Page 26 of Baited

I’m not sure I’m ready for…

A hand grabs my wrist.

“Izzy,” Blayn growls. “I was dreaming about you.”

“You need to rest,” I tell him.

“I was dreaming about you and not the dark and the light,” he says, his voice taking on a dreamy slur, and I see the medication tube has started running again. “I prefer to dream about you,” he adds.

“Then go to sleep and dream again.” I stroke the cloth over his forehead, and he settles himself into the bed a bit like a hen sitting on eggs.

“You kept your promise,” he whispers. “You kept the dark and the light away.”

He smiles again, briefly, his face going slack as unconsciousness takes him once again. My insides are scrambled as I lean over him and brush my lips over his damp forehead in a move which takes me by surprise.

“Rest and heal, Blayn,” I whisper. “I won’t leave you.”

BLAYN

There is no light or dark here. A pale mist lifts me up, as if I’m up in the clouds, a soft spray of water on my face as my wings beat on and on, strongly. A wind caresses my skin.

I like it here, without the light and the dark, dark and the light. My heart hurts, but it’s not too bad. Something I can bear as long as this flight continues because I don’t recall a time I flew like this.

Only there is something tugging at my abdomen and a scent in my nostrils I want more of, so much more. A hiss creeps into my ears, pain in my body, wings no longer wanting to buoy me up.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

A face so beautiful looks down on me, I have to assume the fight is over and I have died, until some of my brain cells fire into life.

“Izzy?” I rasp her name, already hating my malfunctioning vocal cords.

“I’m so sorry, Blayn. I know you don’t want me touching you, but you wouldn’t settle if I wasn’t next to you and…”

My brow knits. I’m in a strange position because she is above me and I don’t understand.

“I’ll stop if you want me to. Your fever’s broken.”

There’s something cool on my forehead. I’m resting on something soft. My abdomen burns at me, and I attempt to flap a weak hand over it.

“Your wound was infected,” Izzy says. “Leave the bandage alone,” she adds as I attempt to scratch at the itchy thing on my stomach.

“How long?” My voice cracks.

“You’ve been out three nova-days. You couldn’t be moved, so you’re still here, at the pleasure house,” Izzy says. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

“Three nova-days?” I can’t comprehend being unconscious for so long. “Here, with you?”

“I couldn’t leave your side.” I see the tiredness in her eyes. “If I did, you’d pull out the medicine tube and thrash all over the place. The dome medic insisted I stay with you.”

Her scent is amazing, filling my senses up. I turn my head to snuffle into her clothing as surreptitiously as I can.

“You were talking when you had a fever,” she says. “Something about a family.”

I don’t remember talking and I don’t remember a family.

“Only the dark and the light.” I inhale deeply again, sucking her scent like a Gryn starved. “And my stomach hurts.”

“Your captain says you’ve done this before, got yourself hurt and refused treatment.” Her hand hovers over my forehead, then it darts in, and I see a cloth being removed. “Ending up in their infirmary.”

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