AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She rolled from her belly to her back in the dirt and looked up at the streaked sky beginning to turn dark. Her stomach growled, but she couldn’t bring herself to grab the cake in her pack to eat. Not yet. There was still work to do to make sure Ollie would live.
Tarley sat up and looked at the unconscious man. “How am I going to get you into the tent?” she asked him, hoping he’d answer, but he didn’t. He was still unconscious. At one point he’d stopped shivering but had started once more. The temperature of his skin had her worried.
She sighed and stood. “I guess I got you this far.”
Moving around the crude sledge, she tried to figure out how to move him without causing additional injury. Getting him into the sledge had been difficult enough. He was tall—taller than she was—as well as muscular, which made him heavier than she’d anticipated. His clothing had hinted he was tall and thin, but as she’d removed the garments, she’d been surprised to find the compact and rigid plateaus and valleys of his musculature. His form was beautiful. She hadn’t pictured a rich collector—if that’s what he was—built so. She’d always pictured collectors as fat, living on the coin they made turning in women.
She glanced at the tent. Dragging Ollie was a terrible idea. Especially with his broken ribs.
But he needed warmth.
She considered leaving him there, and building a fire to keep him warm, but the darkening sky was peppered with collecting clouds. His lungs were already at risk. He needed to be out of the elements.
She looked at her tent again. “You can do this, Tarley. Just into the tent.”
Instead of muscling him, however, she pulled the sledge as close to the outer wall of the tent as she could, unfastened it, then rolled up the canvas. Next, she prepared a space for him, realizing how cramped her quarters were going to be, considering his size. But there just wasn’t anything to be done to change it, so Tarley focused on her task instead.
She removed his now dried clothes she’d laid over the leaves, then all the leaves and detritus she’d used to insulate him, until he was once again a naked, shivering man. Rather than think about his nudity—because she reminded herself nakedness was natural—she attempted to focus on what she needed to do. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to unsee the beauty and bounty of his shape while undressing him the first time, and forced herself to refrain from ogling him now by reminding herself he was a man and probably a horrible one at that. He didn’t deserve her ogling.
“Okay, Ollie.” Supporting his neck and back, she pulled him from the sledge. “Please. Don’t. Make. Me. Regret. This.” She grunted out each word as she dragged him from the contraption. Though she attempted to be gentle, she wasn’t particularly graceful. He grunted in response to the movement but remained incoherent and incapable of assisting her. Finally, under the roof of the tent, Tarley pulled, but her foot slipped out from under her, and she collapsed with him landing on top of her. His head fell against her chest, his back to her belly until he slipped between her spread thighs, stretched out toward the sledge just outside the opening. She was pinned under his weight. Exhausted, she didn’t fight it.
“Stars,” she breathed and rested under him, gathering energy to finish the move. She closed her eyes, not hating his weight, even though she knew she couldn’t take it for long. “Hold on. Hold on,” she chanted, tapping into her reserves. “We’ll get there eventually.”
After a few more minutes, she wiggled out from under him, until he was on his back, and she was free. She huffed and puffed a moment to catch her breath, then with as much care as she could muster considering the differences in their size, maneuvered him into a place where she could get him comfortable under blankets and still have room for herself.
With another sigh, Tarley rose onto her knees, and refastened the tent wall, then shuffled on her knees through the tiny space to check Ollie once more.
She reached out and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. Burning up. “Shit,” she mumbled.
Suddenly, her wrist was wrapped in his tight grip. “What are you…” he mumbled, his forest-colored eyes bright.
Tarley couldn’t pull out of his grasp. “Ollie?”
“Are you trying to kill me?” he asked. “The arrows!” He tried to move but hissed in pain, collapsing back into the bedding. His eyes slipped shut once more, and his grip relaxed.
Her heartbeat thundering in her chest, she tentatively reached out to touch him. He didn’t move, lost to unconsciousness. She couldn’t make sense of his delirious visions, but she hushed him anyway, and continued to check him, making sure she hadn’t missed any wounds. It was an intimate thing, but her mind didn’t linger. Rather, she talked to him as her thoughts considered the things she would need to keep him alive. “I know it might seem rather forward of me to touch you this way, Ollie, but it needs to be done.” She glanced at his face again, tight with his pain and whatever visions played within his mind. “I’m going to have to go look for some swennig root, to make you a tincture. That should help with any infection.”
Her eyes skimmed his form, looking for anything she might have missed, all the while talking. “I’ll have to look for some weeping wallosh to make you tea for your fever and pain. It’s a good thing I found you Ollie. How long were you in the water?”
He didn’t answer, instead moaning and mumbling in the haze that held his mind.
She pulled the blanket back up to his chin. “How does a rich man end up in the river?”
He didn’t answer.
“Are you a collector?” she whispered, afraid he might answer that he was.
He didn’t.
She tucked the blankets tighter around him.
Night was already oppressive by the time she was finished. Barely able to move herself, Tarley laid next to Ollie. Though she thought about all the things she still needed to do, her muscles and bones didn’t seem to want to cooperate. So she listened. His breath was clear—no rattle—which was good for now.
She shut her eyes. “Just for a moment,” she said and yawned.
Shoulder to shoulder with Ollie, she blinked her eyes back open and thought about getting food to cut the ache in her belly, but she didn’t move. She considered going outside to build a fire, to sleep there, then remembered it might rain, though she knew she couldn’t bring herself to move even if it wasn’t a threat. Besides, she couldn’t leave her charge.
“Just another minute,” she whispered to the roof of the tent. “I’ll just rest for another quick minute,” she murmured, closed her eyes, and drifted into the blackness of sleep.
