Page 41 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

“Not… hurt.”

“Ill?”

“Maybe,” Gabriel wheezed, sort of wishing Arthur would stop talking, but simultaneously dreading the moment he’d back away.Don’t leave me alone with me.

“Jesus, Gabe, what can I do? You’re scaring me.”

There was nothing he could do. Nothing anybody could do. Gabriel was broken in ways nobody could fix, in ways he couldn’t even explain; he was drowning in the open air, dying of absolutely nothing, miles away from the danger. Panicking. Always panicking.

Sudden warmth. Arthur’s hand was on Gabriel’s, and then he interlocked their fingers, lifted them, and placed them on his chest, right where his heart was beating strong and steady.

This was the bit where Arthur would usually make a joke to diffuse the tension, to make light of how obviously strange the situation was, but he didn’t. He just breathed slowly, in and out, Gabriel’s hand rising and falling with the movement of his chest, until Gabriel was breathing like that too, as if they were a pair of lungs separated by circumstance.

Arthur ran hotter than Gabriel. Something to do with good blood supply. Holding him had always felt curative, like morning tea in Gabriel’s favorite cup, the chips and grooves as familiar to him as his own skin.

Arthur smelled like citrus—but not in the way that Gwen did, wild mint and lemons. His was blood oranges and something rich and woody. He dressed himself in the scent every day, carefully eked out from a little amber bottle he’d inherited from his mother, dotted on his wrists and throat. Gabriel breathed in and out, in and out, and his hand and heart said:I remember, I remember, I remember.

The horses had been whickering back and forth at each other, but when Arthur’s stallion approached, Penelope responded by nipping him hard on the neck; he squeaked with outrage, and Arthur laughed and dropped Gabriel’s hand, which immediately felt freezing again.

“He’s a delusional chap, but extremely romantic,” he said, looking fondly at his horse, who was now gazing balefully at Penelope from a safe distance away. “I find him deeply relatable.”

Gabriel stood up clumsily, suddenly needing to put distance between himself and the tree stump—and, more specifically, the person by the tree stump.

“Right.”

Arthur was still looking at his horse when he asked, “That happen often?”

“What?”

His tone was even. “You know. The problems with your breathing.”

Only about once a day, if he was lucky. “No.”

“Oh. Good.”

Gabriel squinted into the trees, finding nothing but leaves, but pretending they were fascinating regardless. “We should… find the others. They might be hurt.”

“I’m sure they’re riding all over looking for you. Don’t worry, Sir Hurst is no idiot, and Sid is half boar, he knows how to think like a pig. They’ll be all right.”

Hewasworried though, because his smile was all wrong and he kept messing with his hair. He looked a bit paler too, rougher around the edges than he had even a few days ago; Gabriel had been so concerned with staying upright, he hadn’t thought about how hard this journey would be on Arthur too. He was stronger than he had been in the months after his life-threatening injuries last year, thanks to sheer determination and his unfailing commitment to his daily walks, but he still tired easily, needed to sit more often, slept for long hours after hard days… or at least, that had been the case back when Gabriel had been privy to such intimate details.

“Areyouall right?”

Arthur looked slightly taken aback by the question, and then shrugged. “No. But I’ll do.”

Nineteen

John’s investigation of the wildcat den was slow and methodical, and Bridget and Gwen watched politely as he sorted his way through discarded bones. “You see these, here? Some of these are from rabbits and smaller creatures. But this one…” He nudged it with his foot. “Nowthatmight be sheep.”

The bag full of kitten, which had fallen silent, let out a tragic yowl, and Bridget watched as it managed to shuffle a few inches sideways before apparently collapsing. Through the trees, she could hear distant barking. Trouble? A warning? John didn’t look up from the chunk of scapula he was examining.

“Give it here,” said Gwen, gesturing for Bridget to hand up the cat. It didn’t take kindly to being handled, attempting to kill Bridget by aiming for her wrists. Once Gwen had taken charge of it, she placed it in front of her on the saddle and bent down to speak quietly; it seemed to momentarily stop thrashing to listen.

Bridget looked back over at its deceased parent, the gigantic black paw protruding from the entrance to its den. It felt like an ill omen. She still had her sword in hand, even though John had sheathed his knife. The scene seemed eerie somehow, the wood too quiet, death palpable in the air, but apparently she was the only one who could feel it. “What around here could kill a wildcat? I mean… a Beast?”

John had still been attempting amateur archaeology, but as he looked up to answer Bridget, his expression changed—and every hair on Bridget’s body stood on end, the chill that passed down her spine primal, ingrained into her nerves by a thousand years of ambushes.

“That,” whispered John.