“Well, yeah. It’s the same one from the guild.”
“I will do anything to get to you, including harm myself.” Emerie paled, hoping he didn’t mean that he would break or rip off his own arm or something. He turned his skull forward, before pointing it downward towards the dirt. “Tie it around my neck.”
She hesitated as her heart clenched. “What if you choke yourself?”
“I cannot die this way. If I remove my own head, you will be safe from me, and I will come back tomorrow. I will heal.”
Gripping the rope tightly, she bit her lip. She didn’t want to do that. It sounded painful and unpleasant.
“Hurry, Emerie. My chest is beginning to hurt.”
With tears dotting her lashes, she coiled the rope around his neck as he lifted his head to expose it for her. When he told her to tighten it until it was digging into his flesh, she did.
She led him to the thickest tree in their vicinity and secured him to it, then he knelt while she dug through her bag again. Although the herbs were dried and probably useless now, she tied the same scent-barrier satchel across his nose holes that she’d put on him a week ago.
Then she backed up, putting space between them while facing him.
His orbs weren’t white in fear or apprehension like she thought they’d be; instead, they were still bright orange.
“Aren’t you scared?” she asked. If their roles were reversed, she probably would have been terrified.
“Scared? No, but I am worried for you.”
Just that simple statement made her stomach clench in a painfully tender ache. “I’ll be fine. I brought some medicine and bandages.”
Hopefully everything’s okay and he settles down quickly. Hell, surely the barrier cloth over his face would be enough to prevent him from going too crazy.
“Emerie...” he whined in a near whisper. “I am sorry.”
The big Duskwalker sulked as Emerie bounced in his arms every time he took a step. With his pace, he walked swiftly through the brightly lit forest, yet the warmth of his chest against her side kept out any chill.
After he realised he could switch between forms, he’d offered to carry her on his back in his more monstrous one. The sweet side of Ingram had regained full control of his mind while in that form, just after the sky was starting to splash its light across the world.
Emerie had denied his offer, explaining that she’d be in too much pain to kneel on his back with the current state of her leg. She also couldn’t walk beside him without slowing them down.
Instead, she was safely within the cradle of his strong arms.
She didn’t mind this. It was comforting, and she kind of liked being walked around like a princess. A badass princess who had a dagger and sword strapped to her waist and wasn’t afraid to use them.
Did her leg hurt? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But it would be okay. His claws hadn’t hit any major arteries or veins, just muscle. They were semi-moon-shaped puncture wounds, so they should heal up relatively quickly – as long as she didn’t get an infection.
Hopefully the healing salve she’d taken from her personal belongings at Zagros Fortress would aid the process. Since there had been no point in stitching herself, she’d just bandaged her leg to stem the bleeding.
Honestly, the worst part about this morning was watching him lose his fucking shit.
Right after he’d apologised to her, he’d finally taken a breath. About three seconds passed before his orbs flared crimson and he leapt for her like a frenzied animal – only to be yanked back by the rope with a choke.
For hours, this Duskwalker had tried with all his might to get to her.
He’d lunged to the end of the rope repeatedly, clawing at the dirt and grass, then turned so he could back up from the rope to break free while wildly shaking his head around. He’d even started scratching at his own neck.
The entire time, he snarled and snapped at her, his skull rarely facing away from where she sat.
If this had been a week ago, she may have just rolled her eyes as she waited him out. But after what had transpired between them last night, and all the little adorable sides of him he’d revealed on their travels, it had made it hard to bear.
Watching someone who was usually so protective, sweet, and tender turn into a horrible monster that wanted nothing more than to maul her to pieces and eat those pieces whole... had been unnerving. It didn’t help she still had semen coating her chest and his lubricant drying on her hands.
Once her blood dried and she washed the worst of it away with her drinking water, he’d eventually come to.
With gouge marks and churned earth all around him, his orbs had finally flickered to yellow, and he’d sighed her name out in relief. Which, of course, only lasted until the heaviness of guilt overtook him, bowing his shoulders.
She looked up at him now to find his orbs were still orange with it.
“You don’t have to feel bad anymore, Ingram,” Emerie said with a sigh, wishing the colour would change. “Why can’t you just let it go?”
His hands clasped her tighter. “There is a burning sensation in my chest, and I don’t know how to make it go away,” he admitted.
Aww. His chest hurts? She rubbed at his sternum to ease it. There was little else she could do to help. He said he didn’t know healing magic like the Witch Owl, or much magic at all.
“You didn’t eat me, so I’d say that’s a giant win,” she tried to joke, adding a thumbs up, only to gain a whimper in response. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ingram! I’m covered in scars, so what’s a few more? I’m alive – that’s all that matters to me.”
She was also clean, since she’d demanded he take her to the river so she could wash her clothes of both blood and seed. She’d eaten, slept. Other than her wounds, she was peachy.
“Here, I’ll show you a few.” She pointed to the slice scar on the right side of her bottom lip. “I got this one during sword training one day.” Then she dipped her head forward and showed him the back of her head, where she knew there to be a large scar. “This one happened when I was playing with Gideon, and I fell off a veranda and hit my head on the back of a garden rock.” She cupped her right knee. “You should see this one. It kind of looks like a dagger from far away, which I think is super badass.”
She paused when his orbs shifted to bright yellow. Her brows twitched, not expecting such a positive emotional change. Most people tended to be weirded out when she spoke about them so much.
He took her silence as an opportunity to gently nudge the cheek closest to him – the left side. “How did you get this one?”
Anxiety forked through her gut like lightning striking across dreary clouds.
Emerie averted her gaze in the direction they were travelling. “That one... It’s a long story.”
“Will it take you our entire journey?” She knew he meant literally and wasn’t being sarcastic.