Page 120 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Let me see,” I said, kneeling before him and picking the edges of his jacket and shirt up to reveal one of the most gruesome wounds I’d ever seen, his flesh had turned a deep shade of violet around the arrowhead, red veins spreading around it.

The idiot chuckled. “Don’t make that face.”

I pulled my lips shut. “What face?”

“I’m not dying.”

“How do you know?”

He dropped his head back and chuckled again. “Fuck, I hate this cold.”

“You’re cold?” I got to my feet, looking around the house, tripping and knocking myself all over the furniture draped in the darkness of night. Reaching the fireplace, my hands touched the space around all over until I reached what looked like matches.

“No fire,” Malik said just as I was about to throw the match on the pieces of kindling already gathered in the fireplace. “Might as well go outside and shout that we are here.”

“You’ll freeze.”

“I’d make a pretty ice statue.”

I shed my partly bloodied gown and threw it over him, making sure to tuck the sides tightly. “You’re sweating.” When I rested my knuckles on his forehead, I jolted upright. “Gods, you’re burning.”

His breathing was slow and shallow, his eyes had completely drifted shut.

“Malik?”

Nothing.

I sat beside him, cupping his cold face in my hands. “Malik?”

He didn’t answer.

Tears pricked my eyes. “Mal, please.”

Slowly, his eyelids peeled open, and he gave me a little smile. “Yes?”

“Please don’t die,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

“Only cause you say so, sweetheart.”

My body shot up and I stood, backing towards the house, searching and searching.

“Come here, little bird,” he meekly called. “Don’t…don’t leave me alone.”

Those words pierced right through me, my hands shaking hard as I rummaged through the cupboards. Once I found something that smelled like liquor, a sharp knife and some scraps of cloth, I kneeled before him again, peeling his jacket back to look at the wound that had suddenly turned a deep mauve.

He shivered when I touched his skin and I pulled back, scared I'd hurt him. “Does it hurt or are you still cold?”

His eyes were resting heavily on me. “No.”

“No?”

“Touch me again.”

“Silly man,” I muttered, almost choking on my trembling words as I poured liquor over the knife and the pieces of cloth to disinfect them. My fingers shook when I lifted the silver blade to his skin and cut around the wound to fish out the arrowhead still embedded in his flesh.

He made no sound of pain, his chest rising fast and his hands gripping the edges of the sofa hard enough to snap the wound.

Once I felt the tip of the arrow with my fingertip, I pulled it out, making sure to move fast and sow his wound shut. My fingers slipped from the blood, but I managed to get that first stitch in, and then another, and another. It was completely dark outside by the time I finished and the furthest I could see was my crimson stained palms.