Page 58 of Skalterra By Nightmare
His hand shot up from his side, and fingers wrapped around my neck. I froze with my hands hovering over the Grimguard’s chest. His grip tightened as I raised my gaze from his collar bones to his face. He looked at me through his dark eyelashes. The whites of his eyes didn’t look as black as I remembered them to be, and his irises were more amber than orange and lacked their usual light.
“Are you going to kill me?” His voice was hoarse and hardly louder than a whisper.
“Not if you don’t kill me,” I choked out against his grip.
His fingers relaxed, and his arm fell back against the moth-eaten sheets of Orla’s mattress.
“You blew me up,” he croaked.
“That was Tiernan. He blew me up too.”
“Good.”
He tried to sit, but I pushed him back against the mattress.
“Oh, no,” I said. “You can’t fight. Not like this. And if you go out into the hall, Tiernan will probably blow you up for good this time. Lucky for you, he doesn’t know you’re in here. So be good, lie back, and let me help you.”
He glared at me but didn’t have the energy to argue. His labored breathing worked its way through his nose, and his eyes darted around the room. He was probably looking for an escape, but he wouldn’t have been able to fight Jonquil, let alone the Riftkeepers.
“Why?” he finally growled.
“Why am I helping you?” I sat back against the bedside table, taking care to avoid the candle. “Because I’m not a murderer.”
“No, you just work for them.”
I gave him a cold smile.
“Daithi was a murderer too.” I reminded him. The Grimguard turned his head to the side so that he didn’t have to look at me. “Do you have a name? And maybe an emergency contact in case you don’t make it?”
The silence that passed between us was so prolonged, that I thought he might have fallen unconscious again, but then he spoke.
“Ciarán Grimguard, Servant of the Frozen God. And you, Blue?”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Wren Warrender, Prospective Von Leer Viking. Nice to meet you, Ciarán.”
Ciarán gave a weak grunt in response and rolled his head back to face me. His black hair hung in his face, clinging to his forehead with sweat, and his black and amber eyes were wide. His chapped lips parted, like he was going to say something, but then the door creaked open, and Orla hurried in.
“I got the things, but—” She paused with her arms full of flasks. “Oh, gross, he woke up.”
I took the bottles from her and gave the first one a tentative sniff. Alcohol burned my nostrils, and I gagged.
“You said to make sure it was strong.” Orla shrugged.
“Please tell me that’s for drinking,” Ciarán rasped.
“I really wish I could say it was.” I braced myself over his chest. “Try not to scream. If Tiernan hears—”
“I get it.”
I handed Orla the Skal bottle to hold aloft for me, and she nodded to signal she was ready.
“Bottoms up,” I mumbled.
The wound was the most shallow near his abdomen, and I gently poured the alcohol over the gashes in the skin there. Ciarán gritted his teeth and arched his back in a futile effort to escape the pain.
“Hold him down,” I commanded. Orla obeyed, pressing against the Grimguard’s shoulders, and I moved to the center of the wound at his chest, figuring it would be doing him a favor to get the most painful part over first.
