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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
WHAT'S A LITTLE BLOOD?
Darina
I don’t slow down until I’ve reached the line of trees. Then I’m at a loss because I no longer have direction. “Cross the river” was easy enough, but what now?
I’m dying for a break. All the strength I’d felt has vanished—I’m weaker than I ever was at home. And my body aches in a thousand different ways. The hand. The shoulder. The burn. Suddenly, I am even subjected to the cold freezing my flesh and bones. I can barely feel my fingertips.
I don’t let myself give in to the voice begging me to just sit for a minute. What good would it do? I can hear noises in the woods. Steps, horse hooves, voices, laughter. They’re after me, and I can’t afford to stand still. The stranger indicated they’d have to go around to get to me, buying me time, not that I’d be safe on the other side.
I’ve never run for long enough to be tired before. Back in my school days, in PE, I’d have to do a few laps around the football field with the track team. It was easy. I was disqualified for meets, as a supernatural, but the ten or fifteen miles I did for training never truly challenged me. But now I’m so exhausted. I’ve crossed my limit hours ago. My heart’s beating fast, my limbs ache, begging for relief. That’s without even accounting for the wounds I refuse to think about.
When I can no longer take it, I finally collapse against a tree, breathing too hard, too fast. My vision almost immediately dims, lulling me into sleep.
No. No. I can’t afford that.
I’m giving my body two minutes, and that’s it. To ensure I don’t just lose consciousness, I busy myself with the least frightening of my two most pressing issues.
I shrug off the jacket, and lower the sleeve of my top underneath.
It’s not as bad as I expected it. Ink black stains my skin and my clothing, but the hole itself has stopped bleeding, and it seems much smaller than I would have expected. But I note an alarming marbling around my skin—like ink runs in my veins rather than blood.
Strange, dark blood.
Next, I look at the hand, half expecting it to be just fine, no big deal, after seeing the state of the cut that should have been a gashing wound. But it isn’t. It’s just as ugly as I first imagined, blotched, charred flesh bumping. There’s more of those dark streaks, running all the way down to my wrist.
The arrowhead. Was it poisoned? I have no fucking idea. Just like I don’t know how to heal myself.
A shiver runs down my back.
I know I heal fast—a few hours were enough to get over most of the pain when Junis sprained or broke my wrist. The arrow’s puncture is already mostly fine. But something tells me this wound is different, somehow. It didn’t hurt me too much when it just penetrated me in a fraction of a second, but manipulating it while trying to get the arrow out of me was just too much. A quick look at my other hand show that the tips of my fingers are a little worse for the wear, but nothing like my left hand.
I have a small tolerance for whatever substance was on that metal.
Or the metal itself.
I wish I had been one for reading mythology, fairy tales, or legends. I’m mostly too restless for sitting still long enough to read. I listen to audio when doing something else, though. But I’ve always favored action-packed, epic, world-ending fantasy and sci-fi books.
But vaguely, though I can’t place it, I remember something about the fae. They’re supposed to not like metal, right? Some of them, anyway. Didn’t Ryther say something about the metal in the human world weakening me?
It would explain so much. Like the fact that I am so anemic every doctor on Earth believes I should be dead. There’s no iron in my body.
It must be made of that, or whatever metal hurts them. Us.
Trying to put a barrier between me and them, mentally, works less and less as the hours pass.
I should get going, I tell myself. But where to? What kills me is, I’m so unfamiliar with those strange woods, I could very well be running in circles. I long for the comfortable bed in Ryther's camp. The bath. Even his company. And god, I'd kill for his tea, right about now. And his soap. And his cock.
Oh my god, how is my mind even going there, in my state? I shake my head.
But I can't go back. All the assholes hunting me are there.
I am suddenly so tired, andI need to rest.
Think.
I need the blond stranger to tell me what’s the next step.
