“Okay, yeah, rest,” I force out. With the adrenaline and my worries over him subsiding, the pain in my leg is coming back full force and I’m starting to feel lightheaded. Spots creep into my vision.
I scoot away from him to give myself enough room to sit on my side and stretch out my leg and look at the arrow sticking from it.
Fuck, this is going to hurt.
I gently grip the shaft and test the movement on the arrow to see how deep it went in, but even that subtle movement sends a burning pain through my leg. I do what I can to bite back my cry, but the sound still slips out.
Bastian’s eyes shoot open where he’s lying, and he scrambles to rise. I shoot my hand out to halt his movement.
“Hey, hey. Stop. Lay back down. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
I don’t think my words even process once his eyes land on the arrow protruding from my leg. His expression shifts into one that’s cold, calculating murder with the barest traces of fear and worry buried beneath it.
“You were hurt,” he growls out. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine, I’m taking care of it. Lie back down,” I try to brush off his hands as he tries to pull me closer.
“Let. Me. See.” His voice promises violence and gives no room to argue.
I give in and slide closer, shifting so the leg faces him.
“Fuck, Liv,” he breathes out. I can feel his fingers gently inspecting around the wound.
“I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” I give a breathy laugh, trying to ease his worries.
“This arrow is likely also made of iron so no, it probably hurts much worse than it looks.” He’s quiet for a moment, and with the way I’m turned I can’t see his face. “You don’t have to pretend to be strong for me. You’ve already shown me. You forced me to leave with you and then had to drag my unconscious ass to safety. You’re so much stronger than you even know.” His hand caresses down the back of my head, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Now, I need you to relax. I’m going to remove the arrow, but it’s going to hurt.”
I give a small whimper but nod quickly, biting the inside of my cheek to fight back the tears.
The second his hand grips the shaft, it shifts the smallest amount, and I can’t help but cry out. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll be quick,” he rambles, panic in his voice. “On the count of three, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply, voice thick.
“One… tw?—”
He rips the arrow free before he even gets to two. The scream is pulled involuntarily from my throat and the tears rush free of their dam. I distantly hear the clattering of wood and metal against stone as the arrow is thrown across the cave. Bastian’s warm arms come around me and pull me tight to his body as I sob at the receding burn.
“I’m sorry,staellara. I would take your pain if I could,” he whispers into my hair.
“That—” hiccup “wasn’t—” sniffle “three,” I force out through my sobs.
He lets out a soft laugh. “No, it wasn’t. You would’ve tensed up the closer I got to three and I needed your muscles relaxed so it did the least amount of damage on the way out.”
“I guess I can forgive you for lying about it then,” I croak out, my voice hoarse.
His arms tighten around me as he rocks me gently in his hold. “I’ll need to try to patch that up and then we’ll need some rest before we try to head anywhere. My healing has already kicked in now that the iron is out. Yours will probably be slow with your magic blocked but it will be better than a human’s. We’ll have to patch you up properly when we get back to town.”
“About that, I don’t know where we are,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we didn’t come out of the portal near Grimhallow. We’re somewhere… else,” I explain.
I can see the thoughts swirling behind his eyes. They flick to the cave opening before returning to me. “Once we’ve rested, I’ll scout it out to see where we are and where the closest town will be.”
“Okay,” I slur out. Without the pain and adrenaline keeping me going, the blood loss is making me drowsy.
Bastian notices. He pulls me away from his body and quickly attends to wrapping my wound with strips of his destroyed shirt. I drift in and out of consciousness for the duration and the next time I come to, I’m being settled to lie down on the floor, wrapped in Bastian’s strong arms. I burrow my face into the warmth of his bare chest and drift back off to sleep with his citrus and pine scent lingering in my senses.
