The thought brings the sensation of nails digging into my chest. It matters. It fucking matters, though I don’t know why.
I shake my head at Notto’s question. I don’t have an answer. “For fun,” I say. “What else was I going to do today?”
Neither responds.
The dark corridor extends for ages, branching off in various directions and getting deeper underground. I’m looking for one particular door though. Ah, there it is. This facility has a good first-aid kit, the kind that should have anti-venom.
Hopefully, it works on the poison, though its effectiveness will be hit or miss. This isn’t venom coursing through his body.
Drystan apparently knows where I’m going. He opens the door and flicks the lights on as the quiet hum of the generator begins. I should probably bring him right to one of the rooms, but I opt for the couch instead.
Though now that I’m standing over the couch with this human on my back, I’m not sure how to get him off my back without waking him.
I tap his hand. “Human man, wake up,” I say. He doesn’t flinch. I try a little more insistently, adding a tug on his hair. “Wake up.”
I’m relieved when he does. It’s a little awkward when I slide him off my back. His feet touch the floor, but they don’t hold him upright. I spin around to grab him as he sways. Hmm. Was he always this gray?
I reach for his pants and flick open the first button. His hand comes over my wrist, and I’m surprised by the strength in it. “You can wait until I’m dead,” he growls.
Amused, I tilt my head to look at him. “You think I want to fuck a corpse?”
Notto snorts.
The human narrows his eyes, and his fingernails dig into my wrist. Hm. I like his fight.
“I’m not trying to fuck you, although I think you have relatively little strength to fend me off should I decide to. I’m going to get the poison out of you, and unless you want me to cut these pants off, I thought it would be easier to just take them off.”
We’re in a rather intimate hold. My arm is low around his back, his body pressed to mine. He can’t even stand up, though given what I saw in the cemetery, he sure as shit would fight until his death.
I like that. It’s hot.
He hesitates. Notto sets the first-aid kit on the end of the couch, right in the human’s view. He doesn’t trust us. That’s for sure. Whatever is raging in his head, he decides to extend his trust a little. His hand falls from my wrist.
There’s no use hiding my smug smile at succeeding in this, which only makes him narrow his eyes. His entire body is stiff as I take his pants off then guide him to the couch.
Now that he’s laid out before me, I take a good look at him. His arms and his legs have a fair number of scars on them. Unsurprising. You don’t meet humans without scars anymore. That’s not the world we live in.
His hair is ashy blond. There are glimpses of it being really light, but he’s been running around in the dirt for a while, so it’s made darker with the same mud that’s dried all over his face, neck, and arms.
He’s big, just like I thought he was when I was carrying him. Thick thighs. Big arms. He’s been moving around the world for a long time.
I realize I’m staring when he narrows his eyes at me and starts to sit up. I kneel beside him and examine the wound. It’s deep and covered with dried blood and dirt. The wound itself isn’t much to be concerned about though. It’s the way his skin swells, bright red, with an unsettling number of black streaks moving away from the puncture wound.
“The best part was when you shot his own quill back at him,” I comment, trailing the path of black up the inside of his thigh. It’s nearly reached his groin, making quick work of taking over his body. There’s a line of it on the outside of his leg too. The thin line stretches up past his hip, nearing his ribs.
“Thanks?” he answers.
I grin.
“You think you can stop it?” he asks.
My eyes meet his, and something fucking ridiculous happens. My breath actually hitches. His eyes are stunning. Such a light blue. There’s something almost familiar about them, a memory tugging at my conscience.
Which is impossible. I’ve never met this man before.
Notto hands me the serum in a thin syringe. Love that he already knew what I was going for. I take it from him and look away. It’s a good enough reason to break eye contact.
“We’ll see,” I say, making my voice as cheery as it can be. “This isn’t exactly an antidote for your particular ailment, but it might have similar enough properties to work.”
