Page 20 of Ties of Bargains

Harm hissed at the rush of pain jolting up his arm. “That hurts.”

Val ignored him as she poked at a few of the gashes on his chest. “Are you wounded anywhere else?”

Besides his pride? Harm pointed. “My leg.”

She tugged aside the fabric of his breeches and inspected the wound. Her frown deepened as she lifted her gaze to his. “This was done by a knife.”

“Yes.” Might as well grind what was left of his pride under his heel while he was at it.

Val huffed a breath as she sat back on her heels. She drew one of her knives from its sheath, held it up, and gestured at the blade. “This is the pointy end. It goes in your enemy, not in yourself.”

Harm pressed his hand over the bites again, cradling his wounded arm to his chest. “I don’t think my lack of knife skills is our highest priority right now. I’m bleeding out.”

“I left you alone with one of my knives for less than five minutes, and you managed to cut yourself. Yes, your lack of knife-handling skills is the priority.” Val sheathed her knife again, then removed the now boiling water from over the fire, setting the pot next to her. The steam wafted a stringent, herbal scent. “And you are not bleeding out. You’ll be fine.”

He was seriously questioning her definition of the wordfine.

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a vial filled with some kind of green and glowing sludge. She shoved it at him. “Drink this.”

Harm took the vial, eyeing it. “This won’t kill me, will it?”

“Of course not. It’s an expensive healing potion, sodon’t complain.” Val touched the tip of her pinky to the water, then started arranging various supplies on a patch of moss next to her.

“Then I’m honored you’re using it on me.” Harm winced as he moved his injured arm to uncap the vial. With one bracing breath, he tipped the vial back and downed the whole thing as quickly as he could.

Despite the green color and sludgy consistency, it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. Rather than tasting like mud or seaweed or something nasty, it tasted like a strong perfume smelled: cloying and overly floral.

“Don’t be. It’s just practical. I can’t have you dying on me.” Val continued fiddling with the supplies, though everything seemed arranged. “We’ll start your training in the morning. This mission will be more expensive than it’s worth if I have to keep using potions on you.”

Harm choked on the last swallow of the potion, and he coughed to clear his lungs. “Training?”

“Yes. Training. With a knife.” Val took the empty vial from him, jammed it in her pocket, and picked up one of the clean cloths she’d set next to her. “Now hold still.”

She grabbed the wrist of his injured arm, yanking his arm toward her as she dipped the cloth into the pot of steaming water. As she sloshed the dripping cloth onto his arm, the hot water and whatever she’d put into it stung like embers being ground into the wounds.

“Ow! Ow! Hey, stop that! Ow!” Harm tried to yank his arm back, but her grip might as well have been iron.

With head low, tail wagging slightly, Daisy crept closer before she pressed herself to his right side. For a moment, Harm held his arm out, not really wanting totouch her. She had gore smeared underneath her chin and down the front of her chest, but all the mess was from the rodents and wolf. Daisy didn’t have a scratch on her.

“Stop squirming.” Val kept ruthlessly cleaning the wounds in his arm, dipping the cloth into the water again and again. “You don’t want to risk infection.”

“Shouldn’t that healing potion take care of it?” Harm forced himself to hold still, gritting his teeth at the rush of pain. This hurt worse than getting chomped on. At least during the attack, he’d been so busy trying not to die that he hadn’t even registered the full extent of the pain.

He gave in and rested his free hand on Daisy’s back, digging his fingers into the coarse fur at the scruff of her neck.

“Yes, but you are a human and therefore more fragile.” Val turned his arm back and forth. As if satisfied with her work, she dropped her rag into the now pink-tinted water, popped the lid off a small pot, and revealed what looked like some kind of herbal paste. She dipped her fingers into it and spread it over his wounds. “It doesn’t hurt to help the potion along.”

“Doesn’t hurtyou,” Harm grumbled between his clenched teeth. “Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I’m keeping you alive. That’s about all you can ask for in your position.” She tipped her head toward the cord that coiled between them, the one end gripped tightly beneath her hand on his wrist and the other sparkling around her wrist.

He supposed that was the best he would get, captive that he was. At least Daisy seemed sympathetic, pressing into him as if offering comfort.

Once she was finished with the paste, Val wrapped his arm with bandages from his elbow down to his wrist. After tying it off, she reached for the rag in the water again. Without so much as a warning or hesitation, she brought the rag to one of the scratches high on his chest.

“Hey, ow!” Harm squirmed away from her as much as he could with his back to the root and Daisy pressed to his side. “Now that you’ve taken care of my arm, I can do the rest myself.”

“Have you ever tended wounds before?” Val’s eyebrows rose as she speared him with a look.

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