Page 45 of Outside the Veil
“You’ll do no such thing. You need to rest. As do I. What shall I bring you so you’ll be content to lie still?”
Diego chewed on his bottom lip. “That little white bottle next to the coffeemaker. Some water. And a clean towel. Preferably not white.”
“As you wish.” Finn made a good show of sauntering off, though he stumbled twice on the stairs. When he returned with the aspirin, a bottle of water and a dark blue towel, he’d abandoned the pretense and had to catch himself on the doorframe.
“Take off those jeans and lie down before you take a header into the carpet.”
“Are you quite certain you’re Diego?”
“Why?”
“The one I know is forever after me to put clothes on.”
“Just get over here. Face down.” He patted the bed beside him. When Finn had settled, he poured enough water out into thetowel to start cleaning out the gashes, some a fingernail’s depth, others deep gouges. None bled any longer, but Finn must have left pints in the woods. From shoulders to calves, the slashes had been delivered with such precision, they almost appeared decorative.
“Must you do that? It hurts.”
“I know they’ll probably heal on their own while you sleep, but humor me, please. Let me feel useful.” He hesitated over Finn’s buttocks, those perfect, muscular globes he’d regarded with such longing. To distract himself, he went back to prodding Finn for information. “So you left me that day, ran into the woods, and then what?”
“I heard something.”
“A voice? A twig snap? What?”
“No, in my head.”
“You know, when humans hear things in their heads, they’re called crazy.”
“Not like that. It’s difficult to describe. But all beings give off a…mental scent, if you will. Each is unique. I could follow you by yours in the dark, provided there weren’t too many other humans about. This feeling, this calling, came without a doubt from another magical being. Someone like me, Diego, when I thought I was alone. Imagine my excitement.”
But you’re not alone…Diego shoved aside the hurt. “Of course.”
“I hared off after it, but it eluded me for a day and a night. I shifted from deer to wolf to raven, all the while believing myself the hunter. Ow!” Finn twitched and grabbed Diego’s wrist. “I think there’s a thorn in that one.”
Diego nodded and bent over the back of Finn’s thigh to retrieve the black point, acutely aware of Finn’s scent and the feel of warm skin and hard muscles under his hands.Finn stretched, obviously enjoying the attention despite his complaints.
“Hunting.” Diego cleared his throat against the husk in it. “You were talking about hunting.”
“Hmm, yes,” Finn murmured, eyes half closed. He drew in a deep breath and continued, without the light, teasing tone he used for his storytelling. “I was the prey, though I was too sure of myself to realize it. Led far away from the river, onto a place of tumbled stone, I should have been suspicious then, away from water and earth where I would be strongest. I called to it, resumed my own form, assured it that I wished only to speak with it.”
He stopped to rub at his throat. “And walked directly into a noose snare. A carefully bespelled snare at that, rendering me unable to shift to free myself.”
“It wanted to eat you, too?”
“I’d no idea what it wanted at first. I found myself beaten to my knees, my hands bound, and then I was hung upside-down. My attempts to plead with it seemed to confound it. Its attempts to communicate with me brought no clarity. I had only the vaguest impression of form at first—a chill being of wind, a dark hunger wrapped in unfathomable thoughts.
“At some point, it decided I would be more cooperative with a bit of pain applied. When it manifested…” Finn’s hard shudder shook the bed. Diego lay down beside him again. “A huge shambling thing, half again as tall as me. Matted, reeking fur. Cadaverously thin with sunken yellow eyes. And claws a bear would have envied.
“Each time it raked me with those talons, it seemed to be asking something, but I couldn’t comprehend what. And when the pain got it no further than when it had started, the thing changed tactics. It forced its way inside my mind and began to rake through my thoughts and memories.”
“God, how awful.” Diego stroked the hair back from Finn’s eyes, wanting to hold him, afraid of hurting him.
Finn took his hand. “At this point, I made perhaps my worst mistake. I tried to hide you, bundling all thought of you into what I hoped was a secure place. The more barriers I threw up, though, the more it knew that what I hid was what it wanted.
“Gods, but it was strong. And I was…fading. It was like being besieged by a hurricane. Every obstacle I created, it ripped to shreds. And then it…” Finn’s voice cracked. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else I could have done. It found you. And once it had, it wanted you with a consuming avarice I’ve never felt before.”
“But it failed. It didn’t eat me.”
“It doesn’t wish to eat you, my hero. It does eat human flesh, yes. But you, it wishes to possess.”
