Page 144 of Deadwood
* * *
“She’s still resting,”a deep, lush voice said, breaking into the foggy night of my mind.
“Did she say how long?” a woman asked, and I strained to put a face to their voices.
My eyelids would not obey, staying clamped shut and heavy. My shoulder felt as if a phantom flame crawled along the skin, and I quickly wondered if I was in Amosite. Had my father come to bring me back home?
“She guessed it could be days,” the same man said, and it hit me.
Bowen.
I wanted to scream for him, to reach for him, touch him, hold him.
Bowen.
A hand gripped mine.
“Has he seen her?” the woman, who I now realized was Siara, asked.
“No.” His voice was so stiff, so full of gravel. Was he upset?
A light footstep on the wood floor. “He’s her fiancé, Bowen.”
“He’s the reason she’s injured.” His tone dripped with malice, and I wanted to reach out to him, but nothing more than the twitch of a finger would respond. “She can make the decision on her own when she wakes.”
“And if her father shows before she does?” Siara asked, her voice so soft, like feathers drifting through the air.
The hand on mine tightened.
“I will not let her out of my sight until I know she’s okay.”
But then the fog became a storm, and I drifted on the wind.
* * *
My throat was sandpaperas my eyes peeled open, feeling like the thickest glue had been stuck to the lids. As my lashes fluttered, adjusting to the dim light, I tested moving my fingers, thankful when they did as I asked.
My head rolled to the side, the soft pillow cushioning my cheek as my eyes landed on Bowen. He was slumped in a chair in the corner, his neck kinked at a weird angle and his hair in disarray. The position looked uncomfortable, but there he sat, watching over me. Had he moved at all?
I managed to move my arms in an attempt to push myself up to a sitting position, but as soon as I did, an ache rolled through my shoulder, down my arm to the tips of my fingers. I let out a small whimper as my elbows gave out, a burst of air flowing through my nose.
Bowen’s eyes snapped open, immediately landing on me. “Auria.” Relief was evident in the way he said my name. He shoved out of the chair and instantly moved to stand by my side, setting a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to ache for a few days.”
“What happened?” My voice almost didn’t sound like my own. My memory was foggy after the bite, but I remembered the wolves vividly. Their snarls still echoed through my mind.
“Your arm was dislocated, but we set it back in place. And we were able to extract the venom from the wolf bite?—”
My eyes darted to his, causing my head to spin. “Venom?”
His brows pulled together, and he lowered himself so we were eye level, setting his knees on the rug. “Wolves have a substance in their saliva that can kill someone in minutes, but thankfully, Quinn was able to get it out just in time.”
The realization that I truly could have died hit me. In moments, my life could have ended. Would anyone have mourned me? Or would my father have simply heard the news and been irate that his daughter was no longer there to provide for him?
“Hey,” Bowen said, interrupting my spiral. His hand found mine, his thumb stroking over the back of it. I watched the movement. “You’re okay.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
“Two days.”
