Shrugging out of the strange leather pouch under her arm, she let it fall to the ground atop her tunic.
Another peculiar, smaller tunic covered her torso. All black, it boasted no brooches or clasps. In sooth, he could not see how she had donned it, for it fit her too snugly to have been pulled over her head.
Two ragged holes, he noticed, marred its surface: one in the left shoulder and one in the chest, just beneath the place where her breasts would be if her chest were not as flat as a boy’s.
He motioned briefly to Michael with his hand.
When Michael started to walk around behind her, the woman hastily took a step away, tripping over her discarded tunic and the straps of her leather pouch.
Michael stopped and glanced at Robert.
The woman’s leery gaze darted back and forth between them.
“I wished him to see if there were holes similar to those in the back,” Robert explained, not bothering to hide his concern. Three years ago his brother had almost died from injuries similar to these. He would have died, in fact, had Alyssa not healed him in time.
“There are,” she confirmed. “If he’ll stay back with the others, I’ll show you.”
Robert did not know why he felt so satisfied that—of the four of them—she had chosen to place her trust in him, but he did.
At Robert’s nod, Michael obligingly retreated.
Keeping one eye on the others, the woman turned partially away so Robert could see her back.
Adam, Stephen, and Michael moved to stand behind him at a distance, where they would have a better view.
Mistress Bethany swiveled back to face them.
“Where are the arrows?” Robert asked whilst she perused them anxiously. “Did you remove them yourself?”
“Arrows?” The spark of anger that had illuminated her eyes earlier returned. “You mean bullets? I didn’t have to remove them.” She motioned impatiently to the holes. “I think it’s fairly obvious that they removed themselves.” Fingering the hole beneath her small breasts, she scowled. “They must have used armor-piercing rounds, because they went straight through my vest.”
“What are bullets?” Michael murmured.
Robert shook his head. He had only understood about half of what she had said and could only assume, due to her strange speech, that such was her word for arrows or quarrels. But it would have taken great force for them to pass straight through her body, and the damage they would have wrought whilst doing so would have been immense. How could she possibly have survived it?
“They entered you there?” he questioned, nodding to her front.
“The shoulder one did. The other one hit me in the back.”
His jaw clenched reflexively as outrage flooded him.
His men spat a slew of curses that did not come close to expressing the fury that heated his skin.
“Remove your vest,” he said, using her word for the strange tunic.
Offering no further objections, she tucked her fingers under the edge of a rectangular cloth patch on one side and ripped it away. She did the same with another above it and two more on the opposite side.
The vest was sewn together?
It remained fairly stiff as she peeled it away from her body.
Robert’s breath left him in a rush as she dropped it to the ground.
One of his men gasped. Another swallowed audibly.
Beneath, a white tunic was molded to her flesh by the blood she had lost. Instead of sleeves, it boasted only two narrow bands of material that disappeared over her shoulders. The neckline dipped enticingly low and clung to full breasts like a second skin. Breasts that had previously been undetectable beneath the tight vest and now drew his fascinated gaze.
The tunic then shaped itself to a small ribcage and narrow waist before disappearing into her breeches.
Her form was too tempting by far. The only thing that kept him from losing his train of thought entirely was the hole that had been shredded into the material just beneath those distracting breasts.
His gaze went to her shoulder, where a smaller hole appeared in the garment.
“It’s gone,” she spoke into the silence.
His eyes met hers. “Gone?”
“The wound,” she clarified. “It’s gone.”
What did she mean it was gone? “And the other one?”
Without further ado, she peeled her bloodstained white tunic away from her skin and dragged it up to just beneath her breasts.
More crimson coated the skin on her flat stomach, but no wound marred it. She slid her hand across the place he had expected to find one, as though she could not quite believe it herself. “It’s gone, too.”
Robert stared. She seemed even more confused than they were.