Page 62 of In Violent Waves

Lyra blanched, her skin becoming as pale as the fog the sun had burned off earlier that morning.

She hadn’t been able to read the book in their library about spiders. The image on the first page had given her nightmares for weeks.

“Is that bad?”

She began whimpering from the pain that burned down her leg and was spreading up through her torso.

Wilder looked at her, and she could see it written on his face.

“It’s not good.”

Fuck. He was a godsdamned idiot for not brushing her off after she had lain on the forest floor.

While not rare, the witch’s curse spider wasn’t common either. Usually, they stayed close to skinwalkers, feeding off whatever corpse they had skinned and left to rot.

Their bite wasn’t lethal to elves, but you would wish it was.

The pain was unbearable, and he had seen five-hundred-year-old warriors beg for death and cry for their mothers. It took days for the venom to work out of your system—without the antidote.

There was a balance to everything.

Including spider venom. But the woodlark flower didn’t bloom at this time of year.

There was only one place it would be—the castle.

Wilder watched as Lyra’s face turned from pale to ghastly. She tugged up her shirt, and the blackened venom of the spider was visible as it coursed through her veins.

“Am I going to die?”

Wilder stepped towards her, tugging her shirt down and out of her grip.

“No. But this will hurt. I need to get you to the castle.”

She wobbled on unsteady legs. The pain must be excruciating, but she didn’t cry. Her voice hadn’t even trembled when she asked after her fate.

“You will be alright. I’m going to touch you now to get you on that horse.”

Lyra weakly nodded.

Wilder gripped her, throwing her back up on the horse.

“If you can’t keep up—fall back,” he threw over his shoulder to the rest of the group.

“Wilder—” Otto yelled before they took off. “Youwillmake it.”

Wilder breathed a small sigh of relief and took off.

She was on fire. Where her skin had grazed him, burned. He was astonished she wasn’t screaming.

“It will be alright,” he whispered to her when she whimpered louder.

Trees passed in a blur as he pushed them on. He needed that flower. Needed it right now.

With one hand on the reins, he held her to his chest. The heat coming off of her scorched his skin, but he didn’t let go, didn’t loosen his grip a fraction.

His skin sweat and then blistered where it touched her. Wilder ground his teeth against the pain. If it hurt him merely touching her skin, it was unfathomable what she must be feeling.

He chanced a look at her then. Her auburn hair clung to the sweat on her face, her cheeks scarlet, either from the heat or the wind burn, and her once lush and rosy lips were now ashen gray and dry as tree bark. Lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.