Page 205 of A Touch of Poison
I wheezed, sucking in as much air as I could, pulse hammering on my ears.
My broken wrist and sliced hand should’ve been in agony, but every part of my body was alight with terrible and glorious fire. It buzzed through me like potent magic.
Blood everywhere.
My hand, my face, slick with it.
From the state of him, he had to be dead. I didn’t need to check his pulse.
I should be sorry, shouldn’t I? Upset? Scared?Something?
But all I could do was blink at his blank eyes and slack face.
Then the shadows came.
* * *
Gentle shadows liftedRobin’s body off me and cradled my broken arm. My head spun as I sat up, something warm helping me. I had to blink several times before I registered the blackest of black hair, the silver eyes surveying me, and beyond that, the door hanging off its hinges.
Bastian’s lips moved, and he cupped my cheek, turning my face away from Robin. It was only as I took long breaths that the thunder in my ears abated enough to hear what he was saying.
“Don’t look. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
I blinked up at him, then smiled when I realised he was trying to protect me from the sight of what I’d done. “I’m… I’m all right.” Dimly, pain broke through my daze, as if speaking had brought reality back.
I pulled away from Bastian’s protection and Ilooked.
The shard of glass from one of Ella’s bottles glittered.
Even a scrap of something is important.
Was it ghoulish to laugh at a time like this?
Robin’s remaining eye was wide in shock. Maybe that was why he hadn’t protected himself from my blows—he hadn’t expected them.
Blood. Gore. Torn flesh.
The sight of him utterly destroyed didn’t horrify me as the people I’d poisoned had.
“He earned this.” My voice came from somewhere far away. “He… he tried to kill me. Not just now, but… all these years.” I shook my head as Bastian’s words from Lunden came back to me. “A slow death.”
Bastian nodded, eyebrows tight together. “He did. Hedid.” He pressed a kiss to my brow and another to my mouth—warm and alive andmine.
It was only when he pulled away with red on his lips that I realised my face was covered in blood. I reached out to wipe it away, but it coated my hand too. My dress and cleavage. The floor around me.
My gaze snagged on the broken door, shockingly white compared to the crimson.
I frowned at Bastian, somehow, impossibly here. “How did you know?”
“Urien. He couldn’t stop Robin entering, but he could come and tell me.”
More ridiculousness. I could be left alone with that man, yet being with Bastian was wrong?
He gave a long exhale, shoulders sinking. “Thank fuck he did. Though…” He glanced at Robin’s body. “It looks like you didn’t need me.”
I might’ve smiled. It was hard to say. Everything felt a bit fuzzy, except for the pain radiating from my wrist and palm.
He tore a strip from the hem of his shirt and bandaged my hand, staunching the bleeding. “I’ll send for Asher to heal you, then we can get you cleaned up.”
