She led us up the stairs to a long room that had its own fireplace, a four-poster bed with a handmade pink quilt, an empty washtub and a long black animal skin rug stretched out in the center of the room. Bonito lit the lamp that was attached to the wall, casting shadows on the wood floor and the bare stucco walls. “Would Lady October prefer a bath? I can draw one for her.”
Finn answered “yes” at the same time I mumbled a feeble “no, thanks.” Of course I wanted a bath, but not in a tub I’d not cleaned. I was so filthy, I would just be bathing in dirty water. “She’d like a bath and some human food, but I can take care of the water. Soap and towels, though. The battle’s over for us, so no one’s to call her for help. When King Kabayo comes to see his wounded, send him up here.”
“Right away, Captain.” Bonito curtsied and dipped her elongated head to the both of us.
The second Bonito exited, Finn leaned against the wall and sank to the floor with me still in his arms. He exhaled as if finally able to let down his mask of superiority, now that it was just us. “You shouldn’t have run back out for Ben. I would’ve seen and gone for him. You nearly got yourself killed.”
“But I didn’t, so it’s not a big deal.”
“When will you learn that if you die, we all die? You can’t be reckless with your life, October.”
“Hello, that’s all you people are asking me to do! Geon locked me in a dungeon and starved me, you took me with you right near the zombie apocalypse. You can’t take it all back now just because you were scared.”
“I was scared,” Finn admitted, cradling me and leaning my head to his shoulder. I don’t know if my temple felt so very right pressed to his body, or if I was simply too exhausted to protest. “I’m already going to be in deep with Ezra, but I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if I tried to go Topside again without you.”
Finn held me until Bonito returned. I decided to stay in his arms without examining why it was so easy to slip into a rhythm with him. Finn had thick biceps like Mason, his chest was hard and his body was used to driving itself to get whatever job needed doing, done. He didn’t bother correcting Bonito’s assumptions that we were more than sort of friends when she did the “Oh! Excuse me. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s alright,” Finn said, holding me tight as Bonito set a tray of bread, cheese and what smelled like super hoppy beer on the nightstand next to the bed.
“Bonito, could I borrow your sewing kit again?” I asked, clinging to Finn as if he was my lifeline.
“Of course.” She pulled the small pouch filled with the needle and thread from her apron pocket and set it atop the towels next to the wash basin, curtsying again before she left.
I did my best to take charge of the situation. “Okay, I’m a little steadier now. Let me take a look at your neck.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“Hello, you’ve got blood on your collar.” I didn’t expect Finn to take off his shirt, but he pulled it over his head while still balancing me on his lap.
It was like looking into the sun, seeing Finn without his shirt on. I turned my head to the side so I didn’t do a teenager, and ogle him with my mouth hanging open. He was too good looking, too trained for a zombie apocalypse, too... Just too much to look at directly.
I stood carefully, so as not to collapse this time. “Steady,” Finn warned.
“I’m fine. Just disinfecting the needle first.” I cursed my trembling fingers, but kept my chin up as I heated the needle in the lamp’s flame. I repeated Ollie’s mantra in my head. Keep your chin up, take it slow.
I grabbed a rag and tossed it to him, kneeling at his side while he moistened the cloth with a few squeezes. He winced when I dabbed at his neck. When I got the blood out of the way, I saw one of his gills was torn. “Oh, man. Finn, this is above my paygrade. I don’t know how to stitch a gill. Ben’s bite was below his.”
“It’s just like regular skin, only a little thinner and more flexible. You can sew it like anything else. Just don’t stitch it shut,” he joked with a slight upward twitch to the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have to. I can get someone else to look at it if it scares you.”
I bit down on my lower lip and inched closer, praying I didn’t get a tremor in my hand and rip one of the rows of thin flesh clean off. With great care, I sewed his torn gill flap back into place, chewing my lip against the vomit that welled up in me to contrast with the idle curiosity. Ollie would never believe this.
Finn glance sideways at me. “What, no bedside manner? No fifty questions to distract me from the needle? All the other soldiers got the special treatment, I guess. None left over for me.”
“Dude, I’m about five seconds away from ralphing all over you, here. Let me do my thing, and then you can go back down there with your guys.” I tied off the last stitch with a gust of relief that I hadn’t made the whole mess worse. I glanced down at his arms that had various nicks and gouges. “These need a cleaning, but none of them are deep enough for stitches. Go on down. Kabayo might need help at some point. And make sure he grabs the sagrado stone from its hiding place.”
“Alright. Thanks.” He kissed my forehead and stood, filling the steel bathtub in the corner of the room for me, and then leaving me alone in the lamplight.
The moment the door shut, all my feigned calm gusted out of me in a sob I couldn’t hold inside anymore. The flesh wounds were one thing; I was used to them from patching up inmates, but zombies trying to claw at people and eat me? Whether they were undead or not, they looked human enough to tear up my conscience and leave me a blubbering mess on the wood floor.
What scared me most of all on the battlefield was me. That I could kill so easily, and what that must say about the person I’d devolved into since starting this job. I could still see the zombie faces coming at me, and try as I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t resurrect them or bring their drooling mouths any sort of joy.
The rain was punishing the earth, angry that it had been kept at bay for so long. I could hear it all around me, and it brought about that eerily calm feeling you get when it rains too hard and you can actually sit inside and enjoy it from a distance. I let the pounding soothe me as it hit the roof in waterfall-like sheets. I wanted to lay down on the bed, but I was filthy, and too tired to bathe in a tub that was probably crawling with germs. I curled up in a ball on the floor and closed my eyes, not intending on opening them for as long as I possibly could.
15
Finn’s Peculiar Fetish
When I awoke a handful of hours later, it was to a knock on the door. “October? Open up. It’s me.”
“It’s not locked,” I said by way of a greeting. My neck was stiff and my whole body grumpily reminded me of why it wasn’t a good idea to fall asleep on a wooden floor.
Finn entered, looking around in confusion until his eyes widened. “What are you doing? Why are you on the floor?” He shut the door behind him and offered his hand to get me up. He was freshly bathed and in clean clothes that looked more like palace wear than the outdoor stuff we’d been in. He had on a high-collared white dress shirt with gold cufflinks. His fitted beige pants looked like something Ezra might wear. He shook his head at me in dismay. “What happened?”
“I fell asleep.”
“I got you a room with the nicest bed in the place. Not good enough, your highness?” he tempted with a smile that bespoke of lighter things happening on the floor below.
“Hello, I’m filthy. I didn’t want to get in the bed like this.”
He motioned to the basin. “I filled the tub for you!”
“I can’t be sure how clean that tub is. I have a thing about germs.”
“Well, the tub’s cleaner than you. In you get. Kabayo wants to see you in the palace later, and you can’t go like that.” He watched me look around the room, lost in the simple task that felt like one step too far. He motioned to the tub. “In you go.”
“In where?”
His shoulders deflated from his pe
rfect posture that the nice clothes naturally drew him into. “Oh, sweetheart. You make it easy to forget this isn’t your world. Today tipped it, huh.”
“Can you take me home?”
“Yes. But not before you talk with Kabayo, and he’s still seeing to his men. I think he’ll have time to slip away later today, which means we can get some sleep now, but not on the floor.”
“Okay.” I moved in the direction Finn aimed me, and landed in front of the tub, blinking down into the water. There was a screen behind the tub that Finn moved to separate me from him to give me the illusion of privacy. I peeled off my bottoms, knowing no matter how many times I washed them, I wouldn’t be able to wear this outfit again. My shirt proved problematic, since my shoulder felt like the knife was still slicing me whenever I moved it more than an inch.
Finn was regaling me with details about the total obliteration of Sama’s army. Though Sama could always raise more soldiers with the death that was in fresh supply in Terraway, for now they were vanquished. The rain was making up for lost time, and the centaurs were making themselves useful hauling the dead zombies into mass graves they were digging. The bodies were being given a proper burial so they didn’t reanimate again.
I gave up on trying to get my shirt off and stepped into the tub, letting the water come up to my ribs. I chewed on my lower lip as the germs surrounded me, pressing into my pores and cuts. I tried to breathe through the flare-up, reminding myself that my bedroom was perfect, and I’d be there soon enough.
I tried again to get my shirt all the way off without harming my shoulder. The Band-Aid method of yanking it over my head didn’t work, and hurt far worse than I anticipated, pushing a noise of duress from my lips that alarmed Finn. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” I lied. “I’m just having some trouble with my shoulder. It’s no big deal.”
“How about I take a look at it?”
“I… um… Yeah, alright. I’m in the tub though, so be cool.”
Finn came around the partition with his eyes closed, feeling around like a blind man before he opened one eye to peek at me with a grin that quickly fell. “I thought you said you were in the tub. You’ve still got your clothes on. What sort of fun is that?”
“The kind of fun you won’t get beaten up for. I can’t get my shirt off. My shoulder’s not doing so hot. Could you help without being pervy? Is that within the realm of your abilities, or should you send up Bonito?”
Finn unbuttoned his perfect white shirt, glancing down at me with a look that had barely contained laughter laced all through it. “I honestly don’t know. You’re not giving me a whole lot to help with my self-control. Victory on the battlefield followed by a sexy woman in the tub who ‘just has to’ have me help her take her clothes off? I can’t promise anything. I’m in too good a mood.”
“Alright, out you go. I’ll figure this out myself.”
Finn held up his hands. “I’m only kidding. How can I help?”
“Can I borrow your knife again? I can’t lift my arm, so I’m thinking I should just cut myself out of this shirt. It’s ruined anyway.”
“I’ll do you one better. Tip your head back and get as far down under the water to cover the parts you don’t want me to see.” Finn reached down and ripped open my shirt the second I obeyed, startling me. I made a grab for my breasts, which were safely hidden under the filthy water. He gently worked the shirt off one arm, but paused at my bitten off scream when he tried to slide it off the other. “Oh, hani. It’s stuck to your skin. Did you get a little cut out there?”
“Something like that.” I cringed at the anticipation of the rip I knew was coming. “Just yank it off.”
He didn’t do the obligatory countdown, which I appreciated. My scream could not be helped. My shoulder started bleeding afresh when the clotted mess was ripped open. Finn swore as he tossed my shredded shirt to the floor. “I didn’t know all that was your blood! I thought it was from the soldiers you were treating. Why didn’t you say something? Oh, it’s really gushing.”
“Can you get me a mirror or something so I can stitch myself up?”
“I can do it. But let’s get you cleaned up first. Give your shoulder a chance to stop bleeding.”
I expected Finn to go back behind the partition, but he sat on the ground next to the tub, his arms looped around his knees just as mine were as he faced me. He handed me a bar of hard soap, smirking at my discreet shifts in the water.
“How many soldiers did we lose?” I asked as I started at my arms, scrubbing the layers of grime off myself as best I could. I had dubious hopes that the soap had any sort of antibacterial properties.
“Fifteen Tikbalangs down. It’s a hard thing to lose anyone so close to the finish line, but it could’ve been a massacre, so Kabayo’s taking it all in stride. You saw to patching up the injured ones so the number didn’t grow any higher. I’m sure Kabayo will be thanking you for that.”
I washed my face, handing Finn the soap as I untied my hair. I dunked myself completely under the water, letting my muddy auburn curls float on the surface. It was the one place I couldn’t hear the rain, couldn’t hear anything, and though I was encased in dirty water and germs, I commanded myself to remain calm as my shoulder burned.
When I resurfaced, Finn said, “There you are. I was beginning to miss your face. You’ve been dirty for so long. Utter waste of a beautiful woman, if you ask me.”
I pushed the creeping OCD off me from the germy water and smiled. “Thanks. You should really settle down with someone. Spend those compliments on a girl you can invest in.”
Finn nodded noncommittally, holding the soap just out of reach. His voice quieted, a note of insecurity creeping through. “Can I ask you something private without you losing it on me?”
“If I haven’t freaked out yet, I highly doubt your questions will be the tipping point. Hit me.”
“There aren’t any women who can walk in Dagat, you know. They’re all Mermaids. I only get to see women’s legs Topside, or when I’m sent to visit the other countries. Everyone in Terraway fears the Kataw, so I don’t get too near all that often.”
“You want to know how you’d look in heels? Can’t say I’m surprised,” I teased him.
When his request finally bubbled out, I had to strain to hear him. His voice was laced with an unfamiliar note of timidity that sounded foreign on him. “Would you let me wash your feet? Just your feet. Promise.”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting him to say, but it surely wasn’t that. My brows furrowed as my mouth drew to the side. “Um, you want to wash my feet? I mean, they’re pretty disgusting right now.”
He waved off the request as if he meant to vanish the words from the air between us. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” He stood up, clearly embarrassed, which was a strange color to see on him. “Call me back when you’re finished, and I’ll stitch up your shoulder.”
I sat a little straighter. “Wait. I guess that’d be okay. No one’s ever washed my feet before.”
“Really? I find that hard to believe.” He knelt next to the tub, nervously running his hands through his brownish-blond hair. The candlelight barely lit his face, but it was just enough for me to see his anticipatory expression over… my feet. “Hold on. Let me change the water first. This is getting pretty dirty.”
“I, but I… You can’t look.”
“I won’t.” He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, pressing his hands to the surface of the water. Like turning on a vacuum, the water sucked into his hands in half a minute flat, leaving me clutching myself in a ball as I shivered. Then as if turning on two faucets, water poured out from his palms and filled the tub with warmth that relaxed my muscles enough to loosen the hold I had on my body. The candlelight didn’t fall anywhere on me other than my head, so I wasn’t worried about Finn seeing anything too sexy for his own good. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks. I like the water heated like this.”
He extended his hand to
me, picking up the soap with his other one as he waited uneasily, as if he was the naked one. The candlelight danced across his bare chest, lighting the abrasions from the battle that smattered across his pectorals, and several scars from wars long ago.
When my toes broke the surface of the water, his eyes saw only my feet. He ran the soap over the top and then down the arch, working up a decent lather. I wasn’t expecting a foot massage, and I’m sure he didn’t expect my unladylike groan at the pampering that felt too good for coherent words. “You were amazing out there,” he said quietly. “I thought you’d stay behind the wall. Then you came tearing out with this crazy, focused look on your face. I’d hoped you’d stay behind me, and I’d have the job of shielding you, but a couple times, you saved me. Ben, too. And you risked your neck to pull Klavin off the field when he was injured.” He shook his head, torn between impressed and frustrated. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
My eyes were closed as I leaned back in the oval basin. “Seriously? I didn’t have any clue what I was doing. I’m just glad it’s over.”
“You’ve fought before.”
I did a one-shoulder shrug. “I’ve taken loads of self-defense classes for my old job. Been in a fair few fights, but never a war.”
Finn soaped up my foot all over again instead of moving to the next one, rubbing in between each toe as if he expected to eat off of them later. He studied my foot from every angle, bending my leg up as needed to get a better look. “I don’t forget the people who save my life in battle.”
“Well, you saved me too, so we’re square.”
He rested my heel on his shoulder as he leaned over the edge of the steel tub, soaping up my ankle and calf. Droplets of water slid down his chest, which really wasn’t fair. I mean, he was already completely sexy without all the trappings. He dug his knuckles into my muscles, giving the best kind of deep-tissue massage that set loose too many things I’d been holding onto. Every pass of his hands on my calf felt like I was floating one inch higher. I gripped the edge of the steel tub and bit my lip to keep from groaning like a porn star. “That feels amazing.”
Tempt (Terraway Book 4) Page 8