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How had she gotten here? Nothing came to mind other than fragmented flashes of trees and rain and Conor’s steady breathing as he carried her. That last impression had been the strongest and the one she clung to when all she wanted to do was scream.
Conor’s heat, the rhythm of his heart beneath her ear, the hard, muscled feel of his arms holding her close kept the suffering from taking over.
“You’re awake.” His voice sounded behind her. “I’d have worried in another hour if you hadn’t moved.”
She tried tilting her head to spot him, but even that slight gesture sent the spasms spiraling out of control. “Come where I can see you.”
He slid into view, looking as sleek and deadly as he had last night. Mayhap more so with his jaw shadowed by whiskers, his eyes shadowed with worry. He wore only a cambric shirt tucked into his leather breeches. Ellery understood why when she realized what she lay wrapped in. Beneath his greatcoat and jacket, she had on only her thin chemise. “My clothes?” she asked.
“They were shredded by the Keun Marow.”
She started with a sudden thought for the ring she’d stuck in her pocket that morning.
“Is this what you’re concerned about?” He held up the wolf-head ring.
“I found it,” she answered, no longer surprised at his ability to read her thoughts, but ashamed she hadn’t given it back to him earlier.
“I took it.” He rolled the ring between his fingers, making it glitter in the thin light of the setting moon. “It belonged to my sister.”
“You told me you had no sisters.”
“I don’t—anymore.” He tucked the ring away in his pocket, his tone curbing further questions.
Kneeling beside her, he pulled aside the coat. She winced at the sudden explosion of cool air across her torn skin before Conor placed one gentle hand on her shoulder and one at her waist. His fingers traced each bloodied gash, felt her arm from elbow to wrist and back again. She didn’t even question whether he knew what he was doing. Of course, he did. He knew how to do everything. Or so she was finding.
Time seemed to stretch out in all directions as he explored her hurts as if he sought to memorize every mark the Keun Marow had made on her body.
Ellery watched his eyes as he worked. They glowed with an unnatural light, and she found if she concentrated, she could push aside the other thoughts. Thoughts triggered by his healing touch, but curving off into outrageous and highly inappropriate directions. A warmth spread through her body, a delicious heat that begged for attention. Her gaze wavered, dropped to his clenched jaw, the line of his mouth. Could he know what she was thinking?
He spoke under his breath, whispered words lost on the breeze. His shoulders tensed, his chest heaved with every breath. Her wandering eyes snapped back to his face.
She was wounded. Bleeding and broken after the attack in the cottage. How could she be imagining Conor Bligh’s body wrapped around hers? It didn’t make sense. She should be writhing in agony. She should be weeping. She should definitely not be wishing he would take her in his arms and crush his mouth to hers in a kiss that would shatter her like cannon shot.
He shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. His neck muscles strained, his whole body rocked back with a jolt as his hands fell away from her.
Conor knelt, head bowed, hands at his sides. As if the whole world waited, all went quiet. He raised his head, his once bright eyes gone black and staring. “How do you feel?” His words came clipped, raspy.
Ellery frowned, but now that he’d asked, she did feel different. “Better.”
She moved her head. Her arm. Nothing. She sat up. A dull ache, but no more than if she’d slept on it ill. Dried blood streaked her side, but her skin was intact, as smooth as if the fey hunter had never clawed her. “What have you done?”
He shook his head, slowly as if it weighed him down to do so. “Only what I had to.” He paused. “You’d never have lasted.”
His shirt. Black as the rest of his clothing, she’d not noticed at first. But the sky lightened with every second and now it was clear that patches of the fabric were stained and wet with blood. Across his shoulder, down his arm. Wounds that were not his by right.
She scrambled across to him, taking his head between her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “What have you done? How could you take this on along with everything else? I need you, you great lummoxing brute.”
A glimmer of amusement touched the black of his eyes. “Need?”
It had slipped out before she knew it. “I need you to keep me safe from those creatures,” she backtracked. “You’ve gotten me into this mess. You’ve got to stay alive long enough to get me out.”
He caught her wrists in his hands to free himself. But he didn’t release her. He held on, their hands and gazes linked, a questing look in his eyes as if she were a stranger. “It’s all right. I’ve told you I heal.”
She slipped her hand from his, touching his bloodied sleeve. “But the wounds. They’re awful. And my arm was broken—or is it your arm now?” She dropped her hand to her lap, her eyes hot with tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. “It’s like blindman’s buff. Just when I get my bearings, I’m spun about and can’t tell up from down.”
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Not blindman’s buff at all, but that game we all used to play. You fall backwards without looking, not knowing whether your friend will catch you or let you drop.”
“Trust.”
