His lower legs didn’t seem connected to his body any longer. When he tried to move them, he couldn’t tell if anything shifted.
Someone else was hovering over him, rubbing his arms enough to make them burn. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but surely the hands scrubbing his arms were trying to help. He didn’t have the energy to make them stop anyway.
He told his eyes to open, but they only obeyed in small slits. Even then, the world looked mostly dark. Shadowy forms moved around him, and he worked to decipher the outlines. The one nearest, the one scrubbing his arms, seemed familiar. He forced his eyes open farther, letting in more light.
Charlotte.
Her outline was unmistakable, but he couldn’t make out the features of her face. Still, her presence eased through him like warm coffee on a cold morning. Comforting. Invigorating. Returning strength to his limbs.
He tried to raise a hand, but something held him down.
“Damien?” She must’ve seen his movement. “Thanks be to God.” Her hands shifted to his face, one palm cradling his cheek and the other stroking his brow.
He leaned in to the touch, even as his mind struggled to place where he was and why he felt so weak. He’d been crawling ... or swimming. Either way, he’d been clawing through the thickness that restrained him.
“What happened, Damien?” Charlotte spoke again.
As he opened his mouth to respond, a flash of memory lit his mind. “I fell, and the ice broke through.” His voice rasped like he’d lived a hundred years, and a shiver slipped through him.
“Here’s warm water to drink. It will help.” A male voice spoke the words, and he struggled to determine if he knew the tone. The man was older, but with the firelight behind him, Damien could only make out a profile.
Charlotte took the cup and slipped a hand behind Damien’s head. As she touched the metal to his mouth, she spoke. “This is my father, Henri Durand.”
Damien’s gaze shot to the man again, though he couldn’t stop sipping lest he choke as Charlotte steadily poured the liquid in his mouth. He still couldn’t see the fellow well, but his eyes were adjusting to the shadows shrouding his face. This was not the way he’d planned to make a good impression.
When Charlotte finally pulled the cup away, Damien cleared his throat and worked for a clearer voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
The man’s head dipped in a nod. “Glad you’re warming up. See if you can drink the rest of that. I have more heating.”
Damien obeyed as Charlotte raised the cup to his mouth again. What he wanted more than this hot water was to situp. If they’d unwrap these furs binding him, he should be able to handle the cup himself.
At last, she pulled the drink away and helped him free his hands. “You should keep these furs over you, though.”
“I will. Just let me sit up.” Though the night air was warm, when its fingers slipped through his protective coverings, his skin prickled.
After struggling through the effort to sit up, he could finally make his hands and fingers work the way he told them to. His feet still wouldn’t comply, and he reached down to massage the muscles below his knees, beginning with his left leg.
Monsieur Durand shifted to Damien’s feet and began rubbing the right. The last thing Damien wanted was this man thinking him weak and in need of ... well, coddling. But he might consider it rude if Damien told him to stop such an act of kindness. So he took the opportunity with the firelight brushing Durand’s side to sneak a glance at him.
The fellow wore the lines of age, maybe thirty years or more older than Charlotte, though that might be a trick of the firelight. How had he come to be in this place with her?
“I found my father and others from our village earlier today.” Charlotte’s voice slipped in to answer the question he hadn’t yet put words to. “A few went back, but my father, sister, and her husband came with me to find you.”
Once more, his gaze jerked to her face. “Your sister is here?”
Charlotte’s focus lifted into the darkness on the other side of the fire, and he turned that way, too. “She and Evan are with Gulliver.”
Something in her tone clenched a knot in his chest. He studied her face, the way lines had tightened under her eyes. “Where is he? What’s wrong?”
Her lips pressed together as she stared a moment longer into the darkness. Then she dropped her gaze to him. “Wolves. We heard them attack just as we found you. Brielle and Evan fought them off and have been tending Gulliver while Papa and I focused on you.”
He pulled his legs beneath him and prepared to rise. He had to get to his old friend, see if anything could be done to help him. But his legs refused to obey. His knees bent on command, but the feet wouldn’t straighten beneath him.
“Hold on there, lad. You’re not ready to sprint off yet.” Monsieur Durand laid a staying hand across Damien’s calves, then pulled the legs straight again.
“Brielle is tending him, Damien. She had almost all the bleeding stopped when I checked on them. She thinks Gulliver should be fine.” Charlotte’s voice didn’t soothe as much as it had before. Though she probably meant her words to lessen his worry, they painted a picture that accelerated his pulse.
Almostall the bleeding stopped.Shouldbe fine. That meant there was still a question. Still a chance he could lose the animal who’d stayed by Damien’s side despite his worst moods. Had carried him over terrain he never should have been asked to maneuver.
