Forsaken

by Jacquelyn Frank

  But nothing about him made her sense that he was evil, per se. After all, he had pointed out to her what he could do to her…inferring the opposite that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

  In the end she decided to leave the phone silent in her pocket, even as she berated herself for probably being stupid and very likely to regret it. But the healer in her jumped to the forefront, and she grabbed gauze and began to wipe at the source of his blood. She gasped when she finally cleared the field and could see the extent of the damage. A cut deep into his side, as if someone had swung a sword into him trying to cleave him in half, and down his side and leg he was violently burned, third degree in most places.

  Again, she felt the burn of her phone in her pocket.

  “Don’t,” he rasped, as if he could read her mind.

  “I won’t,” she soothed him. “But you are terribly injured. You need a hospital.”

  His mouth turned grim and his eyes fluttered open. For the first time the golden topaz of his eyes jumped out at her. They were beautiful, she thought with no little awe, as was the rest of him. He had the darkest, deepest black hair she’d ever seen. Not blue-black…not dark brown…but purest black. It had the lightest curl to it as it fell in waves to just above his collar. He had an aquiline nose and deeply sculpted cheeks, the cheekbones wide. His mouth was full, like for a woman, only unmistakably male. She imagined a mouth that large had a smile just as wide. A killer smile, she was sure. He was not pretty or boyish by any stretch of the imagination, but was still strongly handsome.

  But there was no time to further enjoy the view. She had to clear her field once again and she grabbed her suture kit. As deep as the wound was, she worried about the contamination of the leaf litter and whatever had caused the injury in the first place. She first used saline to wash it clean until she was satisfied there was no debris in the wound, and then she squeezed the bottle of iodine over him and prayed for the best.

  “This is going to hurt. I don’t have anything to numb the area.” The area? Hell, she was practically going to have to do surgery to put him back together.

  “Do it,” he rasped. And then, fortunately for him, he passed out completely. She felt it ripple throughout his body, almost like the deflation of sudden death. She worriedly checked his breathing and found it, shallow and weak as it was. She turned her attention to his wound, threaded her needle, and went to work.

  For updates, bonus content,

  and sneak peeks at upcoming titles,

  visit the author's website:

  http://www.jacquelynfrank.com

  Find the author on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/authorjacquelynfrank

  Follow the author on Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/JacquelynFrank