“Thank you,” she muttered.
“For what?”
“The gift.” She breathed in deeply before asking. “Will you give me another?”
The centaur smiled slowly and she looked away. “We are bargainers after all. My name is Alepos, what do you seek from me and my men?”
To deliver me to Vedikus and to leave us alone!She licked her lips. Was that what she really wanted? Aldora studied the flames and watched them lick the air. “W-will you unbind my hands?”
The centaur went silent. And the longer it lasted the harder it was for her to remain upright. She began to feel what courage she had left leave her when he finally spoke.
“And what would you offer us in return?”
“Whatever it is that you want from me,” she lied but noticed several of the centaurs pause.It doesn’t matter.Aldora shuffled to her feet and turned, stretching out her arms, waiting for one of them to loosen the binds. She did not look up to see which centaur cut her free, but instead brought her wrists to her chest and rubbed them.
And rubbed them.
And continued to do so as she sank back down to her knees, facing the fire. Alepos brought her food but it went uneaten at her side.
The sun was lost in the smoke when the first swell of her blood appeared beneath her nails. Her skin was raw and red as she dug into it faster, spurred on by the blood. She let her head drop to hide what she was doing with her hair. The centaurs continued to watch her but she faced away from them and toward the fire. Several came by to speak to her, but she didn’t hear any of it as she raced the encroaching darkness.
Her nail snagged where she had broken the skin and, wincing from the pain, she worked it open until her hand came away wet with blood. It flowed red-hot over her skin and pooled into her lap where her pants soaked it up. Aldora gritted her teeth and quickened her speed, scratching even harder now, uncaring of who saw.
A nearby shriek assailed the encampment just as the centaurs yelled her way. It heightened to an ear-piercing level that was soon followed by a dozen other similar shrieks in the distance.
Aldora widened her eyes and looked up disbelieving that her plan had worked.
“What have you done!?” She was wrenched to her feet. Furious eyes bore down on her as her bleeding arm was lifted for all to see. A responding roar went out as spears were lifted off the ground.
Alepos dropped her arm with a hiss, but it was already too late.
Aldora smiled. The smell of her blood was in the evening air.
***
Vedikus lurked withinthe reeds and smelled his way toward the fire. The air was thick with it. Thick with revenge. Thick with his need.
The armor and cloth he’d looted from the corpses chafed his skin where he’d used it to bind his wounds, hoping he’d be alive long enough to stitch them back together. It would take more than a stab in the gut to stop him; his organs were tougher than that.
But none of that would matter if he lost Aldora.She can’t get away.The thought alone made him want to go berserk. His vision blurred as he imagined grabbing the centaurs’ heads and crushing them between his palms. He could almost feel their bones cracking beneath his hands. He grabbed a clump of grass and ripped it from the ground. The centaurs would die. They would die tonight.
The fires rose before him, brilliant against the grey gloom of the bog, and his eyes watered despite being well outside the camp. They smelled bitter, releasing the fragrance of blisterwood with strong undertones of enios sea salt which repelled all but the hungriest of undead and was only found within centaur lands.I am not dead yet.Vedikus pressed a hand to his stomach but it came away wet with blood—a lot of blood.
He had packed the wound with whatever herbs he had left—whatever he hadn't eaten—but it hadn’t been enough to staunch the flow of fully numb his pain. There had been nothing left over for his other wounds.
None of it matters if Aldora is dead.
His gaze landed on her, a small husk bent over by the fire nearest to where he hid.Look at me.Vedikus willed it, uncaring if it gave him away.Look for me.Her head lifted and her hair fell back to reveal an ashen, pained expression flickering between a wince and determination. He squinted his eyes and focused on her, discerning what caused her such discomfort. Her eyes never found him despite his internal plea, and a breath of steam released from his mouth.
He wanted her to see him, hoped that it would bring her some sort of comfort that he was alive and watching, but repressed a laugh at his absurdity.Just because she’s mine doesn’t mean she cares for me.
He frowned as the chief centaur made his way to her side with food. Vedikus tensed to charge forward and ram his horns into the male for daring to offer his female anything without his permission. The meal went ignored at her side and slowly his rage lessened. Alepos left tersely to help his fellow studs cauterize their flesh.
Their groans and hisses pleased him.
Aldora dropped her head and he could no longer see her face. He slunk back and lowered himself into the mud.
There were ten centaurs in the camp that he could count, with the possibility of at least a half-dozen more scouting outside his view.I killed two.And he would have killed more if he hadn’t become so distracted with his need for the female.
