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Too late.
She closed her eyes.
She hadn’t heard it. Just the wind. That was all. Walk away.
Her steps slowed. She stopped, straining to hear the whispered plea again.
It was a trap. He was probably waiting with sword raised and mage energy enough to fry her brain.
It came again softly. “Please.” A gentle request, and strangely jarring after Aidan’s bloodcurdling threats.
She moved to her left, following the stream bank. Pushed through a scraggly thicket of furze, even as she muttered, “You’re a complete fool, Catriona O’Connell, and deserve whatever messy end awaits.”
Found exactly who she expected. And nothing like she anticipated.
Flies buzzed around the putrid wound in his thigh. Another gash oozed sticky black blood down his arm. He’d sought to bind them both but had lacked the strength and then the will to do so. After all, this was what he’d been asking for. This was death, wasn’t it?
Dark against dark. Evil against evil. The Unseelie’s power had overwhelmed his defenses, bringing him as close as he’d been to complete collapse. Close, but not accomplished. How long had he lain here unable to move? Days? Years? Time had ceased to matter. All he knew was that though he suffered, he did not succumb. Though his body festered, still it fought to renew itself. Sinew by sinew. Nerve by nerve.
Palm clamped over her mouth, face a sickly gray, the woman stood poised to flee. Instead, she shuddered her recovery and bent to the stream edge. Retrieved a large, dripping stone, holding it up in what she must have thought was a threatening manner.
Seemingly surprised he didn’t erupt from his resting place and throttle her, she stepped back, as alert and quivering as the deer he’d spotted earlier. Raised the rock above her head.
“Go on.” He sank back against the base of the tree on a sigh. Closed his eyes, awaiting the head-splitting blow.
Nothing.
He risked a look. The rock remained cocked and ready, her brows drawn into a deep frown, her lip caught between her teeth.
He shifted, the flies rising up to swarm about his head, his thigh screaming. “You mayn’t get a better chance, my lady.”
She braced herself. Raised the rock higher. Swung it down with deadly intent.
He flinched, but the rock never left her hands. Her frown deepened, guilt and disappointment hardening the soft lines of her face.
“Weak,” he spat. Angry with her for backing down. At himself for the cringing flash of panic when he thought she’d go through with it. “Like all females.”
She stiffened, anger flashing in the depths of her green eyes. Tossed the rock aside. “If death is what you long for then life is the true punishment, is it not?”
Clever, this one. Clever and far too observant.
“Besides, it looks like death will find you soon enough without my help,” she continued, her gaze fixed firmly upon his face and off the festering wounds, the dark sorceries bound within the Unseelie’s battle spells slowing his healing to agonizing lengths.
She bent again to the stream, but this time came back with a handful of water which he slurped from her fingers with humiliating eagerness. And again and again until he lay back, his parched throat eased, the muzzy light-headedness receding under the sweet tang of the icy water.
“I’d thank you, but the victim rarely thanks his tormentor.”
She clenched her jaw. “Jut so long as you see it for what it is.”
He stifled a chilly smile. “Merciless as an executioner, my lady.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You’re Kilronan’s lady, are you not?”
She leveled him with a lethal gaze but didn’t answer. Instead she studied him as if deciding whether she’d worked enough ill will or whether a few more kindnesses were warranted. The silence hung thick and frozen between them. Even the stream seeming to mute its burbling descent as they stared upon one another in mutual loathing.
His hand flexed and fisted. “Your man gained a short-lived victory. Once called to this world the Unseelie are not easily banished.”
