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Lachlan floated in oppressive darkness, his body undulating between gigantic and miniature, which added to his distress and discomfort. He needed to get outside of his form. He pressed at the bonds weighing him down, needing help and looking around, though seeing was impossible.
“Goldie?” he called out, blinking to clear his vision, and she appeared as if he’d willed it, floating just beyond his reach in the violent tumult of black water. “Why is the water boiling?”
His horse looked at him. “Ollie?” she asked.
But he knew that wasn’t Goldie’s voice—Goldie was a horse—and he wasn’t Ollie, so he shook his head. “Goldie’s dead,” he muttered, and his eyes fluttered open as he pushed at the skin binding him to the black sea. No. It was a cauldron. “I’m boiling in soup.”
“No. Keep the covers on.” A shadowed face hovered over his, forcing the chains back into place, but he didn’t fight, his attention fixed on the golden light illuminating the shadow from behind like a halo.
“You shot me,” he accused and closed his eyes to find peace in the dark. But he moaned, his body undulating once more. “Out! I need out.”
The shadow voice spoke in calm tones, but he wasn’t sure what it said, exactly, only that the sound made him calmer.
He shivered violently, but he was on fire, burning in the boiling water. “Hot. Can’t breathe.”
The shadow swore, and fingertips carved a warm path over his icy-fire skin like piercing needles.
Goldie was with him again, but she was floating away. “Skin to skin,” his horse told him.
Lachlan nodded to Goldie. “You saved me.”
“Not yet–”
Goldie sank under the water and disappeared.
“Goldie!” he cried, reaching for her and grabbing hold of something else, a lifeline in the darkness, pulling the warmth closer. He held on and floated down the dark river, willing his body back to normal size before collapsing into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, he groaned, fighting against the water’s hold. “Let me go.”
“Hush,” the shadow voice said and continued speaking, though the words sounded far away, indiscernible, and Lachlan sank away, back into the darkness.
Then suddenly, he was thrashing, fighting the current of the cold water, trying to get out of the icy fire consuming his skin. “The arrows are in my skin. The arrows,” he cried, brushing them away.
His eyes flew open. It was dark, but not the dark of his mind, just the dark of night.
“I’m here, Ollie.” The shadow voice was soothing. “I’m with you,” the voice repeated, and the warm slide of the creature, an angel’s velvet skin, was pressed against his, as soothing as the voice. “Just sleep,” the voice said. “I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t alone.”
Lachlan listened, and dropped back into the chasm of blackness, grateful his body wasn’t vacillating anymore.
Lachlan was familiar with having had too much to drink. As he became conscious, the fact his head felt as if it had been bludgeoned from the inside, that his mouth was three circles from the center of hell, and that his body was stuck under the rocks of a collapsed cavern made him decide he must have imbibed far too much the night before.
If only he could remember it. His memory wasn’t quite connecting with the way he felt. In fact, his memory was just… blank.
Gods, he felt terrible.
He expected to be in his own bed in the palace, the glow of the fireplace revealing the dark blue canopy overhead, but as he blinked his eyes open, linen canvas fluttering above him, the essence of bright sun overhead making him squint, he knew he wasn’t at home.
Where the fuck was he?
He turned his head, the innards of it feeling waterlogged. The rest of his body ached, as if he’d been pushing himself through physical training with Captain Johesha, who never held back when putting Lachlan through the paces.
Lachlan shivered, uncomfortably cold and yet had the urge to kick off the covers simultaneously.
Stars, he felt like he might lose his stomach. His gut rolled as he moved his head to determine his surroundings. A tent. A tiny one, barely large enough to accommodate him. The canvas wall to his right wasn’t a foot from his head. He needed to move but felt pinned down.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he groaned, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar.
The weight pinning him down shifted, then was gone.
