Warmongers and Wands

by Dunbar, Debra

  Chapter 6

  Bronwyn

  Diebin had brought just about everything from my smashed truck except my cell phone. I now had my purse and wallet, lipstick, a handkerchief, my keys, and my favorite pair of nippers.

  Don’t judge. I was especially thrilled to see my nippers. I owned four sets, but these were the best ones and I really didn’t want to lose them. I’d been envisioning my tools scattered down the side of a mountain, my little trailer destroyed, my forge smashed beyond repair. Yes, tools can be replaced, but those tools that fit your hand just right and seemed to be formed just right are irreplaceable. You can buy twenty pairs of nippers, but you’ll never find that exactly perfect one ever again.

  Oh, no. My forge. My trailer. Destroyed. Gone.

  I cried thinking of my truck and the tools of my trade, forever ruined, broken and flung across the side of a mountain as we’d tumbled off that cliff. I was lucky to be alive, but here I was crying about my trailer and my tools.

  Hadur didn’t seem to know what to make of my tears. He kept offering me more tea and sending Diebin back to my wrecked truck for whatever the raccoon could find. Eventually he did bring my cell phone, which had all of ten percent battery left. It didn’t matter. The cell signal down here in this cabin was nonexistent. If I didn’t have a broken leg, I probably could have climbed up somewhere and gotten a signal, but I had a broken leg. And Hadur couldn’t go outside of the perimeter of his summoning circle. And Diebin couldn’t operate a cell phone, let alone talk to anyone. Except perhaps Adrienne.

  I wondered if Adrienne could understand animals over the phone, or was that just in person? I’d need to ask her once I got back home. Perhaps we could do an experiment where I called her from an animal shelter to see if she could communicate with the cats and dogs there via phone. When I got back home. Which didn’t look to be any time soon.

  And there was another problem besides my being surrounded by random items from my truck and holding a non-functional cell phone. A serious problem. I problem I didn’t quite know how to solve. All the tea Hadur had been giving me made me need to pee.

  There was clearly no bathroom in this cabin. Even if there was, I wasn’t sure I could get out of bed and hobble to one. Crutches? A bed pan? I needed to come up with a solution soon, or I was going to be wetting the bed, and that was a far more humiliating option then having this sexy demon help me pee in a frying pan.

  “I need to get out of the bed,” I told Hadur.

  He frowned down at my leg. “You have not healed yourself yet.”

  “I know, but I’ll need to be up and moving around long before that bone heals. Can you put together some makeshift crutches? Long pieces of wood with a cross piece at top to go under my arms? They’ll steady my weight on the one leg so I can move around.”

  He grumbled something under his breath about not understanding witches, then picked up a knife and an axe. “Stay in bed. Rest. I’ll be back with these crutches.”

  I waited until he and the raccoon had left, then immediately tried to get out of bed. My right foot hit the floor, my knee stiff but cooperating. Then I tried to ease my left leg along the bed and onto the ground, hoping the splint and bandage thing the demon had put together kept my leg immobile.

  I’m not gonna lie, it hurt like hell, but I didn’t feel like the broken bone was shifting or anything. Holding onto the bedpost, I slowly stood, keeping my weight on the right leg—the right leg with the bum knee.

  This was insane. I stood, gripping the bedpost firmly, knowing that if my knee gave out, I was going down and that was going to be really, really bad. I was up, but that was the least of the challenges I’d face trying to take care of my bathroom needs. First, how the heck was I going to cross the room to get outside to pee? Secondly, I was still wearing my underwear. Scooting them down and squatting to relieve myself was most likely going to be beyond my athletic skills at the moment.

  Take the underwear off? Pee, then somehow manage to get them back on? Or say screw the underwear and just be commando until someone came to rescue me? It’s not like this guy seeing an extra few inches of flesh was gonna send him over the edge. Perhaps Diebin could run into Walmart and get me some spare clothing. Maybe Hadur had an extra t-shirt around I could wear—one that was long enough to cover my naked ass.

  I decided I should tackle one problem at a time, so I used the hand that wasn’t holding onto the bedpost for dear life to scoot down my underwear past my knees, then eased myself down on the bed and pulled my right leg out of them.

  Step one—no underwear. Although having them dangle off the makeshift splint wasn’t the most dignified thing in the world, it would have to do. I got myself upright again and eyed the distance between the bed and the door.

  I was so not going to make that. Was there a bowl or something I could use as a bedpan? A roll of paper towels I could stack up to pee on? Why the heck couldn’t this demon have indoor plumbing, or have his raccoon steal a camp toilet from somewhere? Frying pan or door. Frying pan or door. I needed to make a decision soon or I was going to be peeing right here by the bed.

  Door. I might be stupid, but I couldn’t stand the thought of peeing in a pan that was most likely going to be used to prepare my dinner.

  The path to the door was long and torturous because I didn’t have crutches and couldn’t hop my way across the room. Instead I had to hug the walls and scant furniture, making my way a few tiny inches at a time. Each shuffle forward jolted my left leg and sent a fresh wave of pain through me. By the time I reached the door, I was panting and sweaty. At least I hoped that was sweat and not pee trickling down my leg.

  The door didn’t have a knob or anything conventional in the way of an opening device—just a leather strap. I grabbed it and tugged, not realizing the door was quite so heavy or that something installed by a demon in the woods without a licensed homebuilder to assist might not open smoothly and evenly. I pulled. It resisted, then flung open. I teetered, lost my balance, and fell to the floor.

  Thankfully I’d landed on my right side. Although I jarred my splinted leg enough that I cried out from the pain. I probably peed. Just a little. I was going to pretend it was sweat.

  I lay there on the ground, which gave me a clear view of the books and magazines stacked next to the table. Popular Mechanics. G.Q. Tiger Beat. I guess if you’ve got a raccoon in charge of providing your reading selection, you’re gonna get the occasional Tiger Beat. The books were just as eclectic. One on decorative mosaic containers. The Stephen King books I’d seen from the bed. A couple of Patterson thrillers. Gone Girl. Little Women. The Fifty Shades books.

  Hadur burst through the open doorway, stopping and staring down at me.

  “What…what happened?”

  “I’m not into that stuff.” I pointed to the Fifty Shades books. “Just thought you should know.” Not that the demon was probably thinking sexy-times with me sprawled across the floor in my own pee. Just a little pee. Probably sweat.

  “You screamed.”

  “It wasn’t really a scream. More of a shout. A quiet shout. Okay, yes, I screamed.”

  “What happened?”

  God, I had to pee so bad. So very bad. I was already pretty much naked on the floor, lying in just a little bit of sweat. How much more embarrassing could it all get?

  “I had to pee and tried to make it outside, but I fell. And this is sweat, you know. Sweat. Because hobbling around the room with a broken leg worked up quite a sweat.”

  “I would have helped you. Why didn’t you wait?”

  “Well, help me now,” I snapped. “Less talk and more helping before there’s more sweat on your floor.”

  That got him moving. Once more I was gently scooped up in a demon’s arms, concentrating very hard on bladder control as Hadur carried me outside and a few feet away from the house. He eased me down, supporting me under my arms as I did an awkward squat.

  Annnnd nothing.

  My bladder screamed for release, but I just couldn’t do
it.

  “You said you had to urinate?”

  “Yes, I said that.”

  “Then why—”

  “Stage fright,” I snapped. “Can you just lean me against a tree and give me a branch to hold for balance, then go around to the other side of the cabin?”

  He huffed out a breath, muttered something about “witches,” then picked me up again, propping me against a tree and handing me two branches. I waited until he vanished inside the cabin, then carefully widened my stance, scooting my back painfully down the bark of the tree.

  Blessed relief. There were some logistical concerns involving the flow of liquid on the ground and whether the widening puddle might reach my feet or not. Oh, and the lack of toilet paper. I did the hip shake, which was pretty ineffectual given that I had a broken leg and was squatting against a tree trunk, balancing myself with two rather thin branches.

  Done, I wiggled myself back into a standing position, grimacing to think of how much bark was probably embedded in my back. Crap. I hoped this tree didn’t have poison oak on it or something.

  “I’m done!” I called out.

  It took Hadur a few minutes to exit the cabin. It gave me time to contemplate the fact that I was naked except for my bra, with my panties still stuck like some lewd accessory on my leg splint. Naked. Sweaty—it was sweat, I swear it was sweat. I was probably going to have to go through this all over again in another few hours. Oh, no. What if I had to number two? How the hell was that going to work? I mean, I knew how it was going to work, just not how it was going to work and leave me with any dignity whatsoever.

  I sent up a quick prayer for constipation.

  It figured. The hottest guy I’d ever seen, and me mostly naked, and I was gonna blow it because of a broken leg and biological necessities. I needed to get out of here. I needed my sisters to come rescue me and take me home where I could get a proper cast and crutches and a flush toilet. And then I could come back after I was all healed wearing something sexy and maybe bringing food that wasn’t stolen out of a Walmart and make a better impression on this hot demon guy.

  Hadur appeared, walked over and scooped me up, and carried me inside where he sat me down on a chair and promptly cut the underwear off my leg.

  “I cleaned the sweat off the floor.” There was a whole lot of humor in his voice and I wasn’t sure if I liked that or not. I mean, I guess it was good that he found the whole thing funny and wasn’t upset that I’d sweated a little on his floor, but the whole event was one more negative check mark in the is-Bronwyn-ever-going-to-get-laid tally.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Do you have anything I could possibly wear? Like a super long t-shirt? I promise I’ll be careful not to get any sweat on it when I need to sweat in the future.”

  “I like you naked.”

  Well, that was a first. “So, you like six-foot-tall women with linebacker figures, sweat in places I don’t want to mention, bruises and scrapes, a broken leg, and probably poison ivy down their backs?”

  He ran a hand up my bicep. “You’re strong in the right places…” The hand skimmed across the curve of my small breasts then down to my not-so-flat belly. “And soft in the right places. As for the rest, that just gives me an excuse to bathe you.”

  Bathe? I turned to the side and noticed what looked like a shallow black rubber feed trough full of steaming water.

  “How’d you get the water hot?” I asked, calculating the time it would take to boil all that over a fire. “Did Diebin steal you a hot water heater? And a propane tank? Hey!” I swatted at his hands as he went to remove my bra. I know, it was a bit ridiculous to be modest about showing my boobs when my happy-spot was right there on display.

  “Humans no longer bathe naked? I assumed from some of the magazines Diebin brought me that modern humans, especially women, spent a great deal of their time naked.”

  Seems Diebin had occasionally brought him something racier than Tiger Beat. “We do bathe naked, It’s just….” This was stupid. The guy had seen everything else. It wasn’t like removing a few inches of silk and lace was going to make much of a difference. “Okay. Just don’t cut the bra off. I like this one. There’s hooks in the back.”

  I was perfectly capable of unhooking my own bra, but before I could tell him that, he’d reached around me, struggling a little with the tiny hooks. It put him against me, warm, strong, masculine. My face was right in line with his shoulder, and I leaned forward just enough to brush his skin with my lips.

  The bra came free. Hadur pulled away, taking the undergarment with him as I eased my arms out of the straps. He draped the bra across the back of a chair, then turned to me, his eyes on my breasts. I took a breath, feeling my nipples harden at his gaze.

  Yep. It was just like one of those books. Well, not the Fifty Shades ones, but the others that didn’t involve getting smacked with a riding crop and tied up.

  He reached out and brushed his fingers across my nipples, lightly tracing the curve of my breasts before pulling his hand away. We stood there—well, he stood and I sat—and all I could think of was broken leg or not, I wanted this man, this demon, to take this whole thing across the finish line.

  After a bath, that is. Because I was dirty, and…sweaty. Yeah, sweaty.

  I reached out to steady myself on his arm, then carefully rose to my feet, grateful that all those Pilates DVDs had given me some decent core body strength under my soft belly. He went to pick me up, and I waved his hand away, using him instead to help me hobble over to the trough-tub. Once there, I had to let him scoop me up and deposit me into the water, my broken leg raised and cushioned on some towels over the edge of the trough.

  “Am I supposed to get this wet?” I motioned to the splint.

  “If it gets wet, I will rebandage it with dry cloth,” he assured me.

  I grimaced, thinking how badly that was going to hurt. I really needed a cast. I really needed to get out of here and get some actual medical attention. But the reality was that unless Diebin was smart enough to track down Adrienne, it would probably be another two or three days before I was rescued.

  In the meantime, I was in a steamy hot bath complete with a washcloth and some very nice smelling soap. I reached for the washcloth only to have him move it from my grasp.

  “No. That’s my job. You relax, and I’ll wash you.”

  Holy cow, he was going to wash me. I’d never had anyone else wash me in my life. Well, aside from when I was a baby, I supposed. I watched him lather up the washcloth and shivered with anticipation. Then I did as he said. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.

  I could hear the crackle of the fire, the splash of the water. I could feel the rough washcloth on my shoulders, down my arms, across my back and chest. I shivered slightly as the washcloth left my body to dunk into the water. Then it returned, rinsing off the suds. The second time I heard the splash of the water, it was his hands on my breasts as the washcloth brushed across my hip and down my right leg.

  Fingers rolled one of my nipples and I gasped, opening my eyes to find him watching me. With his eyes on mine, he bent his head and took the other nipple into his mouth.

  I suddenly didn’t care one bit about my broken leg. Sucking in a breath, I closed my eyes again, concentrating on the feeling of his mouth and hand on my breasts.

  “Keep doing that,” I gasped.

  He scraped his teeth across my nipple. “This? Or this?” Suddenly the washcloth that had been on my legs was gone and I felt his hand moving up my inner thigh.

  “Both.” I leaned into his touch, feeling his thumb brushing my clit, his palm cupping my sex. I reveled in the sensation of his fingers on and in me, of his mouth on my breast. My world fell away, my body tightening then releasing as an orgasm rolled over me.

  His hands soothed me as I rode through the aftershocks. My eyes opened and I watched him watching me.

  “That was nice,” I told him. Duh. What a stupid thing to say. I should have come up with something sexy, or complimen
ted him on his skill, or told him how I was going to rock his world once my leg healed. Or maybe before. There’s no reason I couldn’t give him a blow job, well besides the fact that I’d never done one before. I’d seen it in porn. I knew the general gist of the activity. I mean, how hard could it be?

  Hard. Har, har, har. Hopefully very hard.

  How the heck did I go about telling this guy I wanted to…you know? I wasn’t very mobile right now, so it’s not like I could just kneel down and go for it. There would need to be some considerable cooperation on his part. This would be a first for me, and I wanted to get it right.

  It was all a first for me. Yeah, I was that thirty-one-year-old virgin. I know. It sounded so unbelievable in this day and age, like coming across a unicorn. Except we had three unicorns in Accident, so I was actually the rarer. When I was a teen, I was way taller than most of the boys and way stronger than the human ones. It had been easier to pretend disinterest than face rejection, and by the time I’d gotten to college, it was a habit I couldn’t break. When I’d reached my mid-twenties, it was just easier to project a vibe that I was unavailable, uninterested. So here I was, a virgin. At thirty-one.

  Wait, could I still claim that? I mean, the shaft of love hadn’t gotten anywhere close to the cavern of ecstasy, so I guess that technically I still was. But getting off at this demon’s hands made me inclined to think otherwise.

  Hadur reached out a finger to touch my cheek. “I hope the next time is better than nice. My witch, I can hardly wait until you have healed and I can do all the things to you I’m imagining.”

  He stood to scoop me out of the tub and I noticed that his pants were looking a bit snug and uncomfortable in a certain area.

  “I can…uh, I can help with that,” I said as he carried me over to a pile of towels and eased me down onto them. “I mean, I’d like to help with that. Or try to help. Because I’m not all that experienced and might not be that good. Actually, I’m not experienced at all. But I’d like to try.”