Page 18 of Lera of Lunos
“Next time I tell you what you may or may not do with my patient, you listen,” Shade says, his quiet murmur as full of command as River’s. He waits a beat, letting the order sink in. “Gather firewood. We’ll need some tonight.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Coal is gone before I can conjure words. My body surrenders to tremors despite everything I can do to keep them at bay. River wraps a cloak around me, guiding me into a mountain cave that looks like little more than a massive black blob to my mortal eyes. I run my hands along the damp wall, inhaling the scents of earth and moss. By the time Coal returns with wood and makes short work of a fire, I’m tucked securely against the cave wall, keeping my mouth shut as Shade examines my ankle and several of the deeper gashes, taking each aggravated cut as a personal affront.
“You can’t do anything for her?” River asks Shade, settling with his arm around me.
“If you mean with magic, nothing that won’t make things worse in the long term.” Shade brushes a lock of hair from my face, his yellow eyes softening. “You can push a body to heal faster like you can nudge a horse into a quicker gallop—only to a point. It’s all right for you to need a bit of rest, cub. No one expects you to pretend the trial never happened, that you aren’t sore. Okay? Can you let us just hold you for a night?”
“Don’t bother answering,” River says, pulling me closer against his side, his heat and strength cocooning me. “I’m holding you whether you let me or not.”
I’m still sitting upright when I drift off to sleep.
* * *
I waketo River’s heavy arm around me, thin dawn light pressing against my eyelids, and the smell of blood filling my nose. I’m so used to the coppery scent from my own wounds by now that for a moment I simply snuggle deeper into River’s warm, bare chest, his smooth muscles shifting tighter around me. Then the blood hits me again, stronger.
Opening my eyes, I stare at a pair of glazed dead ones and scream, my mind still processing the scene. Coal is on his feet immediately, sword drawn, blond hair loose against bunched shoulders. Heart pounding, I sit up to behold the freshly killed rabbit that one of the juvenile bastards decided to drop off inches away from my face. “Shade!”
“It wasn’t me.” Shade blinks his long lashes at me from his spot by the mouth of the cave. “I’d have brought a pair at least. How poor a hunter do you think I am?”
Shoving the dead rabbit into the shifter’s chest, I pull on my boots and walk down to a nearby creek, which at least flows with fresh—if freezing—water. Between Tye running off, Shade’s told-you-so healer persona, and Coal pulling back more each hour, my sense of humor is taking a bloody beating. Maybe there’s a plant somewhere that makes wolves itch. Yes, that would have been a better way of going about the morning.
Savoring that prospect, I scoop water with cupped hands and splash my face quickly. The icy cold grips my lungs at once, and it takes several breaths before I can look at the creek again. In the clear water, my own reflection stares back at me.
That, and the furry face of a green-eyed tiger.
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Lera
Breath held, I turn slowly. Very, very slowly.
Taking a step forward, the tiger drops a dead hare at my feet and proceeds to the water, lowering his head to lap his fill from the creek.
I swallow. “Tye? Can you understand me?”
No answer, bar the rhythmic swoosh of his black-tipped tail.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I mutter, retreating one step, then another.
The tiger’s head lifts and swings toward me, sunlight sculpting the lithe muscles beneath his velvety fur. His green eyes narrow on me, slide for an instant to the hare I left untouched, then return lazily to the water, where he resumes his lapping.
I don’t see Tye again as I help pack up the campsite and go through a training bout with Coal, who currently seems willing to converse with me only through practice swords—which today strike neither quickly nor hard. By the time we’re in the saddle, Czar seems to have absorbed enough of his rider’s mood to snap his teeth at anyone riding beside him—poor Sprite included. Keeping the mare back, I survey the path for any sign of feline company. There is none.
Until that evening, that is, when I return to camp from taking care of my needs to find a dead deer atop my saddlebags.
Bile crawls up my throat at the sight of viscous deer blood soaking through my bags and into the clothes inside. “Oh, stars.” Clamping my hands over my mouth, I try to keep from breathing in the thick, coppery scent. “That is disgusting.”
Shade heaves the carcass away from my things, bare arms hardly even straining. “That is dinner delivery.”
Picking up a small stone from the ground, I launch it with all my strength at Shade’s shoulder. The male takes the hit with a grunt and a smirk. “Will you not be skinning it yourself, then?”
Refusing to dignify the bastard with a response, I pull the blood-soaked clothes from my bags and, not wanting to pollute the small drinking stream, start for the river well downhill from the campsite. With the clear sky, River opted to spend the night in the thick forest instead of the oppressive mountainside caves, which—until just now—was going to mean less trekking up and down the slope.
“You’ve about an hour of light left,” Shade calls after me. “Be careful.”
“I did somehow manage to keep track of the sun before meeting you, Shade,” I call over my shoulder to the overprotective male. At least Tye chose the evening time to leave his offering, which means the laundry has a fighting chance of drying overnight. That, or turning into sheets of ice.
Navigating prickly pine branches and horse-sized boulders, I finally come to the water, which rushes quickly over smooth stones. With the vast horizon on one side and a great snowcapped mountain rising on the other, the beauty of Lunos settles like a shawl over my shoulders. Finding a rock that’s both large enough to spread out my things and far enough into the river that I can reach the swiftly flowing water without actually having to step into it, I dump my laundry beside me. Three shirts and two sets of pants, all soaked through with deer blood and—
