Page 65 of A Killing Cold

Connor moves toward me. To help, probably, but I shy away. Connor flinches. Hurt.He’s not allowed to be the one who’s hurt, I think, and I cling to Nick’s offered arm instead. He hauls me upright. I’m still woozy. Blood loss or shock, I can’t tell, but my whole body is shivering.

“Are you going to take her to the hospital?” Connor asks.

“The nearest hospital is over an hour away, and then you’re sitting around for god knows how long,” Nick says.

“Datura,” I say through chattering teeth.Get me out of here.

“No sense in going down the mountain and trying to scare up a doctor when you’ve got one right here. I’ll get her stitched up. We’ve got the supplies,” he says, hustling me along.

They won’t let you leave, I think, and fear flushes through me.

“Everything okay here?” a voice says. Nick pulls up short.

Mr. Vance stands between the trees, a dark gray cap jammed over his unruly hair. For once, he doesn’t have Duchess with him. Nor does he have a bow—he’s carrying a rifle, the strap over his shoulder. He grips the strap with one hand. They have trouble with poachers, I remember. Mr. Vance tries to scare them off.

“Theo decided to impersonate a deer,” Nick says. I can’t say I particularly appreciate the attempt at humor. “We’re taking her up to the lodge.”

Mr. Vance rubs his chin. “Well. Lucky it wasn’t worse, I suppose.”

“We’d better get moving,” Nick says pointedly.

“Does Mr. Dalton know?” Mr. Vance asks, obviously speaking about Magnus. There’s something odd in his expression. What is he doing out here?

“Why don’t you go find him?” Nick suggests tightly.

“I could take the girl up the mountain for you,” Mr. Vance says.

“She needs medical care. Unless you’re a doctor, you’re not much use,” Nick snaps, and then he moves, ushering me along. He keeps a hand on my elbow—on the uninjured side—and though I don’t actually need help walking, I’m not sure I would remember to keep moving forward without it.

We leave Mr. Vance behind. He stands there, watching, not moving. Connor follows us, but he’s lagging, his face blanched with shock.

Images play through my head on repeat. I keep picturing the hole in the side of the deer we dressed, imagining it transposed on my rib cage. Remembering that flash of gray metal among the trees and the image of myself reflected for an instant in the dark of the deer’s wild eye.

It was an accident, I tell myself. But part of me refuses to believe it—the part that knows what the deer knows. That I am prey. And prey is never safe.

31

There isn’t room for Connor on the UTV. I ride back with Nick. At the lodge, he removes the makeshift bandage, along with my coat, then slices my sleeve up to the shoulder and flushes out the wound—a process that is almost as painful as getting shot in the first place, though I try not to show it.

Instead of leaving me in the kitchen with Olena lurking curiously by the door, he takes me to Magnus’s office before going to fetch more supplies. For privacy, ostensibly. Or maybe it’s more about containing me.

Magnus’s office is how I would have imagined it. Deep wood tones and navy, a gold fountain pen on the desk, a trio of mounted antler trophies on the wall. Bookcases that would kill an elephant in an earthquake. I spotDublinersamong them but can’t manage to be amused.

I sit in a leather armchair that has the softness of old age and high quality, my shoes off and my knees tucked up, feeling like a small girl—lost and vulnerable.

The clock on the wall of the study ticks steadily, a hollow sound. Without it, I wouldn’t be sure that time is passing at all. Nick left me here, the chair protected by several towels. It wouldn’t do for my wounds to stain the good furniture. The study is private. A room away from the plate glass windows and flowing light.

I keep trying to picture Connor’s face, the instant the arrow came toward me. But every time I shut my eyes, I see not Connor but Liam.

The door opens. I shrink against the chair, still subject to the startled animal living inside of me, but it’s only Nick. He’s come in with a large leather satchel, which he unzips to reveal a first aid kit—though calling it that seems reductive, given how extensive it is.

“Let’s get a look at that,” he says. He pulls the office chair over to me and unwraps my arm. I hiss with pain and force myself to look. The edges of the wound are clean. The skin is split, gaping, and I don’t particularly want to think about what I can see underneath. “You’re lucky,” he says, voice gruff with barely restrained anger. “And Connor’s an idiot.”

“I wasn’t where I was supposed to be,” I say. I backtracked. He didn’t expect me there; it couldn’t have been some kind of plan to stage an accident.Except that Magnus told me where to go.

Nick leans back. “I’m going to give you a local anesthetic to numb it up before I suture it.”

“I forgot to ask what kind of doctor you are,” I say idly.

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