Page 23 of Demonic Prince

“Great. I’m a shit healer, just so you know.”

“Thanks.”

Bolt leans over Rook and snorts in his face. Weakly, he nudges the mare aside.

“Saddlebags,” he mutters. “Potions.”

Right, he glared at me when I was rummaging before. “Hold the moss.”

He does what I say. I unbuckle the saddlebag and discover a leather case with glass bottles fastened inside. I take the first potion. Sapphire liquid oozes inside, the consistency of honey.

“This?” I ask.

“No. The red one.”

I bring him a ruby-colored potion. He bites the cork, spits it out, and knocks back the potion. It has a bittersweet scent like sugar in coffee.

His face twists into a grimace. “Fuck.”

“What do you mean, fuck?”

“Forgot how much it hurts.”

He shivers on the ground, sweat glistening on his face. I lift his hand to check his wound. The moss has been soaked through with blood.

“More moss,” he says. “Pack the wound.”

I tear two fistfuls from a tree. “I warned you I was a shit healer.”

He just grunts.

I stuff the moss into the wound. My teeth begin aching. I’m clenching my jaw so hard. “Bandages?” I ask.

“Same bag.”

I find them and lift his leg across my knees. He has enough muscle in his thighs that each loop of the bandage makes me bend low.

“You aren’t a shit healer,” he says.

“Maybe not. You aren’t dead yet.”

He gazes at my face as I work. “Why did you save me?”

My heartbeat stumbles. I hold back my confession. “Why did you protect me?”

“From the knights? They were going to kill you. I need you.”

“Why?”

His eyelids flicker shut and his head slumps.

“Rook! Wake up.”

He’s out cold and deathly pale. Blood has soaked through his bandage. He’s still losing too much blood. I grab his shoulders and struggle to lift him, but he’s far too heavy for me. Damn, he must be made out of solid muscle.

Exhaling, I sit back down and rest his head on my knees.

I take the rope from his belt. The irony isn’t lost on me as I loop the rope around his wrists and knot them together.

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