Page 28 of Tethered In Blood

I pressed my lips together and made the first stitch. His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, but he didn’t flinch. Calder’s voice echoed in my mind:‘He always acts like that. He stumbles in half alive and is gone before regaining his health.’He must have been accustomed to pain. The thought unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.

My shoulders relaxed when I tied the last knot. My hands ached from the tension, my fingers stiff from gripping the needle, but it was done. The wound was closed. When I pulled back, my gaze caught his. I should have looked away, tended to the salve, or the bloodied cloth in my lap. But for one breathless moment, his dark eyes held me.

He tried to unravel me, making the space between us feel too small. His warmth still lingered on my fingertips, even though I wasn’t touching him anymore. A slow flush crept up my neck and across my cheeks before I looked away. Whatever he sought, he wouldn’t find it.

After reaching for the cloth, I dipped it in the river, and gently smoothed a thin layer of salve over the wound. Crushed herbs and beeswax wafted into the cooling air, steadying me.

“Be more careful,” I murmured, a soft chide. He didn’t have time to reply before I snatched the tunic from his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning it.”

Kneeling at the river’s edge, I scrubbed the blood from the fabric. The water ran red before the current swept it away, carrying the evidence downstream. I had done this countless times. It had nothing to do with him. It was the wound, the risk of infection if he wore that filthy thing again.

When I returned, the tunic wrung out and dripping, his eyes remained fixed on me. His expression revealed nothing, but his gaze felt critical and angry.

I frowned and held the damp shirt out to him. “You can’t wear a bloodied tunic over a clean wound. It’ll get infected, which means more problems for both of us.”

He remained still.

His silence made my chest tighten. “I didn’t think you would bother cleaning it yourself,” I added, lifting my arm and nudging the tunic toward him. “So, here.” His jaw ticked. I braced for another sharp remark, but he simply took the tunic from my hand.

Turning away, I sank back to my knees at the river’s edge. Night had settled in. The last remnants of twilight had vanished, leaving only the fractured glow of the half-moon rippling across the dark water. The trees loomed as towering shadows, their branches tangled against the starry sky. In the underbrush, unseen creatures stirred: the rustle of wings, the skitter of something small, and the distant cry of an owl swallowed by the darkness.

I would sooner have drowned myself than endure another tension-filled staring contest with an angry Fae. Cupping my hands, I dipped them into the river, a shiver racing up my arms from the cold. It tasted of stone and soil.

Clean enough.

Behind me, there was the rustle of fabric. “I thought you needed to—”

“I didn’t,” I interrupted, wiping a stray droplet from my chin. “It was an excuse.”

Silence followed, punctuated by a sharp, brooding huff. “You just lectured me about wearing a dirty shirt over a healing wound, and now you’re drinking from the same river you washed it in?”

Lowering my hands, I glanced back over my shoulder. He stood there, arms crossed, tunic still clutched in one hand. His expression teetered between irritation and disbelief.

I shrugged. “What, worried about me now?”

A faint scowl ghosted across his moonlit features before his eyes narrowed. “It’s my job to keep you safe,” he gritted out, “as infuriating as that may be. And your logic is flawed. I don’t need you getting sick before you’ve had a chance to heal anyone in the village. Did you not bring a flask?”

With a sigh, I shook my head. “I never needed one, so I didn’t have one to bring. The river is clean enough. It’s flowing, not stagnant. Don’t you drink from rivers, Sinclaire?”

“Not after I just saw someone scrub blood-soaked fabric in there,” he scoffed.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the water. Coolness seeped through my fingers as I flicked a few droplets in his direction. “Relax. You’re acting like I’m about to drop dead.”

His glare burned into my back as he tried to dissect my reasoning… or me. “You’re reckless,” he muttered.

A short, dry laugh escaped me, and I wiped my hands dry on my uniform. “And you’re paranoid. Guess we—”

A sharp, wet crack shattered the night, reverberating through the trees. Then another. The sound was the unmistakable resonance of bones cracking under immense pressure.

I rose to my feet. Every muscle in my body tensed, and my blood ran cold. That wasn’t the forest settling; it certainly wasn’t a harmless animal rustling through the underbrush.

Oberon’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword, his entire body becoming still. Rigid. Alert. His ears, pointed beneath the tousled edges of his dark hair, twitched as he listened. A breeze stirred the trees, subtle at first, and then it intensified.

A putrid stench rode the wind.

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