“You don’t sound fine.” A hand went to my shoulder but I jerked and flinched. The hand left me just as fast.
I didn’t want him touching me. His kindness was confusing me. My body screamed I was his and he was mine, my instincts roaring with it, but he didn’t see… The need to flee clawed at me. Clearing my throat roughly, my voice was tremulous as I blurted, “I believe you offered me ice?”
“Oh. No. I mean, yes. Yes.” It took him a moment, as if he was too panicked to think clearly, before he ran past me and towards the front of the house, then moments later ran right past and towards the back.
Another piteous moan left the creature in my chest. He was so cute when he was all befuddled. Glasses askew, dark hair, so dark green it was probably confused for black, sticking straight up from where he must have been shoving his fingers through it, exposing the bits of grey streaking through the coarse looking locks, I wanted to kiss him just watching him. The urge to go to him and hug him until the frantic beat of his heart eased tore at me.
But he doesn’t want me.
The second I heard him enter his home, I was up, on my feet, and trying to stumble my way towards my car. I made it as far as the front lawn before the swimming in my head and my lame foot had me faceplanting into the beautiful Kobold blue-green Tem Tall grass of his front yard. A light lady, I was not. I more or less thunked quite loudly as the mighty oak that Dad teased I was crashed. The world spun once more, my ears ringing.
Taken out by a paver. Of all the disgusting luck…
With that detached feeling growing, I felt out of my own body as the bump on my noggin called, “Lights out!”
“Aster? Aster?!”
I could have sworn I saw bright lights in my vision, calling to me. My hand lifted and I mumbled, but then everything went dark.
Chapter 7
Greniv
“Aster? Aster?!” Oh god, she’d collapsed.
Her hand lifted, smoothing across my cheek in a tender gesture, and she mumbled something about taking her with me? Was she hallucinating? Did she think me an alien, and then she went limp. Just… completely limp. A pained noise left me as I gently settled her arm over her chest. She was a large woman, tall, muscled. I wasn’t intimidated by her, I told myself. I was a strong, tall male myself. Though that was the first thing I’d taken note of, after her purple hair, of which was not quite purple anymore but slowly fading to an odd, pale blond.
“Oh god,” I burst out, “she’s dying!” I was ashamed to admit, and I never would to another living soul, panicked shrieks began to erupt from me. Half gone green, it was more like half gone mad. My hands shook as I fumbled for my phone. She couldn’t die! I needed to get her help. Now. But who did I call? Mordenne wasn’t like the Human world. We had hospitals but they were more like large clinics, and they weren’t always useful. No two Paras healed or were helped alike.
Segrid. He knew things. He was of the earth. Anyone else that might be of help were too far off to offer assistance and it wasn’t like I had a plant lamp to shove her under. I broke the last one just last week!
Long fingers jabbing at buttons, I hit talk. Cradling my cell to my ear as it began to ring, I dumped the ice in the towel I’d dropped, shook it out, folded it, and pressed it to the nasty gash on her head. Surely this was a healing sleep? Marsh were tougher stuff than this, even unshifted as she’d been.
She looked so fragile now, her open features slack. I couldn’t get the look of utter betrayal off her face out of my head. It was discomfiting, how caught with my hand in the cookie jar I’d felt. And I’d reacted, badly. But I hadn’t been doing anything wrong! We weren’t even together. I-
“Plant man,” Segrid answered gruffly. He was still getting used to phones. Vivienne had finally talked him into not only upgrading his ancient piece of crap but learning to use it all on his own. It was a big step for the Troll King. The rest of the guys and I all quietly tolerated his love for emojis.
“I need your help. Aster, she fell and hit her head on the pavers. I think she- I don’t know what to think!” Shrieking, screeching, voice high and tight like my balls were being pinched. Yes, that was me.
“We will be coming,” he boomed out, then hung up.
My hands hovered over her. Her skin was slowly paling. Was she breathing? Leaning in, I watched her chest rise and fall. This close, I noted the teeny tiniest little light green freckles, so tiny they were easy to miss unless you were this close, dotting her nose and cheeks.
My breath coasted over hers and she sucked in a sharp breath. Thank the vines, she was waking! A full body shudder took over her and she let out a breath that smelled sweet, like she’d been drinking banana pineapple juice, a hint of citrus, maybe oranges? Why was I sitting here trying to smell her breath?
Peeling the towel I held pressed over her head back to have a peek, I blinked. Reeling, jerking back, my head cocked as I watched her. Leaning in once more, removing the towel completely, ignoring how odd this may seem, I blew another breath over her face.
She needed to shift, I knew instinctively. It would speed up the healing process. But I’d never forced a shift on another Marsh before. I had no idea how to even begin to. Another soft gasp from her, followed by a shudder. Her hair was slowly turning a luminous green, with threads of vines beginning to writhe about it.
My hands went to her sweater, about to help her out of it, but then, realizing what I was doing and how that might look, I slapped my hands to my person. Undress her to help her shift? Propriety reared its ugly head, killing that idea dead on the water.
Her shoes. I could remove those, couldn’t I?
Her feet were nearly the same size as mine—I felt a fleeting, momentary sense of shame for whatever reason over this but dismissed it. What did I care if she had bigger feet than me? It wasn’t emasculating that she was taller, stronger looking…
But that was how I’d been judging her. The realization I was being a shallow cad hit me as I slid her shoe off.
Her feet, already vining and twining with her Marshness, were halfway greened out. It wasn’t her toes, but one in particular, or lack thereof, that put me off and had me stumbling to my feet to shuffle back, blinking down at her. It was that telltale, missing toe.
