Page 45 of Wench

She flinches.

The man’s eyes go wide. His mouth opens in a strangled gasp, but no sound follows. A root bursts through his throat, twisted and sharp as a spear, twining through muscle and jaw. Another coils up through his eye socket, and more erupt through the sternum, splitting his chest with a sickening crack. The knife clatters from the drunk’s hand before he can drop his trousers, the man collapsing in a heap.

The other two release Marian. She drops to the earth, head cracking against a stone hidden beneath the foliage. Pain fractures through her skull in bright, searing light. The world tilts, spins, then narrows.

Lox steps into the clearing. And the forest moves with him.

Bark groans, roots tear from soil, branches whip like serpents in the wind. The clearing convulses, alive with violence that isn’t hers. Vines coil around the wiry man’s ankles, then his knees, then his waist. They constrict, tightening until bone cracks, muffled by his strangled cry.

The balding one tries to flee. He makes it three steps before a sapling erupts from the ground, piercing him through the gut until the roots of the tree merge with the hila of his lungs and blood weeps down the bark. He hangs there, skewered, kicking and gasping as the tree continues to grow, lifting him like an offering.

Lox turns toward her. Antlers wreathed in shadow, eyes burning green-gold, every line of him alive with fury he does not bother to restrain. His hands spread wide as if conducting the slaughter as one would an orchestra. The air reeks of sap and blood, iron and loam, all churning together in a hymn to violence.

Marian can only watch through the haze of pain. Every heartbeat sends fire through her skull and the split skin at her chest. She should be afraid, should scramble into the brush and flee, but the sight of Lox wielding the woods as a weapon – the certainty that nothing survives which he does not allow – sends warmth surging through her body.

Slowly, he straightens and his gaze finds her.

Marian tries to sit up, but her limbs won’t listen. Her vision swims and the world tilts again.

He’s beside her before she can blink, hands gentle where they skim her arms, her jaw, the bloodied edge of her tunic. He swipes at the gore on her chin and chest, trying to determine how much of it belongs to her and not to those he eviscerated.

‘What did they do to you?’ he murmurs, but his voice sounds far away. His face swims above hers, sharp edges softened with panic.

She blinks through the blur. ‘I—’ Her throat clogs. The apology tumbles out before she can stop it. ‘I’m s-s-sorry. For . . .’ Her vision wavers. ‘For hurting you.’

He lifts her as if she weighed nothing, tucking her against his chest.

‘Don’t ever apologize for surviving.’

Her head lolls to his shoulder. ‘Stop,’ she slurs, words padded by pain and exhaustion. ‘I don’t deserve . . . your kindness.’

‘Save your strength, Mare.’ He cradles her closer. The name coils through her like warm honey.

‘My name is M-M-Marian.’ Her fingers clutch weakly at his tunic, smearing it darker with her blood. ‘If I’m to d-d-die, I want the forest to remember me true.’

‘Hush, little fox, don’t speak that way.’

For a long moment, he just looks at her, understanding the gift that she gave him by uttering her name. Green-gold flares in his eyes, dimming slowly, like fire banked but not gone. His thumb brushes her cheek.

‘Marian,’ he repeats, low as a vow. ‘I promise you’re going to be okay.’

She tries to laugh, but it comes out a wheeze. ‘Didn’t know you cared.’ Her eyelids flutter, the pain dimming behind the pull of unconsciousness. She lets herself fall.

And somewhere far below the surface, she swears she hears him whisper, ‘Neither did I.’

ChapterFourteen

Light presses against Marian’s eyelids. Numbness cradles her, but the warmth behind her lids grows bolder. It coaxes her back from the dark, each breath a tether tugging her toward a world she’s not quite ready to rejoin.

Pain stirs before thought, but she swallows it and her lashes flutter open just a sliver.

Firelight pools against the walls. The ceiling slants above her in rough-hewn beams. Shadows flicker over woven tapestries and shelves lined with leather-bound books and curling scrolls. The air smells of cedar smoke and juniper.

This isn’t her room in Elswyth.

Marian’s gaze drifts to the chair beside the low bed, carved from twisted wood and polished smooth with age. Lox is slumped in it, legs sprawled carelessly, arms crossed over his chest. His head rests against his chest, tilted just slightly, the shadow of stubble darkening his jaw. He looks different, less guarded, in sleep. The usual sharpness of his face is dulled now, angles softened by exhaustion. Even his tattoos seem dimmer.

Lox shouldn’t have come for her. He didn’t have to. But he did.