Page 63 of Palingenesis

Ilios keeps staring at me like he’d rather eat me alive and I internally curse the way my cock tingles as I push myself to ignore the pain. The shit is radiating up my thigh and settling in my lower back. How my brain can muster the gall to be fucking horny right now instead of passing the hell out is beyond me.

“New ground rules,” I muster, signing to him since he’s so keen on using it back. “No invasions—” I point to my temple, “—unless I invite you.”

“How will I know it is acceptable?”

Rolling my eyes, I imagine slamming a door in his face. His brow twitches. “You’ll know.”

Lips pursing, he responds with his hands. “Seems so.”

“How do you know these?” I ask, referencing the way he’s visually communicating and a black-tipped talon touches my forehead.

“From you.”

I swear, this man—monster—is going to have my vision permanently positioned in the back of my head.

“Of course you did,” I huff, pushing myself to sit again. “Gods, my fucking leg hurts.”

The radiating ache is only a reminder of the current situation with no seeming outcome aside from hopes and prayers and I never really have been the praying type.

“My leg needs a doctor,” I tell Ilios. “Or I’m going to lose it. If it’s not already too late.”

He stares at me for what feels like forever, eyes watching my hands move then idle. Long enough that I prepare to sign it again in case he didn’t understand without stealing it from my mind. But he just… stares. Eyes flicking from my limbs to my eyes, watching as I repeat it.

A sweat breaks out on my skin, the shivering following close behind.

“I will mend you,” he finally signs.

I’m shaking my head before his hands finish, and it makes me dizzy. “A real doctor. And antibiotics.”

Just as I’m not listening to his bullshit, he’s not listening to mine either, and I feel the pressure of his grip on my shin. The whole thing feels like there’s shards of glass beneath my skin, ready to bust through at any moment, and I can’t hold back the cry that wedges in the back of my throat. Tears spring to my eyes. My nose even runs.

If I could jerk away from him, I would.

But his hold is strong. I’m too weak, and that smoke that always seems to follow him around is right there. It curls around me in places, some restrained, but mostly… comforting.

I don’t want to focus on it, to lean into it.

Right now, I have no choice.

This… extension of him was in my nightmares. Forming into something more than a hazy essence.

This time it’s warm to touch, and almost soft.

Not nearly as terrifying now as it was then.

Fuck, I’m not scared at all.

Not of Ilios, at least. Or his smoke daddy attributes.

I’m more scared of the cold sweats I have and whether or not the shaking is an indication of an infection settling in that guarantees I’ll leave this forest minus a foot.

If I leave at all.

I’m beginning to think the offerings and sacrifices that the town falls prey to is for more than just the show of it all. The legend to tell the kids that travels through the generations long enough to erect a statue in its honor.

Maybe it’s not Ilios at all that’s to blame for the bad shit that happened here, but the mountains. The forest.

I didn’t pick Bearcreek, but maybe it chose me.