Page 100 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“I know,” Pete muttered to Bob, pushing to his feet. He dabbed his nose on his linen shirt cuff, blood leaking from his nostrils like a dripping faucet. “Took longer than I’d anticipated.”
When Bob came to a cantankerous halt before us, Pete heaved himself into the wagon. Sionna leapt in after him.
Moving like I wore a 50-pound dress underwater, I struggled to join them. When brusque hands wrenched me into the bed by the back of my ripped dress, I was more thankful than peeved for the help, however rudely given.
Bob trucked ahead as I wrapped myself in my smoke-suffused cloak. I conked out sitting up in one of the back corners of the wagon.
When I awoke, I lay on Pete’s bedroll by a crackling fire in a thatch of moss, Sionna curled up and dreaming beside me.
I turned over to find Pete sitting shirtless on a large rock by a babbling brook. Midnight sketched his profile as he tested the area around the black gashes in his muscled forearm—a ring of fang marks. He hissed at the whisper of a touch.
Not good.
I rose from my nest in the chill to rummage in my backpack for the insurance policies I’d stashed. Twisting my bruised neck back and forth, I slipped my chosen items into my skirt pocket, then slogged from the wagon over to Pete.
My breath caught when I drew near enough to gander the details of Pete’s smooth, broad back. Healed scars of all shapes and sizes etched his skin, silver filigree under moonlight. They were beautiful on him now, though they must’ve been ghastly when first dealt. Much like the one currently crusting his arm.
“Go back to sleep.” A cobra had less venom than his voice did. Then he exhaled, his eyes falling shut. “Please.”
I closed the distance between us. “If we don’t do something quick, those germs you mocked me about earlier are going to set up shop in your arm.”
He massaged his forehead, doubtless throbbing from having his nose crunched in. It didn’t look broken, though, and the bleeding had slowed. “I’m certain I have some variety of fortifying potion that could see me to a bonafide healer.” His lips canted aside as I blinked toward the wagon. There weren’t any potions in there that I’d seen. Did he keep them in his satchel? “Someone who might truly aid me.”
“Afortifyingpotion? Is that like drinking cough syrup when you have pneumonia?” I made a face back at him. “Look, if you want to wait that long to get actual help, then be my guest. But I think that’s a stupid move on your part.”
“And just how do you propose we oust them?” he grumbled. “The germs?”
I produced a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a sterile gauze pad, and a pill bottle of old Penicillin that Ace had gotten when he’d faked Strep to get out of school for a week. He’d never taken a single dose.
“Black-market products.” I rattled the pill bottle. “Otherwise known as medicine.”
“Medicine,” Pete grunted, probably wondering if I was trying to poison him.
“Mm-hm.” I ignored his suspicious glower and set my items down on the rock beside him. I tore open the packet of sterile gauze. “So you don’t get infected.”
“You think these things will prevent that?”
I popped the lid on the alcohol. “Nothing’s guaranteed, but it’s worth a shot.” I glanced at his wound, the skin surrounding it already angry. “Can’t make it any worse.”
Pete stilled as I saturated the gauze with the alcohol. He breathed in the astringent aroma, stiffened as I moved closer.
I lifted the pad for his inspection. “This is to clean the wound.” My eyes dipped to the bite, the alcohol doing little to mask the tang of breeding bacteria from my Danann nose. “I’d bet those Fomorians have never even heard of a toothbrush. Goddess only knows what diseases were incubating in Tacker’s mouth.”
Though Pete’s brow arched in question at my word choice, the corner of his lips quirked up. He’d taken my meaning all right. “Likely right about that. If they wanted to eat the filthy likes of me—” He opened his hands, letting my mind finish the joke for him.
Laughing felt good after the night I’d had. “See, I told you to take a bath.”
His mouth twitched, reminding me of the handsome stranger I’d met on that blustery night at the Thorny Rose Tavern. The man who’d warmed my cold belly with playful banter. The man whose warm eyes had turned me to goo. The man who’d made me forget, if for only a while, that my life was in shambles.
Theharbinger, you mean? I shook myself, backpedaling down the path I’d unwisely taken.
“All right,” I coughed, concentrating on the task ahead. Not the washboard stomach and soft curls mottling manly pectorals. The termBurly Mancame to mind. I met Pete’s dark eyes with all seriousness. “This will sting.”
He grimaced and proffered his injured arm.
I had to give him props. His wound was deep, probably blistering, but he sat still and let me clean every fang mark as thoroughly as I could, only hissing once or twice.
“What’s a Nixie?” I asked to take his mind off his pain. I wet my bloody gauze pad again, trying to hide my disgust.
