Page 51 of What Lies Beyond the Veil

“Estrella!” Caelum warned from behind me, his voice erupting through the woods. I heard it over the sound of my heavy breathing, snapping my attention back to him just as my foot caught on a tree root and I went sprawling forward.

He’d somehow seen what I hadn’t. There was no ground beneath me, not for what seemed like an eternity as Caelum tried to grasp me by the new cloak wrapped around my shoulders. His fingers slipped through the fabric, grappling for purchase as I fell.

My hands hit the ground first, scraping raw along the harsh brambles covering the ravine. My cheek slid across it next as I squeezed my eyes closed in a desperate attempt to protect them, and then the rest of my body struck. Landing sideways, I rolled down a bank into a ditch until I came to a stop at the very bottom. My hand dropped into a narrow stream, the icy water burning my skin with cold so quickly that I yanked it back and rolled back toward the hillside.

Caelum barreled down the hill, running through the brambles as they tore at his clothes and skin until he reached me. The villagers stood at the top of the hillside, staring down after him while I watched.

None of them braved the drop into the ravine, talking amongst themselves and buying us some time. I planted a hand in the rocks next to the stream, the blood and scratches covering my skin making me grateful that the gloves Caelum had found for me were tucked safely in his pack and not torn to shreds.

I pushed to my feet, my cheek burning and body throbbing as Caelum reached me, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me off the ground. “Are you alright?” he asked, studying the wounds on my face intently for a moment as he clenched his jaw. He turned that molten stare up to the villagers, who slowly started to brave the brambles to make their way down.

“I’ll be fine. Let’s go,” I said, nodding toward the path of the stream. I took the first step away from the villagers, my ankle caving beneath me the moment I put weight on it.

Caelum caught me as I fell, growling as his hand twitched toward a sword. He seemed to shake off the moment of fury, the unrealistic belief that he could fight the villagers off on his own. “Put this on,” he said, handing me the pack. I did as he told me, wondering why he would give me the extra weight when I couldn’t even support my own.

Clarity came the moment he pulled the axe free and lowered himself to one knee in front of me. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, my throat burning with the possibility of being caught. “Even you can’t outrun them with my weight. Just leave me.”

He spun, pinning me to the spot with a glare so fierce I thought I might shrivel up on the spot. It was worse than any humiliation I’d felt when he’d teased me about the inevitability of being intimate with him.

It was worse than everything.

“Do not ever let me hear you say those words again. Do you understand me, Estrella?” he asked, taking my hand and pulling me closer. He wrapped it around the front of his neck, leaving me to follow with the other one. As soon as I had my hands placed on his shoulders, he reached back and grasped me around the back of each thigh. Hoisting me onto his back, he stood smoothly and without any of the difficulty I’d have expected from something as bulky as an entire person and supply pack. And weapons.

His swords were sheathed in the cross-back scabbards, poking into the spaces between my arms and where he hiked my legs up high on his hips. He bent forward slightly, grabbing the discarded axe off the ground and hurrying forward.

He walked faster than I could typically walk on my own, hurrying as quickly as he could without dislodging me or risking me further injury. The sounds of the villagers trying to make their way over the brambles and down the ravine faded into the distance as he stepped over the stream and walked up into the woods on the other side.

His breathing came harder by the time he reached the top, but still he kept walking, treading along until there was no doubt that we’d left the villagers behind us. Only then did he angle back down toward the stream, keeping a watchful eye for any stragglers that might have continued on in search of us. Finally, when we must have been miles from the place where I’d fallen, Caelum bent forward to lower me to my feet in front of a log that I could sit on.

He stripped the pack off my back, pulling out a bedsheet he’d grabbed. It had seemed foolish at the time, but as he cut through it with his dagger and dipped it into the stream, I understood why extra cloth would probably never be a bad idea.

He touched the cold fabric to my face, cleaning the cuts that I could feel on my cheek. “How bad is it?” I asked, flinching as I thought of the fact that only a few hours prior, he’d said I was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.

“Worse than I want it to be,” he said, cleaning the worst of the scrapes. When he was satisfied that my face was tended to, he rinsed the rag in the stream once more and took my hands in his. My palms were covered in dried blood, having taken the brunt of that first impact. A glance at the front of his cloak and shirt showed the stain from my injuries covered his clothing.

I winced as he touched the cloth to my hand and cleaned the blood off to inspect the cuts beneath. He glared at the injuries on the first palm as he set it on my lap, moving to the other and starting the process of cleaning that hand. The scrapes weren’t horrible enough that I’d die or needed serious attention from a healer, but it didn’t take much to cause an infection or make functioning painful.

The worst of the cuts was on the tip of my finger, a deep poke hole that throbbed when Caelum ran the cloth over it. He squinted, setting the cloth to the side and using his fingernails to pry out the thorn that had wedged itself into my skin. I squeaked as he pulled it free and blood welled up in my fingertip.

He leaned forward, drawing my finger into his mouth and licking the blood from the wound as I watched in shock. Warmth spread through my hand, saturating my chilled flesh as his dark gaze landed on mine. Heat flowed through my veins, burning me from the inside in a way that made me want all the things I shouldn’t and reminding me of the way he’d rubbed his shaft against me when he pinned me to the tree.

Something simmered in his gaze, thickening the air between us as he slowly pulled the finger free from his mouth and used his teeth to tear off a dry strip of fabric that he pressed to my finger to help the bleeding stop. “Hold that there,” he instructed, as if he had no clue that I was aroused by the sight of him licking the blood from my finger.

There was something wrong with me.

He knelt at my feet and grabbed my new boot. He unknotted the laces, pulled it off, and yanking down the sock. Even I saw the purple swelling wrapped around my ankle and the way it seemed to bulge between my leg and my foot.

“Fucking Gods,” Caelum muttered, hanging his head forward. He tore off more of the sheet, making strips as he wrapped my ankle in them carefully before replacing the sock.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, knowing that I’d effectively slowed down our pace dramatically. There was no way Caelum could carry me for the days it would take my ankle to heal entirely, and I would be fortunate if I could walk at all the next day.

“Stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. You didn’t intend to fall down a fucking ravine. You were running for your life. I should have just killed them. At least then you wouldn’t be injured.”

“You can’t kill an entire group of people over a cloak, Caelum,” I said, shaking my head.

Something lurked in the shadows of his eyes as he turned his attention to my face. “Maybe not, but I would kill an entire group of people for putting you in danger.”

I swallowed, sucking back a breath of cool air as he carefully put my boot back on my foot.

---