Page 27

“You’re hurt?” he asked.

His voice washed over me, a soothing honey with the warm, rough edge of a summer bonfire. A shiver traveled down my spine. Even still, I sat up straight, putting as much distrust into my stare as I could, forgetting entirely I was supposed to get picked by someone on this strange island so I could get back to Sloane.

His eyebrows drew together as he frowned. He took another step closer, his eyes catching on my cloak-covered leg. There was blood soaking through it now, slowly spreading from a central point just below my knee. The dress wasn’t much better off, a large portion of the bodice covered in mud and those strange supple red leaves. Both my arms were covered, too, and there was a mixture of both blood and mud on my hands. Crap, that probably meant there was blood on my face now, too. Compared to this man, I was pretty much the poster child for destitution.

Great first impression for the Bachelor, I thought with grim humor. Maybe he’d have a savior’s complex, though, and this whole setup would work out to my advantage.

He dropped smoothly into a crouch, resting his elbows on his knees. He said something, but I didn’t understand the long, flowing syllables that were nothing like everything else I’d heard so far. I started to shake my head but hissed in a wounded breath when a sharp pain zinged across my temples.

“I don’t understand,” I muttered.

His frown deepened. He repeated those syllables, drawing them out like he was intentionally speaking slower to help me understand. When I just stared at him, putting every ounce of fear and pain I felt into the look, he tilted his head.

“I’m Callum Addis, second son of Elias Addis, of the Kingdom of Marish,” he said in that flowing voice. And then, more concerned, “You’re bleeding.”

He reached for my leg, and I flinched away from him, a scream ripping up my throat. It was an idiotic move, but it was instinct. I was solidly a fighter in a fight-or-flight scenario. Corner me, and I was known to bite. Except for all those guards who were well-armed.

If I wasn’t so messed up from the fall, I probably could have held back the reaction now, too, given how strapped this guy was.

“Peace,” he whispered. “I mean you no harm.”

With careful motions, his eyes locked with mine, he pulled the cloak off my leg. He didn’t touch my skin at all. After a few long seconds, he let his focus drop to what he’d uncovered. His face paled, but he didn’t throw up.

Points to the rich dude.

It was a horrific break, the type of thing that makes it onto the news because the x-rays look like an entire hardware store was used to fix the bones. I didn’t really want to see it again, but like a moth drawn to flame, my eyes slowly dropped to where his hands hovered just above my shin. There was a large gash that ran nearly the length of my shin, deep and still oozing blood. My foot sat at an impossible angle, and I could see bone in at least two different places.

My head lightened, and I palmed the ground in the hopes it helped break my collapse if I passed out.

“What happened?” His voice turned angry, low and biting. I couldn’t find the energy to meet his anger with my own.

“I fell,” I said, gesturing to the tree blocking most of the clearing behind me.

A lash of pain whipped through my hip as I pulled my good leg up to my chest, resting my forehead against my knee. It wasn’t particularly warm now that I wasn’t wearing the cloak, and my body kept having racking shakes that were probably equal parts from the cold and shock. A stabbing of homesickness wedged between my ribs. I missed central heat. I missed the dry air of Arizona. I especially missed hoodies.

“How long have you been helpless?” His growing anger had me trying to focus.

Since I was dropped at that fire station because I wouldn’t stop crying, I thought bitterly. But that wasn’t what he was asking, so I kept the words locked behind my teeth. They were too vulnerable, anyway. I glanced toward the sky.

“Not long,” I said.

I wasn’t in complete shock, so it hadn’t been long between when I’d first tried to stand up and when I finally managed to get my cloak around my leg.

Something metallic flashed out of the corner of my eye. When I twisted enough to have him in my vision again, a small coin sat atop the muddy ground by my hip. The air hummed around me, and the sound of the rain hitting leaves fell away. Even the rain itself no longer touched my skin.

He grabbed the hem of my dress, and I flinched away from him. Another sob ripped up my throat, not just from the physical pain but from the visceral reaction built into my body’s memory, and his jaw clenched.

“I won’t harm you,” he said, his voice more gentle than before. “Your dress is easier to rip a strip from than my own thick tunic. I need to get the bleeding under control so you’re stable enough to handle the transportation magic. Once we’re with my people, my healer can work to correct the break.”

I swallowed back another nasty comment even as my body tried to remember a different horrific trauma from when I was a teen.

“Your name is C-Callum?” I asked, trying to keep from panicking any worse than I already was. I needed to keep from dropping into shock, and that meant holding back the welling anxiety.

He nodded, his hands tightening on my skirt as he asked, “Why were you trying to climb over a tree when the rain is freezing?”

The ripping of the fabric made me flinch, and I whined. Callum murmured a low apology. Then, with a gentle but steady touch, he wrapped the bit of fabric around my thigh just above my knee and tightened it until I whimpered with a newfound anguish. After a few moments, my leg went from burning with pain to uncomfortably numb. The sudden loss of it dulled my senses, weakening my desire to fight. I tried to find a way to explain without painting me as any more vulnerable than I already was.

“I got restless after my sister was selected by someone in green.”