I wiped my stinging thumb on my cloak. Warm, sticky droplets trickled down my hand, but I’d earned cuts this painful from a tangle of briars plenty of times before. Picking up my driftwood, I scaled a hill of sand that didn’t quite pass for a dune and stopped cold.
At the waterline lay a dark-haired young man, naked and horribly still. Despite the distance, there was no mistaking the crimson gashes on his stomach. Waves lapped at his feet as the tide moved in, and I pictured the dribble of water from the dead girl’s mouth when the fishermen had turned her over.
This boy could be another victim. Of who or what, I wasn’t yet certain.
Heart thumping wildly, I abandoned my pail and driftwood to dash across the sand.
“Please don’t be dead,” I choked out, sinking to my knees beside him. His fingernails were bloody and ragged, as though he’d fought hard against something. “Please, please, please don’t be dead.”
The wounds in his stomach weren’t bleeding as I’d expected. I ran my thumb between the long gashes. His injuries had been made by something with massive claws or teeth. No Manx cat could make scratches that wide.
One of the boy’s arms was draped across his middle, preventing me from fully seeing the worst of his injuries. I cupped his wrist and carefully lifted his arm with an unsteady hand. As I touched the deepest wound, my fingers tingled like someone had pricked them with a sewing needle. I jerked my hand back and swallowed hard to avoid being sick all over him, then flexed my fingers as the tingling subsided, taking deep breaths.
His skin was warm to the touch, perhaps feverish, but his chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm.
Suddenly, he gave a low groan and shifted on the sand.
My frantic heartbeat bolted along at an even faster pace. I imagined him hovering between the blissful ignorance of sleep and the fresh pain waking would bring. Mr. Gill would have to send for a doctor from Peel.
But who was this boy? I studied his angular face, yet nothing about his straight nose or strong jaw reminded me of anyone in town. His curly, dark hair—long enough for small whorls to graze his sharp jaw—could’ve marked him as the son of any number of Port Coire families. But I was certain he wasn’t from these parts. I knew everyone my age in our town and the neighboring villages, and I’d never seen anyone so striking before. I would have remembered.
I glanced at his chest again, eager to reassure myself I hadn’t just studied the face of a handsome corpse. After noting the continued cadence of his breath, I stared at his tanned skin and the muscles carved into his arms and chest.
It occurred to me that I should be running back to town for help, but I lingered at his side. Not wanting to see the mess of oozing claw marks again, I skimmed over them and followed the thin line of dark hair trailing down his lower stomach.
Growing up without any brothers, nothing I’d seen or heard before could have prepared me for that moment. I froze, my face blazing like I had a terrible sunburn, startled by the unexpected sight but unable to rip my gaze away.
“Where—where am I?” a rough voice asked in careful English.
I shrieked, scuttling backward across the sand like a nervous crab.
The naked lad looked around the beach, then at me. He tried to rise to sitting, but from the strain on his face, it didn’t appear he could manage. He rolled onto his side, pushed up, and collapsed on the sand with a groan.
His dark blue eyes unsettled me. So did the rest of him. Heat crept up my neck, stinging my already hot face. With fumbling fingers, I unhooked the clasp of my cloak and threw it. The cloak landed on his legs, but not high enough to make him decent.
“What is it? Did—are you hurt, too?” He finally sat up, and pulled the cloak to his chest so the cloth covered his wounds … and other things. If he’d understood my gesture, maybe the gashes looked worse than they felt.
“Moghrey m-mie.” Why had I wished him a good morning when there was clearly nothing good about it?
He regarded me with a mixture of pain and confusion.
“Shooill marym rish tammylt beg?” I wished he wouldn’t look at me. My face continued to radiate heat.
He kept staring. Either he didn’t know Manx, or he didn’t speak to half-wild girls.
“Sorry. Can you walk?” I reverted to English with great difficulty. “We should get off the beach. I’ll find you a place to rest while someone brings a doctor. You might have a fever. Those cuts look infected.”
“I think I’m able.” He attempted a smile, but it twisted into a grimace. He glanced between me and the tide as it continued to creep in, then attempted to claw his way up the sand.
My stomach ached in sympathy at the thought of his gashes bleeding again, and I rushed to his side. “Let me help you.”
His large, warm hands covered mine. I sank a few inches in the wet sand, knees buckling as he hauled himself off the ground. Somehow, I remained on my feet and he kept the cloak pinned to his body. He draped an arm around my shoulders and swayed.