Page 10 of Bound By Darkness

“Oh, thank the gods,” Moria heaved, her fingers curling around the bars. “I was scared you weren’t going to wake up.” A rasping cry left her lips. “Blood kept leaking from you.”

Her fingers were white as they gripped iron.

“That bad?” I muttered as every inhale shifted the ruined flesh. “Has the—” I groaned. “Has the bleeding stopped yet?”

Moria nodded. “Yes, but you need to cover it. If the wounds getinfected?—”

“I know what happens if they get infected,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I think… I think it’s too late for that,” I said as sweat dripped down my forehead like a river.

Flattening my palms against the ground, rocks dug into the soft flesh as I pushed myself up, the stinging blinding and sharp. Dizziness narrowed my field of view, my body straightening as I rested in a crouched sitting position.

My fingers reached for the discarded tunic, a sharp cry escaping my lips as raw skin stretched and bent at unforgiving angles.

“Here,” Moria whispered, her fingers curling. “Bring your shirt, and I’ll mend your back as much as possible to stave off further infection.”

“You make it sound easy.”

Moria’s eyes softened, but her jaw remained set.

With a low grunt, my fingers dug into the grooves of the floor as I slowly shifted myself to her. Each shuffle sent waves of pain down my back as the iron bars refused to appear closer.

“Almost there.”

“Shut up, Moria. I don’t need—” I groaned, my fingers curling. “I don’t need a narrator.”

Moria bit her lip, but she remained silent until my back rested against the cool iron, a sigh escaping my body at the relief it gave my heated wounds.

Water sloshed behind me as fabric ripped, my eyes peering over my shoulders. The hem of her shirt floated in the large basin. “We needed something to clean the wounds,” she answered.

Wringing the fabric, a sharp cry left my lips as she dabbed the cloth against the red welts. “Gods, Thalia,” she whispered, her hands trembling as she dipped the fabric into the basin again. The water instantly turned red. “They aren’t too deep, butthere are so many.”

“Gayle had his fun.” I inhaled sharply as the fabric rubbed against a sensitive welt.

Moria choked back a sob as she carefully cleaned the wounds. “He promised me he wouldn’t,” she whispered. “He promised me he’d leave you alone.”

“He’s a liar,” I said, a splash of cold water blissfully needed as it ran down my back.

“It’s my fault he did this. If I had done more. If I had?—”

“It’s not your fault,” I stated. “Gayle followed his orders.” And his sick addiction.

Moria bit her lip, her fingers clenching the fabric. “But he did this because of me. Because I turned down a request.”

I shook my head. “He did this because I smashed a glass bottle over a Noble Fae’s head.”

“You… you did what?”

“He made me an offer to come to his province. And?—”

“And what?” Moria said, the sounds of water flooding my ears.

“I refused and smashed the bottle over his head when he tried to frighten me.” My hands twisted together. “I didn’t think when I grabbed it. When I realized what I’d done, the only logical solution blaring in my head told me to run. So I did. I ran to the window and pried it open.”

“You… you ran?”

I nodded, the movement jarring. “Yes. I ran into the forest.”

Reason had left my senses. I’d known Moria since she was fourteen—her voice the first I’d woken up to the day of my arrival eleven years ago. I was only thirteen and despite my best efforts to avoid her, we’d bonded.

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