Page 75 of Malady

He draws back only enough to press in again, deeper this time, and the added stretch pulls a cry from me. My toes curl against the counter. My thighs try to close around his wrist, but he’s standing too near, his hips keeping me open while his hand keeps moving with that steady, merciless care.

He thrusts in, curling his fingers upwards.

Again. Again. Again.

My breath turns ragged. My fingers slip against the counter. I can hear myself now, every gasp and whimper, every wet movement of his hand, and the sound of it should make me want to crawl out of my own skin. Instead, my hips rock into him.

His free hand slides beneath my knee and eases my thigh wider. The shift drags my hips against the wood, and my hand knocks hard into the bottles behind me. Glass clatters across the counter, something rolling off the edge and shattering near his feet.

“Ignore it,” he rumbles into my throat.

His arm bands firmly around my waist, and then his hand moves again, plunging back into me.

The breath leaves me in a broken rush. My forehead drops against him, cold bone catching at my mouth as I press clumsy, wet kisses to the beak of his mask. I don’t know if I mean to kiss him or bite him or beg him to never stop, only that my mouth is there and he is there and every thrust of his fingers sends the soulglimmer burning deeper.

My hips rock helplessly into his hand. The wet sounds grow louder. I squeeze my eyes shut, but that only makes it worse. There’s no counter beneath me then, no shop, no shattered glass, only the hard press of his body between my thighs and the terrible, perfect place his fingers keep finding.

“Iscairn—”

The soulglimmer beats with my pulse, hot and heavy through my hips and down the insides of my thighs until the muscles begin to tremble. He presses deeper, his thumb moving faster, and the pleasure breaks through me so suddenly my lungs stall. My hands fist in his cloak. My thighs shake around him, the counter rocking beneath me as the tension gathers low and unbearable, tightening until I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but cling to him.

“Please,” I gasp. “Please, please.”

Then I come apart.

It spills through me in a long, shaking rush, blue light blooming behind my eyelids as I gasp against his chest. His arm stays firm around my waist, holding me through every shudder, and his touch gentles only when the worst of it begins to ease, slowing with the last weak pulses until I’m slumped against him, sweating and boneless, my knuckles still white in the fabric at his shoulders.

He waits until my breathing begins to settle before drawing his hand away, the long bone beak giving one last, tender nudge beneath my ear as he straightens.

“Do you feel better, Ophelia Harrow?”

When I manage a small nod, he reaches past me for a clean square of linen, wets it with fresh water from the pitcher and settles back between my knees. The cloth is cool against my skin, making me shudder as he gently wipes me clean, his head bowed so that all I can see is the pale curve of his mask moving with his hand.

There’s something so absurdly gentle about it that I don’t quite know what to do with myself.

Here I am, sitting on my counter, in a parish choking on its own rotting lungs, feeling more secure than I ever have. It's strange, really. With my legs parted for an immortal being who feasts on the dying, I've found a refuge no blessing could ever provide.

“He's gone! Oh, God, he's gone⁠—”

A scream tears down the lane outside, jolting me from my bliss. Iscairn’s hand stops against my thigh, his head turning towards the window, and the warmth still lingering beneath my skin seems to ebb with it.

I tip my head, staring up at the brittle bundles of yarrow hanging in the dark, and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

There it is again. Beswick. The plague. Another house with somebody dead inside it.

20

DOCTOR ISCAIRN

Ido not sleep as mortals do, and I certainly do not dream. Most nights pass in a long stretch of quiet, broken only by whatever work remains to be done and the occasional inconvenience of hunger.

Last night, however, I appear to have done both.

I cannot say when I slipped into unconsciousness, only that I found myself back in the apothecary, with my glove lying forgotten beneath the counter and Ophelia Harrow beneath my hands. More particularly, I remember the rather lovely sound she made when the soulglimmer moved through her.

An extraordinary thing, really. I have spent centuries putting that particular gift to good use, mending wounds and coaxing life back into bodies determined to surrender it. Using it on a perfectly healthy woman simply to discover what sound she might make was hardly a proper application of my abilities, not to mention an entirely unnecessary expenditure of fuel.

Hm.