside me, but his gaze was somewhere else.
Marra’s smile slipped under the new attention. She caught it before it completely fell from her face, but I could see the effort it took to keep it plastered there.
“Do you want me to get rid of her?” he asked.
I broke my obvious stare, shrugging it off. “What, Marra? I don’t care about her. She can stay.”
I was the one who’d be leaving as soon as I could, especially if he was going to be acting even nicer than normal. I got it. We’d slept together. He thought he should be nice, but all it did was confuse the situation. The building I was leaping from kept getting higher and higher. I knew my limits and was flying past them.
I walked toward the line, where Ruck was already five people ahead of me. Ryker stepped in behind me, the food bowls getting replaced as he did. What a stroke of luck.
“You didn’t need to get the healer,” I said in between the eggs and the sausage.
“I need you at your full strength,” he said, putting another link of sausage on my plate.
I’d already had two. Why was he giving me more? Was he telling me I was too skinny? Was that a jab? He’d sampled me and found me wanting?
“I don’t need any more.” I plucked up the offending link and dumped it on his plate. He could eat the extra sausage. Maybe if he put on a little more weight, all his muscles wouldn’t bump out. After all, not everyone liked that.
He dumped it back and then raised me two biscuits. Now I had three biscuits on display when everyone knew that two biscuits on your plate declared you a hog. It wasn’t done. There was a reason I snuck biscuits in my pocket.
“Are you trying to make me look bad? Is that what this is about?”
His wrinkled forehead told me otherwise. “You didn’t eat yesterday. You need to make up for it.”
I was on the verge of telling him that wasn’t his problem when I noticed we’d slowly been getting more and more attention. The entire room seemed to be paying heed to our every move, word, intake of breath.
It was safer to take all three biscuits and get to the table than to continue. I sat beside Ruck, who was sitting beside Burn. There were two empty chairs across from me. Hopefully Ryker would take the one closest to Sneak and not across from me, so all the busybodies would stop watching.
The chair skidded backward as Ryker took the seat across from me. He leaned back, legs stretched out and ankles crossed, but there were ripples in his magic churning up the air. I was too close to the edge myself to ignore him. He was eating, but there was something else. This wasn’t a Marra or food issue.
Did he know something about the demon? Had he found something when he’d gone after it yesterday? I’d assumed he wouldn’t find any trace, and that if he had, we wouldn’t have minced words over Marra. It would’ve been the first thing he said.
“Whatever it is, just tell me.”
“I’ve located a stone,” Ryker said, not appearing to have the same warm gush of relief that was spreading through me at those words. This could be my salvation.
I leaned in until the toes of my boots brushed the tips of his under the table. “Where? Who’s got it? How did you find another one so soon?”
“There’s been a rumor about it for a long time.”
I didn’t like the way Burn and Sneak put their heads down as Ryker talked.
“You all knew about this one?” I asked, looking about the table.
I got mumbled agreements from both Sneak and Burn.
“Well, I didn’t,” Ruck added, as if he should count in this discussion.
“Neither did I.” I patted Ruck’s shoulder.
Ruck and I smiled at each other, but everyone else seemed like they’d been told to prepare for a burial.
“Wherever it is, it can’t be that much worse than some of the others,” I said.
Burn shrugged a disagreement. Sneak kept eating. Maybe they thought so, but they hadn’t been nearly destroyed a day ago.
The only one who met my gaze was Ryker. “Yes, it could be, but I don’t think there’s a choice—unless you tell me differently?”
He was asking me if I could withstand another attack without a stone. He’d seen what the last had done. I’d been gnawed up like a chew toy and then spit out. I bit the inside on my cheek as pride and desperation warred within, keeping me from answering either way. Logic told me it was my only chance of surviving another visit from my demon, but damned if I was ready to say that aloud.
He nodded, his eyes locking with mine, telling me he’d figured as much. It bugged me that he thought I couldn’t handle another attack, even if it were true.
“We can go tonight if Switch is up for it,” Ryker said, turning to Ruck.
How’d he know about Ruck and Switch? If Ruck didn’t look as surprised as I was, I might’ve gotten angry.
“He’ll be there. He owes her, and he’d do it even if he didn’t,” Ruck said, after a long swallow.
“This stone never leaves your grasp,” Ryker said to me.
If anyone didn’t need that pointed out, it was me. “You’re enchanting the enchanted.”
Ruck leaned back in his chair, staring at me with his head tilted. “Enchanting the enchanted? What the fuck does that mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “It means I already know not to let the stone go—obviously.”
“Not so obvious,” Ryker said before he went back to eating.
You make one goof and no one could let it go. I’d wanted to be able to sleep in peace. Was it really that huge of a mistake?
Dez swung out a chair, taking a seat between Ryker and Sneak. “You’re finally awake!”
I smiled because it was Dez, but the reminder of sleeping a day away chafed. The reason I’d slept hurt like a brick to the back of the head.
No one else was smiling, though. “Why’s everyone look so bad?” Dez asked. “It’s not like she’s dead. She’s right here.”
“We’re going for the pit stone,” Ryker said, his magic rippling again.
“You’re kidding, right?” She looked around the table. “Wow. Okay, then. I’m coming. I could be helpful.”
Dez was coming? I still didn’t know what she could do. I didn’t think anyone knew.
“What can you do?” Ruck asked.
I wanted to give him a nice pat on the back, but it might’ve been too obvious.
She kept her eyes on her dish. “I can’t say, but you never know when it’ll come in handy. And if it doesn’t, I can fight as good as anyone here.”
Everyone was quiet, and I didn’t know if that was because they knew what she could do or they were bursting with curiosity as much as Ruck and me.
Dez began talking to Ruck about a guard giving her a hard time getting in my room, which spurred a few more comments.
I drifted off, wondering what they’d all heard about this stone. I was too afraid to ask. I either died trying to get the stone, or the demon won. If it managed to get inside me somehow, we were all dead anyway.
If that thing managed to break me, use my magic and then Ryker’s… Death swam around me in every direction; every decision could lead to catastrophic losses. The air in the room thinned as my pulse did a frantic dance. My skin grew clammy and everyone around me
felt like they were casting verdicts, knowing I’d fail somehow.
“I’ll see you guys later tonight,” I said, my fork clattering. I jerked out of my seat like I’d just learned to stand.
I dumped my plate in the wash bin, and by the time I turned around, Ryker was waiting at the door. I stopped walking, but only gave him my profile. Still, I felt his nearness and shivered slightly when he stepped close enough that his arm brushed my side, his heat reaching toward me. It was too much—it all was. The other night with him, the demon, the never-ending ride of chaos that was my life, which I couldn’t disembark from—at least not in the way I wanted to.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have a couple of things to get done.”
He dipped his head down until his lips nearly brushed my ear. “Is that the only reason?”
“Yeah, what else would it be?”
I walked away.
The last thing I wanted to do now was to have a big heart-to-heart on why it wasn’t right to play pretend when you were only fucking.
Twenty-Six
We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing for landmarks but trees way off in the distance and a massive hole in the ground. No wonder someone had dumped a stone here and figured it would be safe. No one would ever come here.
I looked over the edge. “You said it was a pit,” I said to Ryker. “I can’t see the bottom of this thing. Pits have bottoms.”
Dez couldn’t stop looking from Ryker to me. “There’s something going on with you two. You’re different somehow. Are you in a fight or something?”
Or something.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked back over the edge of the pit. It was safer.
Ryker walked over and gave Dez a head tilt. She walked away, but her eyes never left us.
He stood beside me. “Are you scared? I can go first.”
“I’m not scared, and we both know you can’t.” I’d have to go down first. There’d be a ward. Wards were my jam. As tough as Ryker was, nobody could break into shit the way I did. What made that offer even worse was he was serious. It wasn’t a joke. He wasn’t teasing. He was treating me like I was too fragile to handle it, and he was doing it in front of people.
Blood Binds: Wyrd Blood Book Three Page 15