She doesn’t respond. Her eyes are closed, her long lashes resting against tanned cheeks, her full lips parted, and her breath coming in low, harsh pants.
I think she’s unconscious now.
Well, shit.
I don’t know what to do. They say to never move someone who may have sustained trauma, but really, what could she have sustained trauma from? And isn’t this a dream, anyway?
I glance up at the dark sky, squinting my eyes against the rain, but the lightning seems to have stopped for the moment. But even if there was lightning, what would it illuminate? What was that…thing? What did I actually just see?
A…monster?
I bite my lip for a moment—I honestly don’t really know what to do—and then pure instincts take over again. If this is a dream (and if this is a dream, it’s the realest dream I’ve ever had in my life), then it won’t matter what happened in it once I wake up. And if it isn’t a dream, I’ve got to do something about her injuries. Or at least figure out what her injuries are.
I roll the woman over as gently as I can, then try to leverage her upper body into a seated position so that I can lift her arm and put it around my shoulders, help her stand, or at least get her into a position where I can drag her as gently as I can into the house. But I guess her armor is heavier than I thought, and she’s taller than I thought, too, and she seems to be made of one pure muscle since she’s so ridiculously heavy that I can’t even lift her upper body even a little, and the arm I’m trying to get around my shoulder is as hard as a rock. I grapple with her shoulders for another moment, but because I’m trying to be careful, and because her armor is wet and slippery, she slides right out of my hands, and I catch her head before it lolls back against the soaking mud and grass, my fingers tangling in her soaking ponytail.
Her eyelids flutter, and she opens them a crack, breathing out and groaning, her forehead furrowed. “M’lady, please,” she mutters, her voice low and velvety. She tries to turn over, push herself to her hands and knees again. “You need to get inside, so that I can—” She begins to cough, her voice catching. She spits something out of her mouth, something dark that, even in the night, I realize is probably blood. She shudders and takes another ragged breath, shaking her head.
“You’re hurt. I think.” I mutter to her, again tugging at her arm so that I can loop it around my neck and shoulders. “I’m trying to get you inside okay? I want to help you.”
“M’lady…” She grips my wrists tightly with leather gloved hands, glancing at my face before closing her eyes again, groaning under her breath. She reaches down, grips her side, taking a deep breath. “It’s not safe,” she whispers then, her low voice catching. “Please, go. I will…I will…”
Her gloved hand comes away from her side, and I grip it tightly. My hand is slippery against her glove, and I glance down at my fingers.
There’s so much blood.
“It’s okay,” I soothe quietly. Maybe she has a concussion. (Or maybe she’s talking about that thing you refuse to acknowledge you saw, I think to myself.) “We’ll get you inside. My house is right here. It’s perfectly safe.”
Maybe she doesn’t have enough energy for more words, because she doesn’t say anything else, only breathes heavily as she finally acquiesces, shifting her weight on her knees and leaning heavily on me just then. I fumble with cold hands, but manage to grip her wrist and pull her one arm over my shoulder (God, she really is super muscular—her bicep alone is rock-hard and larger than normal. Maybe she lifts weights?), and then manage to place my other arm around her waist. The fabric of her shirt not covered by armor is hot to the touch, and when my grip slips for half a heartbeat, my fingers connect with skin. Smooth, soft skin that’s so hot it’s burning under my fingertips.
And, as odd as the situation is, as cold as the rain that pours around us…I still find myself blushing when my hand curls over that warm skin.
God, seriously, Holly, I groan to myself. What a moment to realize that I have my arm around a gorgeous woman.
I manage to leverage her up to a somewhat standing position, though I’m not even really sure how I did it. Probably the pure adrenaline that’s pounding through me helped me, because this woman is taller than me, more muscled than I am, and wearing really heavy armor. I can’t breathe, there’s rain in my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and we stagger toward the back door as I splutter, do my absolute best to try and hold her up.
Shelley choose that exact moment to come tearing out of the house through the sliding glass door that I, like an idiot, left completely open. The lightning must have kept her inside until now—it’s really the only thing that frightens my over-exuberant ball of energy.
“Shelley!” I hiss as she comes bounding joyfully up to us. “Baby, get back inside now,” I mutter, but when has Shelley ever listened to me for a moment in her life? She continues to spring alongside us, leaping up and trying to sniff the dangling drenched bits of fur from the woman’s capelet.
I drag the woman up the three steps to my back patio, and then across the patio and through the sliding glass door, and—blessedly—we’re out of the rain. I help her limp to the touch, and then I let her slump down as gently as I can onto its cushions. I rush back to the sliding glass door and whistle for Shelley, who comes darting inside and shaking, rain water and wet dog smell everywhere as I pull the sliding glass door finally closed.
When the door is shut, when the insistent pulsing of the rain and thunder and lightning and the overwhelming nature show is safely behind glass once more, I turn around slowly, and I try to flick on the lights.
The power must have come back on. Because somehow, magically, the lights flare to life.
The woman pants on my couch, her chest heaving as she tries to breathe, as she presses one gloved hand against her side.
God, there’s so much blood.
Shelley’s sitting in front of her and wagging her tale like the crazed dog she is as she insistently licks the stranger’s outstretched fingers of her other hand. The woman is watching me, her face creased with pain, but as I cross over to her, sink down in front of her and stare up at her strange outfit, the bits of armor and fur capelet and soaking cloak and leather boots, I realize abstractly that she looks like she stepped out of a medieval painting, sort of. The armor is too modified to be truly medieval, but I have to admit—it’s the best modification job I’ve ever seen. There’s metal bits, intricately spiraled and molded, to go along with the leather that’s been burned with careful patterns. She has a breastplate of that mash-up of leather and metal, and she has leather pants, oh my god, and metal plates that form a sort-of short skirt over the pants, and leather wrist-cuffs that extend up to her elbows and well down and over her wrists to shield the back of her strong, broad hands that she reveals as she slowly takes off her blood-soaked leather gloves.
I can’t bear to look up at her eyes, her face, because when I do, my heart does this dangerous little dance again, and I really need to get it together, because she’s staring down at me, eyes wide and intense, and I swallow, breathe out, and it turns into a little cough.
She’s gorgeous in a way that’s difficult for me to understand, a wild kind of gorgeous that I don’t think I’ve really seen in any human being. She’s got the intense stare of a creature who hunts for her food, who should never be messed with, but there’s also a gentleness to her gaze when she looks at me.
And oh my goodness is she intense as she stares down at me, still panting. Her face is creased in obvious pain, yes, but it’s still easy to see how full her lips are, how inviting the curve of her jaw is. The brightness of her blue eyes is almost bewitching. Her long black hair is drawn up into a very severe and high ponytail, and she has a bit of fur wrapped around the thong that keeps her hair up, that drapes down next to her hair and over her shoulder. It’s gray fur, like a wolf’s. I’m trying not to notice the strong, tanned curve of her neck, the way it slopes down to the breastplate, and it’s then that I sort of wake up, because I
glance down at the rest of her body again and I see her leg, the hole in the leather of her torso, and the leather on both her thigh and her stomach have tears in it, but the most obvious thing to see is that she has a gigantic wound on her leg.
There’s blood everywhere.
I breathe out again through my mouth, try to think about things other than blood as I get a little light headed, and I stumble to my feet, rush to the kitchen, and I’m back again with an armful of paper towels as I kneel beside her, offer them to her, then crouch down in front of her again, holding out the armful of paper towels.
I have no idea how much pain she’s in. But judging from her grimace, from how white her skin is under that tan…probably a lot.
“Oh, my God,” I mutter, holding out the paper towels to her with a shaking hand. “Are you…are you okay?”
It’s then that she cracks a little smile, her lips turning up at the corners for a heartbeat as she chuckles with her low, velvet voice. She shakes her head as she grimaces, paling further as she leans forward a little at the waist.
“No,” she answers, and it’s smooth and easy that word, a little rich, low laugh following it. She flicks her gaze up to meet my eyes, her own blue eyes flashing brightly. “Thank you for your concern, m’lady, but in truth, it’s just a little thing.”
We both stare down, just then, at the wound in her leg as the blood oozes over her skin and pants and plinks onto my couch, kind of soaking the dull, gray cushions with bright crimson.
“Not exactly little,” I mutter, and lean forward, poised with the paper towels. She reaches out, wraps her fingers around my wrist, and I shudder at her touch—her hand is so hot—but I also shudder, because it’s so gentle, those strong fingers that touch me so softly that it’s almost like she isn’t touching me at all.
But I notice, very, very much, that she is.
She grips my wrist gently, shaking her head. “Don’t concern yourself with me me. I shall be well in the morning,” she mutters, breathing out, locking eyes with me. We stare at one another for a long moment, and she sort of leans back against the couch, letting go of my wrist gradually as if she’s lost the strength to curl her fingers. “Where am I?” she asks then, sighing out and glancing past me to my living room, to Shelley who’s wagging her tail so hard, it’s in danger of falling off.
“Um. On East Linden Street,” I say, which is the first thing that comes to mind, but sounds really stupid after I utter it. “Um. Where do you think you are? Are you concussed, maybe?”
She breathes out, grimaces again, and then I remember the paper towels and very slowly, very carefully, press them to her leg. She makes a low groan but doesn’t move a muscle, and I feel like I’m going to be sick for a moment, because the towels soak up so much blood. I glance up at her—she’s gone pure white for a moment.
Her gaze flicks to mine, and though she’s obviously in a great deal of pain, her full lips curl up at the corners again into a small, soft smile.
“Thank you,” she whispers to me, her voice so low that before I can catch myself, I shiver a little at the sound of it.
“I…I haven’t done anything,” I manage, patting the paper towels onto her leg. If I stare down at the paper towels, maybe the warmth in my cheeks will lessen.
“Yes,” she whispers, and suddenly her hot fingers are beneath my chin, and she gently leverages my gaze upward. She searches my gaze, her own eyes so intense and burning that I feel transfixed beneath them. “You saved my life,” she whispers.
The spell is broken, because she leans back suddenly against the couch with another low groan, holding tightly to her side. Bright red blood, fresh blood, begins to leak out between her fingers and over her hand.
“Oh, my god, I’ve got to get you help…” I gasp, staggering upright and running toward my purse, my cell phone, that I left on the little table in the entryway. “I’m going to call for an ambulance, and we can get you to the hospital, and you’re going to be okay, okay? I promise—” I begin, but I’m cut off.
“Hospital? What is a hospital?” She shakes her head, leans forward again as I fish my phone out of my purse and come back to her, crouching down in front of her again. Now I can see that there’s a wolf tail woven in with her ponytail, the silver pelt bright against the darkness of her hair. I stare at that wolf’s tail for a long moment before I punch “911” into my phone.
She reaches across the space between us and takes my hand, curling her fingers over my phone, tightly this time. “Please,” she says then, her voice so tired and quiet, “what is a hospital?”
“You must be so badly concussed…” My hands are shaking, and I keep swallowing—my mouth has suddenly gone completely desert-dry. “You know…a hospital.” I turn my other hand in the air as I grapple with the words. How do you describe what a hospital is to someone? I just want to jog her memory. Maybe if I can jog her memory…maybe she has amnesia? “A hospital,” I tell her, licking my lips. “It’s where they can fix you, make you better, stitch up your leg—”
“No,” she growls adamantly. This causes her to cough, which she does twice, then doubles over for a moment, holding tightly to her side. She flexes her jaw, gritting her teeth together as she sits up again, pinning me to the spot with her gaze. “I cannot go there—I have not time…” she shakes her head, locks eyes with me again as she trails off. What she asks next comes completely out of left field: “What is your name?”
My heart skips a beat, and then it decides to catch up with the beat it missed by pounding blood through me at a heart rate that should probably kill me. I’m flushed so red by that simple question. God, I’m hopeless.
I’m so attracted to her that I can’t even bear it.
“Holly,” I whisper. I clear my throat, try again: “My name is Holly.”
“Holly,” she whispers back to me, voice low and velvety like a growl. Hearing her say my name, tasting the sound of my name, does something inside of me, and a small shiver moves through me as she squeezes my hand gently. “Please don’t call for the hospital,” she says then, her voice still low as she continues to search my eyes, holding my gaze with her own piercing one. “Please. I do not know where I am, but I am certain that I should not be here, and going to the…the hospital would further complicate matters that are already very complicated.”
She flexes her jaw and grimaces as she presses her hand over the hole in the shirt beneath her armor, the hole that blood keeps pumping through. “I must make chase after the beast. I have no idea where he is, what damage he may be causing, and it’s my responsibility…” She actually tries to stand just then, rocking back and then forward. I’m too shocked that she’s even trying to jump to my feet and try to help her, but she doesn’t get very far. She grimaces and slumps back against the couch cushions, making a soft, sort of strangled cry, going even whiter, if that was possible as she sinks back.
She actually looks like she’s going to black out as she leans forward a little, her strong jaw clenching to keep in another cry, and I don’t know what to do, so I run my fingers through my hair, shake because I’m absolutely freezing in my soaked bathrobe, and—I realize just then—absolutely nothing else. I’m only wearing a soaked bathrobe in front of this stranger, not that it really matters. But still, I gather the robe closer about myself with shaking fingers as I try to figure out what I should do.
“What’s your name?” I murmur, the only normal words I can think of in a completely abnormal time and place and situation as she stares at me with her ice-blue eyes that I keep falling into.
“Virago,” she murmurs, closing those eyes as she whispers her name between us.
“Um…” I falter, blinking. I keep being mesmerized by her lips, by her voice, and it’s then that I remember that she just said “beast.” “Is that your stage name? Um…”
She sinks back into the couch, closes her eyes, breathes out for a long moment. “I have to find the monster…it’s my responsibility…” she repeats. She’s shaking, and her tan looks
so sallow now, in the light. She’s too pale—she’s pale because she’s losing so much blood. But she’s so adamant about not going to the hospital. “I must find him…” she whispers again.
Him. The beast?
Beast?
I don’t know what to do. I get up, pace across the living room as I hold my robe tightly around me, pace back across the small space as Shelley whines, glances out the back door.
Beast? Is that what I saw out in the backyard? The enormous thing with enormous teeth?
Could this be a dream?
I cross the room to the sliding glass door and draw the blinds down on it, pulling the curtain closed after the blinds. Still shaking, I run up the stairs to the bedroom, pull out my too-large fleece jacket I got from the local Shakespeare club, my fleece pajama bottoms with the cowboy hat print, black fleece socks with pink polka dots, dive into everything, then dig through my closet until I find the knock-off Snuggie that Carly had thought totally appropriate as a gag Christmas gift a few years ago. It’s covered in cartoon cats. I silently thank her, and take it downstairs.
The woman—Virago, I suppose, for now—is fast asleep. Hopefully not unconscious. Hopefully she didn’t just faint on my couch from loss of blood.
I mean, I don’t know—maybe she took some drugs, and doesn’t want me to take her to the hospital, because they’d find them in her system? It’s a plausible answer, and it dances around the idea of “beasts” quite nicely. Maybe she doesn’t have insurance, and she can’t afford paying for a trip to the hospital. Maybe she’s…foreign? Doesn’t really understand the concept of what a “hospital” is, because she’s not familiar with the word? She does have a soft sort of accent that I can’t exactly place.
I drape the blanket with arms over the woman, and then I turn up the heat, sit down in the chair across from her. I try to figure out what to do. I want to take her to the hospital. She’s breathing evenly now, looks peaceful, but that doesn’t mean anything. She could be losing a ton of blood, still, even though the wound is sealed.
A Knight to Remember Page 4