“At least I’m not your murderer.” She laid her hands on his bare shoulders, her skin hot against his. His head swam. Hmm. He might have lost more blood than he’d realized. That fucking moon-magic arrowhead might’ve torn a chunk out of his back on the way out. Charming. “Ready?”
“I was ready half an hour ago.”
“Tsk,” she chided. “So grumpy.”
“You tried to kill me,” he snarled. “What do you exp—Argh!” He broke off on a guttural scream as she suddenly yanked him forward. The tissues tenaciously holding onto the arrow shaft tore. Fresh, hot blood ran down his back. Shooting sparkles obscured his vision and he found himself clinging to Seliah, forehead pressed to her shoulder and hands gripping her slim waist, battling nausea and old memories. “Fuck me,” he gasped.
“Are you going to puke?” she asked. “You’re awfully clammy.”
“Probably,” he admitted.
She reached for a decorative bowl and thrust it into his lap. “Another reason you should’ve gone lightly on the brandy.”
“I didn’t know you planned to shoot me.”
“After I shot you!”
“Ah well,” he muttered. “Tastes better than most stuff coming back up anyway.”
“Trust you to know that.” She crawled over him and onto the bed, bracing her hand against where the arrow entered his shoulder, and looking behind him, blade in hand. “Oh, Jadren…” she gasped. “There is so much blood. I don’t—”
“Replaceable,” he gritted out. “Quit dithering and do it.”
“Don’t scold me when I have a knife in my hand and you at my mercy.”
“Going to plant it in my back? Oh, wait, you already did, metaphorically.”
“We can argue about who betrayed who later.”
“Can’t tell you how much I look forward to that.” Though he’d loaded his reply with sarcasm, he discovered a glimmer of real anticipation. Arguing with Seliah was always stimulating—if aggravating—and setting that as an aspiration made perverse sense. It would mean they’d survived to see daylight.
“I’m sawing now.”
“Goodie.”
“Lean on me if you need to.”
“That bony shoulder? I—” Bloodred-black agony crashed over him as she increased pressure on the wound, the pain coming in waves as she sawed. He groaned, clenching his teeth, pressing his face into the sweet nook between her throat and shoulder, willing himself not to puke. Why couldn’t his weird magical gift have given him imperviousness to pain? Dark arts, he hated pain. He’d had enough to last several lifetimes.
“Almost there,” she breathed, sounding as ill as he felt. “Good thing the shaft is only wood and not silver. There!”
The pressure released and she yanked hard on the shaft, pulling it out the front—along with more gobbets of flesh and a bright spray of blood. And a thin, shrill gurgle from himself.
“It’s all right,” Seliah told him soothingly. “It’s done now. Just lie down. Lie still. Look—you didn’t even puke!”
“Hooray for me.” He wasn’t sure if he said that aloud, feeling like putty in her hands as she coaxed him to lie on his good side, hissing in bruised pain as she wadded up the bed coverings to press them against the bleeding wounds front and back.
“I should’ve had towels ready,” she said under her breath. “No way this will look like kinky anything.”
“I don’t know,” he said, bemused by the enticing stretch of her bare inner thigh in close proximity to his face. She was kneeling up to reach both sides of him at once, giving an excellent view of the hollow between her thigh and pelvis, the lacy lingerie showing glimpses of her mound covered in hair as black and shiny as on her head. Because his good hand was right there, he stroked it down the outside of her thigh, then pressed a kiss to the satiny skin on the inside.
She yelped in surprise. She also shivered under his hand in tantalizing responsiveness. “Jadren!”
“Yes, dear?” He asked innocently, inhaling the scent of warm woman and moonlight. Would her sex taste like moonlight? Whatever moonlight might taste like. He nuzzled higher up her thigh, using his leverage on her leg to bring her closer.
“How can you be rutting at me when you’re nearly dead from blood loss?” she demanded.
Still too far for him to taste, so he licked her thigh instead. Oh, yes, she liked that, heating to a keen vibration. “Nearly dead being the key phrase,” he purred. She was so succulent he just had to nibble, a teensy bite.
