The muscles in his arms shifted as he stretched, and she bit her lip. The sun highlighted the defined ridges and mounds of his preposterously perfect abdomen. A swoop of heat sank through her stomach and continued past her navel as her eyes traveled along his well-defined chest and up the column of his throat. Every beautiful muscle in his arms and back flexed as he bent, but he winced and muttered a soft curse.
Klyde turned, and Lucenna let out a horrified screech.
“Is that a stick in your thigh?” She rolled onto her knees and jerked his waist around to fully face her.
Yes, he did indeed have a stick pierced through his right leg. Dried, crusted blood had formed around it, leaving the skin there inflamed. The stick was at least half an inch in diameter and no telling how long.
She peeked around his back and found it hadn’t gone clean through him. “Did you have this in you all night?”
Klyde stared at her a moment, and she looked down, realizing she wore nothing more than his white tunic. The hem ended right beneath her bottom, leaving her legs bare. The wide collar fell loosely around her shoulders, exposing a good deal of her cleavage.
She leaped to her feet with a yelp, covering her chest. “Where are my clothes?”
Klyde pointed to where her black dress hung from a tree branch, keeping his gaze pointed up at the sky. “You took it off last night. Apparently, you weren’t keen on sleeping in wet clothes.”
Lucenna’s face flamed.
Her memory of last night was hazy, but she wanted to fade away from existence when she recalled peeling off her soaked dress and letting it drop with a wet splat at his feet, rambling on some nonsense about needing a warm bed.
“Oh, Gods…” She groaned, covering her face.
Klyde held out his mercenary coat. “Best you wear this too, love.” He placed it over her shoulders and muttered under his breath, “For my sake.”
She was smothered by another wave of mortification. Klyde had said something similar last night as he fought to wrestle her into his shirt while also doing his best not to look at her.
Lucenna snatched the coat shut, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. If only the ground would swallow her whole. “If you speak a word of this to anyone…”
“I will meet an untimely demise, I know.”
“You still might,” she said, arching an eyebrow at the stick. “Did that happen during the flood? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well, lass, clearly you weren’t in a sober state of mind.” He shrugged. “I considered taking it out myself, but I might have bled to death in the night.”
Lucenna groaned at the distant ache that throbbed in her head. “I need to sit down. So do you.” She tugged on his wrist, and he took a seat on a large boulder. He already looked flushed with a mild fever, and a sheen of sweat shone on his forehead. Sitting beside him, Lucenna bit her lip as she studied the branch. “I will have you know I never did learn how to cast Essence Healing.”
He grimaced. “Shite, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. Well, there’s no helping it, then. You must cauterize it shut.”
She recoiled. “What?”
“We’re out in the wilderness with no Herb Master, bandages, or the like to stitch me up. I can’t go on with this inside of me, so the best option is to pull it out and cauterize the wound.”
Lucenna’s stomach churned. “MustIdo it?”
“You have threatened to flay me alive and remove my favorite appendage, yet this is out of the question?”
Trying not to gag at the churning in her stomach, she nodded. “All right. Give me a moment.” She hesitantly took hold of the rough shaft of wood, but he winced, and she quickly let go. “No, I can’t do it. I can’t.”
Klyde sighed heavily. “Well, I must admit, I’m rather disappointed. You’re not as plucky as you pretend to be.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”
He stood with a shrug. “I suppose all women do faint at the sight of blood. After all your threats, I wouldn’t have taken you for the squeamish sort. Turns out your poised air of superiority was merely bravado?—”
Lucenna ripped out the stick. Klyde hunched over with a strained grunt, bracing himself on her shoulder.
“See,” he said with a labored wheeze. “I knew you could do it.”
Yes, it only took angering her, oddly enough.
