Page 13 of Seized to Sacrifice
Thorne laughed lightly. ‘Perhaps one of us should tell her she’ll get nowhere with you, eh, Brother?’
Nyx ignored Thorne’s ribbing, regarding the shivering woman in his bed instead. He drew the coverlet over her, tucking her in, ensuring Thorne knew he cared what happened to her. He wanted Thorne to see him doing this for her, although he wasn’t sure why exactly. Perhaps it was because his Brother seemed nervous about something and nothing good ever came of Thorne being on edge.
‘I brought her up here because she’s feverish and ill.’
‘So?’ Thorn asked with a roll of his eyes. ‘Her suffering is the very thing Rye brought her here for us to cause, isn’t it?’
‘What if you’re both wrong about her?’ Nyx asked.
Thorne shrugged, saying nothing.
‘I thought the humans had grown on you during our time here.’
Leaning over her as if he wanted a better look at her wan complexion, Thorne gave a small sigh. ‘They have.’
‘Well, she smells human to me, and she smells human to you. I don't think it's her.’
‘How did she know your name then?’ Thorne argued.
Nyx retreated to the other side of the room, his body suddenly feeling confined behind the glamor he kept around him almost all the time.
‘Perhaps she heard Ryder say it.’ He turned, stoking the fire, and adding some wood. ‘If you're not going to help me with her, fuck off.’
Thorne was silent and, when Nyx looked a moment later, it was to find his Brother gone.
He approached the woman, letting his glamor down when he was sure she was unconscious, and stretching with a groan. It wasn’t as if the magick that concealed his true form from the humans of this realm really encased him or smothered him in any way, but sometimes he wanted to look down and actually see the grey shimmer of his smooth skin. He’d like to look in the mirror once in a while and be able to admire the gold-plated horns that rose from his skull like a bull’s. He was proud of those horns. They’d seen many a battle, impaled many a creature, and the color marked him as being an elite soldier once.
He looked at the woman in his bed more closely. Blood crusted her temple and down her face. It had dripped down her ear and onto her neck. One shoulder of her ragged dress was completely stained with it.
He put his knuckles to her forehead. She was still hot, too hot. Getting a damp cloth, he began to bathe the blood away so that he could take a better look at the wound beneath. It was a large gash, but, as he probed it with his fingers, he didn't feel that the bone beneath was fractured.
He sponged away the dirt and grime and the rest of the dried blood from her skin as best he could. The dress he left, though as he uncovered her to inspect the rest of her for injuries, he noticed lines of blood seeping through at the back as well. It had been days since she’d been brought here. These should have healed over by now, even on a human.
‘Fuck Ryder,’ he muttered, angry that his Brother either hadn’t bothered to tell them she had even more wounds or not even noticed them before abandoning her in the cell.
His claws, even filed down as they were, made short work of the dress. He ripped it down to her middle and peeled it away, giving a low growl at what he found. Her back was crisscrossed with welts and bruises, many of which had been deep enough to bleed and were now purulent. This was where the fever was coming from.
Shaking his head, he was glad that she was unconscious, so he didn't have to hold her down while he cleaned these much more painful gouges.
Taking her limp body in the crook of his arm, he leant her forward so that he could cleanse them thoroughly, trying not to let his eyes stray lower to the delectable globes of her arse but failing as his cock began to stir. How long had it been since he’d allowed himself to even entertain the idea of a female?
Wrong time, wrong woman.
With a sigh, he wrung out the cloth and cleaned the last of the gashes, grabbing some salve he’d taken from the cache the last time they’d travelled with the Dark Army and slathering it thickly on the wounds.
He left her in his bed on her front, drawing the blanket over her. The dress he tore off her once her body was hidden by the coverlet to save her modesty. He tossed it into the corner along with the pair of old shoes that were too large for her feet.
Nyx busied himself in the room, not wanting to leave her alone. Besides the fact that she was not chained, he also didn't want her roaming around in the state that she was in. He doubted she'd be lucid when she woke next with the fever ravaging her as it was.
She stirred, letting out a mewl that had him by her side instantly, but her eyes remained closed. She turned this way and that, her limbs thrashing, in the depths of some dark dream.
He hushed her, rubbing the back of her neck and shoulders in small circles, careful not to touch her injuries.
The door opened behind him, and he didn't need to look up to know that Ryder had realized she was gone from the locked dungeon and come searching for her.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he growled. ‘I didn’t bring her here so you could play nursemaid or act out some torrid fantasy or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.’
Nyx gave him a glance over his shoulder. ‘I’m making sure thishumanwoman doesn't die.’
