“Let me see.”
Marcus sat back with a huff and pulled his shirt over his head. For an embarrassing moment, my brain stopped working in the face of his broad, muscular chest and the defined lines of his abdomen. I blinked and shut my mouth and reminded myself that I was an adult and the man was injured. Dried blood caked his chest and ran down his side from a gash on his shoulder, which he’d covered with lamb’s ear leaves. My brain lurched back into action when I saw the bloody tatters of the back of his shirt.
“Turn around,” I croaked.
Mouth tight, Marcus shifted so I could see his back. I sucked in a breath and reached for him, stopping before I touched his flayed back. The abuse of dragging him across the sharp tips of the baetyl floor had been too much for his shirt’s protective magic; the crystals had sliced through the spell and fabric, into his flesh and muscles. Blood oozed from a dozen long cuts, staining the waist of his leather pants black. It reminded me of the injuries he’d sustained during the Focal Park fiasco, only so much worse.
“Good. You got the dirt out before the cuts could become infected,” I said, my voice empty. I pushed aside my horror and guilt, both of which wouldn’t help Marcus. “Got any more greenthread?”
He handed me a half empty glass bottle, then rose to retrieve more lamb’s ear leaves from his pack. I glanced around, taking in the campfire Marcus had built on the landing outside the tunnel opening. A few feet down the hill, the air sled lay on the ground, the dormant gargoyles scattered where they’d tumbled during the magic storms. Celeste crouched among them but she watched me, silently reminding me I hadn’t finished my mission.
When Marcus sat back in front of me, I gently applied the greenthread concoction to his cuts. The compound stung before it numbed the wounds, as I knew from experience, but he never reacted. With each lamb’s ear leaf I laid across the treated cuts, Marcus relaxed a little more, the subtle loosening of his muscles telling me how much the wounds had hurt. The greenthread would take away the pain and hasten the healing, but I was afraid he’d be left with scars.
We secured the lamb’s ear leaves in place by wrapping him in strips cut from the remainder of his shirt rather than using bands of air. Marcus insisted, claiming the shirt was too ruined to be used for anything else.
“But air would be more gentle,” I argued.
“The shirt will soak up blood. Air won’t,” he said, ending the discussion.
When I’d satisfied myself that the wound on the back of his head was superficial and I’d dabbed greenthread compound into his thick hair, Marcus pulled on yesterday’s shirt and tenderly dabbed greenthread onto the cuts on my face.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I couldn’t have gotten him out of the baetyl by any other means than dragging him, but it was my fault he’d been there in the first place. I should have insisted he wait outside. If I’d known what to expect, I would have.
He laid a blunt finger over my lips. “I knew what I was doing.”
He was too close, and I felt vulnerable, covered in wounds and bandages and little else. Ignoring the tingle in my lips, I eased back. I avoided his stunning lapis lazuli eyes and the warmth they held, too discombobulated to distinguish emotion from firelight. Even dirty, bleeding, and frowning, the man was too attractive, and all my emotional barriers had been shredded inside the baetyl.
Marcus shifted back onto his heels, visibly relaxing when the move didn’t hurt. “You didn’t kill me. That means more to me than any apology.”
“You’ve got low standards,” I said, trying to joke.
“I saw what the baetyl did to my sword, and I knew it didn’t like me or want me there.”
I searched his face. “You could feel that?”
“I could feel how powerful it was, and you held it in check.” His voice held a hint of awe. “Even when you looked at me like I was something disgusting caught on the sole of your shoe, you held it back.”
“I didn’t—” I cut myself off. I remembered thinking Marcus was repugnant and wrong. It’d been the baetyl, but it’d been me, too.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Marcus said.
“I should have—”
“Just accept it, Mika.”
I swallowed my protest. “I should be thanking you.” If I had gone in alone . . . I shuddered to think of the consequences.
“You’re welcome.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “See, that’s how you accept gratitude.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Note how I’m not apologizing for blacking out and leaving you to cart my hunk of flesh out of there. In fact, you’re welcome for that, too. I’m sure it made you a better person.”
I threw the remaining bundle of lamb’s ear leaves at him. He caught it easily. His grin tugged at my heart, and I found myself wistfully imagining him looking at me with genuine affection.
Shaking my head, I struggled to my feet. While Marcus kept his back politely turned, I pulled on yesterday’s pants. Fortunately, most of the wounds on my legs were superficial and the greenthread compound had already sealed them, allowing me to remove the bulk of the lamb’s ear leaves from my legs. One puncture on my right thigh and another on my left knee I kept bandaged after peeking at the wounds.
I required Marcus’s help to wiggle into yesterday’s shirt, which I layered on top of my current one without removing any leaf bandages. Marcus wouldn’t let me touch my shoulder blades, afraid I’d open the cuts on my arms, so I made him do it for me. He traced the outline of two hexagons larger than my palm, one on each shoulder blade. I shivered, partially in memory of the pain, partially at the feel of Marcus’s rough fingertip across my sensitive skin. The patches tingled even after he lifted his hand, but I wasn’t sure if it was from Marcus’s touch or the scar tissue.