by Asha King
Addie swallowed a lump in her throat and tried to smile. “Come inside. I’ll help you.”
And hope like hell I don’t regret this.
****
The human was taking it...well.
Erik leaned on her somewhat unwillingly—he resented that his strength had left him so completely, but he was hungry and injured, too weak to do more than shamble. The quilt wrapped around him had soaked up much of the rainwater. It smelled of fresh laundry with hints of herbs he couldn’t place, warm and comforting.
The house itself had the same scent to it, not just lived in but living. Something was off here, something he couldn’t quite place, but he was too exhausted to dwell on it.
His eyes were heavy, barely able to remain open, but he managed to watch the ground at his feet. The floor was hardwood and creaked beneath his heavy steps. The woman said nothing, just led him on.
“The power’s been out since this afternoon,” she said, and though she was right next to him, her small body under his heavy arm, it sounded as though she spoke to him through a tunnel. Darkness crowded his vision and he didn’t think it was merely the shadows in the room from the handful of candles.
Once they reached the living room, she eased him onto the couch. He ached straight to his bones, swore he heard them rattle every time he moved. He coughed again, pain spiking through his lungs. Maybe something was cracked. Maybe he’d made it this far to just up and die.
The woman stepped past him, a blur in his field of vision, and crouched off to the side. “I know it’s already warm in here but this’ll help you dry off.” Sulfur filled the air a moment before the scent of burning did and wood crackled. A fireplace sat directly to his left, close enough that he could already feel the warmth on his skin.
And that warmth was too much to pass up. He slid off the couch and onto the floor, still tucked in the quilt.
The human sat back sharply, her dark eyes alert and wary.
Rationally, he realized she’d been fairly trusting thus far and he should be more careful, but he couldn’t find the words to reassure or apologize. His gaze dragged over her, taking in her long, tangled black hair that rolled over exposed shoulders to rest on her soaked tank top. She was young, twenty-something. Pretty with a round face and wide, expressive eyes. Her full lips were set in a cautious straight line, like they might part to scream at any moment.
She took him in, yes, but she wasn’t a stupid woman.
Firelight cast orange over her medium brown skin and gave her dark eyes a glow. Energy crackled around her and for the briefest of moments he wondered if he’d stumbled across a witch, but if she had any talents in that area, she hadn’t indicated it. She just seemed...human.
“Will you tell me your name?” she asked.
He could do that. “Erik.”
“Erik. I’m Adelaide. I can offer tea, while you get dry?”
Part of him wanted to bolt the moment she left the room, but he wouldn’t get far, he knew. Instead, he nodded.
Adelaide rose and swiftly walked past him, and moments later he heard water running then a cupboard door opening.
Erik turned his attention to the fire and crept closer until he was right up against the old brick hearth. Flames rose, licking the air upward, and he felt the warmth of it soothe his battered face.
The human likely had questions, ones he should answer. He couldn’t be certain yet whether or not she would call the police, but for that moment, he didn’t care. Sleep was coming for him and Erik was ready to greet it, if only for a few minutes.
He curled on his side by the hearth, the quilt covering him, and folded his arm under his head. He watched the flames dance as he blinked once, twice, and then let his eyes close completely and unconsciousness take him.
Chapter Four
Addie lay on the faded, overstuffed loveseat in the living room and stared at the man curled beneath a quilt on the floor in front of the fireplace. Her hands folded on the arm of the sofa and her head rested on them. Despite exhaustion weighing in her bones, she hadn’t been able to close her eyes yet. A small, flickering fire still danced in the hearth, making the room warmer than it had any business being in the dead of summer, but even though Erik had stopped shaking, she left it there.
She couldn’t yet explain even to herself why she hadn’t phoned the police.
The entire time she’d spent changing into dry clothes and running a towel through her hair, she’d debated it. But there was the lingering threat that they’d think she was crazy. Not that she would plan to reveal she saw him shift from beast to man within a matter of seconds, but finding a naked, wounded man on her doorstep was weird enough. If she got babbling or trying to explain while lying, she’d trip up. And they’d think she was crazy.
Her grandmother, before she died, had been institutionalized off and on. Addie’s own mother insisted the woman was crazy. It was not something Adelaide wished to even contemplate for herself. For years she’d quelled anything odd seen from the corner of her eye, or the sounds she heard that no one else did. Even after her mother died in a car accident two years earlier, Addie couldn’t help but hear her reprimanding voice, insisting she not talk about “foolishness”. There was no denying what she’d witnessed tonight, true, but she’d make damn sure to keep it a secret for her own safety.
Rain pattered against the windows still. The shape under the blanket didn’t move except for the flicker of his breathing. He was silent, eyes closed.
Though she wracked her brain, she couldn’t guess where he’d come from or what had happened to him.
People could turn into beasts and vice versa, Granmama always said. She whispered it to a young Addie while she knelt at her altar grinding roots and herbs together. Special people, she’d said, then shook her head and clucked her tongue. Ya don’t talk ’bout this, Addie-dear. Ya don’t talk. Ain’t safe.
No, Addie didn’t suppose it was.
A half-consumed cup of tea sat on the coffee table within arm’s reach of her, while a full cup sat on the other side not far from Erik. He’d been asleep when she returned from the kitchen and she opted not to wake him. At least he’d stopped shaking. Slumber was probably the best thing for him.
And sanctuary.
She didn’t know why that word kept coming to her and she tried to ignore it. Addie yawned, blinking her heavy eyelids. Sleep was crowding darkness around the edge of her vision. The windows rattling in the wind were more a lullaby than intrusion, and even the continuing rumble of thunder wasn’t helping her stay awake.
Her eyes opened sharply and she couldn’t be sure how long she’d closed them. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a dream hovered, and she could but hear her grandmother’s voice.
The candles around the room had lost between one to two inches—so she had slept. Addie sat up and rubbed at her eyes, yawning again. An odd, burning tug began beneath her breastbone, some urgent pull she hadn’t quite felt before.
Addie stood, instantly alert. Her stomach did a flip and that tug grew stronger. Her gaze scanned Erik who hadn’t moved. The whisper of his shallow breaths, quiet as they were, filled the air. He was still alive, so what—
Her eyes fell on something dark on the hardwood. She took two steps forward, rounding the coffee table, and stopped as she stood over him.
Blood snaked past the quilt across the floor.
Oh shit. Addie fell to her knees at his side, pulling the quilt back from his shoulders. He didn’t wake when she moved him, just rolled to his side. His hair hadn’t entirely dried; sweat had broken on his forehead and twined with his dark, shaggily cut locks. His lips were parted, pale and bloodless. She ran her hand over his face. Definitely a fever. Then she scanned his body, gently moving his arms away until she glimpsed the dark blood in his side. A deep wound of some sort, one she had missed with the heavy rain washing it clean.
Addie scrambled up and bolted through the living room for the bathroom. Above the sink sat a standard first aid kid purchased from a pharmac
y and a couple of clothes. She’d already left towels in the living room so she backtracked, went straight to the kitchen to boil water.
Beyond the fact that she didn’t particularly want anyone to randomly die in her house, she didn’t even want to contemplate what she’d do in this case.
He won’t die. He’ll be fine. You know what to do.
But did she really?
She hadn’t time to contemplate it or doubt herself. Instead she busied about the kitchen, got the basin ready for the boiled water, then darted back to the living room with the first aid kit.
He hadn’t moved but his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Addie knelt and leaned over him, grasped his shoulder and his hip, and heaved him onto his uninjured side. He was dead weight while out cold and it required some maneuvering, but eventually she had him turned. She pressed one of the towels to his side and began soaking up the blood so she could better see the wound.
“Erik?” she whispered, peering at his eyes.
He moaned, mumbled something, but she couldn’t make out the actual words.
Shit, she was not equipped for this. She didn’t run an emergency room, she didn’t—
You can do this. You know what to do.
Addie shivered at the tickling breeze rushing over her. In the kitchen, the kettle hollered and she hopped up again, running back to get the water. She poured it into a basin and gave the steaming water a few minutes to cool. The already warm kitchen was stifling now from the wood stove and the water. She leaned on the counter, peering at the darkness of the backyard.
Eyes stared back at her.
She froze, watching them. Pairs of glowing yellow around the back shed. Too small to be tigers—they had to be the local feral housecats.
At least half a dozen. Staring like they saw her there in the dark kitchen.
Addie swallowed nervously. She’d fed them, they had shelter. What the hell?
She could worry about the goddamn cats later—for now, there was a bleeding man in her living room.
Grabbing the basin and careful not to spill anything, Addie trekked back to the living room. Erik still lay on the floor, part of the quilt over his lower half and a towel soaking up blood at his side. She set down the basin of slowly cooling water and knelt again, pulling back the damp towel.
A three-inch long cut, just below his ribcage. Given the blood, it had to be deep, but she had no way of knowing what, if anything, might’ve been pierced beyond skin and veins.
She dipped a cloth in the water, gently wrung it out all the while hissing from the hot water, gave it about thirty more seconds to cool further, and then began cleaning the wood. He flinched but still didn’t wake, his eyes flickering beneath his eyelids. Orange from the fire played over his skin, highlighting a sheen of sweat.
If infection set in, she didn’t think there’d be anything she could do for him.
Addie swiftly but thoroughly finished wiping away the blood and cleaning the wound. She tore through the first aid kit for the rolls of gauzed and packed it onto the long cut, putting pressure to stop the bleeding. She hadn’t noticed it dripping on the floor before but then the house was very dim with only the candlelight. Had he really been traveling for long with that kind of injury, or did shifting worsen it?
The longer she spent there, crouched at his side, the more her brain adjusted, her mind swinging wide open in acceptance of the situation, of him and the animal that walked into her backyard earlier. Knowledge hovering on the edges of her memory pushed harder, not quite finding its way to conscious thought but there nonetheless.
The bleeding had stopped. She sighed with relief, even if the thought of infection still worried her. She was rapidly running out of gauze from her own kit, and then her eyes settled on the box Lori had brought over.
Thank God for her paranoid, prepper neighbor.
Addie collected the useful items from there but paused short of wrapping it up. It needed...something.
Something for healing.
She blinked, startled, as the floodgate opened in her mind, her grandmother’s familiar, rasping voice next to her ear, urging her onto her feet and back to the kitchen. Potted herbs and plants waited on the kitchen windowsill and the porch beyond. She moved almost in a daze, grabbing a plant here, some leaves there, not allowing herself a moment of questioning or doubt. Soon she a small collection gathered, which she would strain in boiling water to soak the gauze in before patching him up.
It might not do any good, but for the time being, Adelaide was out of options.
****
The pale, watery light of early morning glided through the windows and struck Erik’s eyes as he opened them.
He took in a sharp breath. Everything ached—every breath, every slight movement, even the knocking of his heart against his ribs. Fire ripped through his side and he froze, shifting just enough to see. Bandages were taped to his skin. He remembered now, running through fields and the woods, praying the rain washed away any of his blood.
Shifting should’ve killed him. But he was cleaned up and...
...and he didn’t feel all that badly, come to think of it.
He was weak. Exhausted, despite being passed out cold for some hours—whatever sleep he’d had was the restless kind that hadn’t afforded him much time to actually replenish any energy. He shivered but felt warm, sweat tickling his forehead. But the fire in his side dulled to a sting and he didn’t feel anything tear as he shifted into a sitting position.
A quilt fell to his waist. The edge was caked in dry blood—his blood. His gaze trailed over the room, following the path of streaming light coming through the wide bay windows. An open box of first aid supplies and folded towels sat to the side. On the coffee table waited a mug of something—likely cold, but his throat was parched and he didn’t care. He lifted it, gulped down the semi-sweet cold tea—some sort of herbal concoction he couldn’t place, and didn’t care to name. It was liquid and while it didn’t quench his thirst, it helped.
Erik’s eyes settled at last on the loveseat in front of the bay window and the figure curled up on one half of it.
The woman from last night. Adelaide. She slept soundly, peacefully. He neither heard nor sensed any other presence in the house—just her. She lived alone and she took him in, lay there and watched over him until she passed out.
She was either incredibly stupid or incredibly powerful. He hadn’t quite decided which, but she gave him sanctuary and that was all that mattered.
While she slept, he allowed himself a long look over her. Her long black hair was tucked over her shoulder, exposing her face in peaceful repose. Dark lashes fanned out, naturally thick and dramatic. She wore a tank top and long pajama bottoms, neither quite meeting and showing a few inches of soft dark skin at her waist. Her hips were full and womanly, flaring from a small waist. Her arms were tucked up by her chest, hands folded under her head.
Before he could rise, her eyes opened abruptly and shoulders drew in, startled as she immediately met his gaze.
Erik held his breath, braced for her to bolt.
But she didn’t, instead warily sitting up and scratching the side of her head, brushing back her hair. “I guess I fell asleep,” she said with a yawn.
Still not running. This was...interesting.
“The phone lines are fine,” she said. “I can call an ambulance—”
“No!” he said, harsher than he meant to.
She leaned back abruptly as if she’d been about to rise and her eyes grew warier.
Shit. “I mean, they can’t...” You were seeking sanctuary, thinking death was imminent. You didn’t actually plan for help. “They can’t help me.” His head tilted to the side, waiting to see if she’d fill in the blanks.
“So I wasn’t seeing things,” she said calmly.
This wasn’t right—every part of him was shooting up red flags of warning. Unless she was going into shock, how could she not be outright doubting her own sanity by now? “You weren’t.”
His lips parted to answer, then he paused to really think about it. His head throbbed and he felt like he’d been hit by a truck, but he was alive, wasn’t he? “Not...bad. All things considered.”
“You lost a lot of blood.”
He had. His side twinged a bit but the wound was definitely closing.
“I thought it might be infected. You have a fever still.”
Normally he fought off sickness quickly, but not in the rundown state he was in. “It’s not bad.”
She pursed her lips and swung her legs around so her feet sat flat on the floor. “Better than last night.”
“Good as new.” He started to rise but his body betrayed his words, faltering as he clutched the quilt and tried to get onto his knees. The world spun and spots played over his eyes.
“Easy there.”
He blinked and there was Adelaide at his side, helping to ease him back down onto the hardwood.
He was bigger than her by at least a foot—she was downright petite next to him—but still she held herself with power, power he didn’t think she was even aware of. She pulled a pillow from the couch and got it under his head as he lay back. Erik groaned with irritation. Not with her but with himself for being in this condition, forced to have someone take care of it.
It was an altogether strange feeling. His nerves were still strung tightly and if he’d been anywhere else, anywhere with sudden noises or people, he expected he’d have already tried to run off. But here was...quiet. Warmth came off her in waves with the sudden hum of magic. Whatever she was, she didn’t know it, he didn’t think.
Still, he wouldn’t test any of his theories just in case.
Adelaide leaned over him, her soft, small hands brushing his torso. A not-unpleasant heat rushed everywhere she touched, awakening his body in ways he cursed and concentrated on pushing back against. She pulled back the bandages at his side and frowned.