Better late than never, I think.

  So I force back the bile with a hard swallow, and I pay close attention.

  From the satchel, he holds a tiny phial of glittering black powder in his bloody hand. He fights off a grimace as he twists to better bare his wound.

  Whatever that black powder is, it’s valuable to him—I see that in the way he’s careful to tip just the right amount onto his fingertips before he gingerly dabs it around the torn flesh. When he’s done, he uses the leftover stains of black on his fingers to—I retch—stick his fingers into the wound and swirl them around.

  The retch is so violent that I’m thrown forward and it comes out in a gurgling, burping sound. The fae throws me a withering look, ember eyes burning with anger—he blames me for this wound. Maybe he should. I was as much a part of it as anyone in my group.

  Looking away, he pops the cork-lid back onto the phial. But he doesn't put it away in the satchel. For a beat, he considers it flat on his palm. His gaze cuts to the side, where his bullet-ridden shoulder is. Two thin streams of tarry blood run down his olive-skinned chest, passing over his weapons belt.

  My mouth flattens into a thin line.

  This black powder is magical.

  Already, the massive gaping hole on his side is starting to ... knit together. As though invisible threads are stitching it closed. I mean, it’s slow work, but it sure as shit doesn't escape my notice. How could it?

  He decides against using the black powder on his bullet wounds, for some unknown reason. I can’t decide, because I can never pretend to understand the mind of a dark fae.

  I watch as he pockets the pinkie-sized phial—then he looks at me, and my blood runs cold. Ice spears through my veins at the sheer burn of his amber eyes, firelight dancing off the shadows of his strong jawline.

  I stiffen against the post, urges nipping at me to fight against my restraints. There’s something dangerous—furious—about the way he’s considering me.

  My heart leaps up into my throat, thickening and choking me.

  The dark fae pushes up from the bench, his gaze never leaving mine, and strides towards me. Already, his limp is gone. His advancement is confident and predatory once more.

  I choke on the lump in my throat as he reaches me. Neck arched, aches sprout all over my body as I sink back against the post, wishing it would swallow me whole.

  He swipes at me—

  I flinch and...

  The tear of rope rips through the air.

  Peering through one eye, I glance up at him, at his hand. The end of my rope is loose in his grip. He watches me, his brows lowered, and commands one word with renewed strength, “Up.”

  I don’t hesitate, though it fucking hurts, I tell you. Every muscle and bone in my body shivers with cries as I force myself onto all fours, then push up to stagger in front of him.

  “Wrists.” He makes a gesture, then flattens his palm.

  I try not to think about why. I try to shut my mind off and go numb. But the fear pumping through me is keeping me too alive.

  Breaths shudder in my throat.

  Gingerly, I place my bound hands in his waiting one. He tugs once, twice—then the rope comes spiralling off my wrists as delicately as a ribbon drifting to the floor.

  Buds of fresh pain burn my skin. I draw my wrists in closer and rub them. With a curt glance down at them, I see the bruising in the torchlight; like blackened purple and yellow kisses all over my flesh.

  I’m given a sparse second to nurse my wounds before he snatches my arm, then drags me over to the bench. He shoves me down onto it. A cry catches in my throat, eyelashes fluttering, as pain explodes throughout my entire body, from ankles to my pulsating head.

  A dizzying moment wafts over me. I try to steady myself, force myself upright on the bench.

  What does he want with me?

  My heart is pounding in my chest, dizzying me more, and my breaths turn short and choppy.

  As I blink my blurry eyes open, I see that the warrior has sat himself opposite me, straddling the bench, and leans over to dig through the satchel. He pulls out a loot of bandages and mason jars of salves and balms, then shoves them into my shaky hands.

  Are these for me?

  It’s clear that they are medicines of sorts, and I’m littered with injuries. But—

  All thoughts of treating my wounds are swiped out of my head. The warrior lowers his lashes on me, then taps his fingers against his bullet wounds.

  “You did this,” he growls at me, and a shudder seizes my spine. “You fix it.”

  My mouth tilts into a grim line.

  Buds of red sprout on my cheeks; shame from fooling myself for a moment that I might get a little relief.

  I bow my head and let the loot in my hands rest on the bench between us. I turn to straddle it too, facing him. All that twisting around punched too much pain through my back and ribs, and I have to be as careful with my wounds as possible.

  Before I pick through the medicines and dressings, I make sure to tug down the torn hem of my dress to cover myself down to the knees. Just in case. I doubt dark fae would think that way about my kind—but still, you never know.

  Fingers trembling, I reach for the wooden pair of what looks to be tweezers. Only, this wood is smooth and polished, not a splinter in sight.

  I have to remove the bullets first, it’s unavoidable.

  Only when I try to pinch the slick tweezers in my fingers, do I realise how badly my hands are sweating. Gone all clammy, and the wood keeps sliding against my skin.

  I suck in a choppy breath and shut my eyes.

  I do what my therapist (the school one) told me. Count to ten.

  One, two, three.

  The warrior is silent and still as I do this; he doesn’t interrupt, he doesn't rush me. But I can feel his fiery gaze burning into me as I ground myself, my lips moving along with the numbers in my head.

  Four, five, six.

  Finally, my breathing has settled into something mantric. I lift my tired gaze to his fiery eyes; though the fire has dimmed, and what’s left are pits of mostly black with orange flecks.

  Biting down on the inside of my cheeks, I reach the pinched tweezers for his shoulder. The wounds are perfect holes; no torn skin, just holes that have stopped oozing that tarry blood. Around the wounds, perfectly olive-toned skin stretches over muscles and looks as smooth as butter to the touch. A spike of jealousy hits me that a brutal warrior has better skin than I do.

  Throwing all thoughts from my mind, I focus on the task at hand. I line up the tweezers with the nearest hole—but I know my strengths and weaknesses; I turn my cheek to his shoulder as I dig into the hole.

  For a moment, I prod around until the tweezers connect with the bullet. Smaller than what I would have thought. All too easily, I slip it out and let it fall to the bench. It bounces off and lands on the floorboards.

  I swallow back any singe of sick before I aim for the next hole. And I do this, over and over, swallowing back burning vomit, all the while with dark pitch-black eyes watching me too closely.

  He shows no signs of pain on his stoic face. Looks like a bronzed mask has slipped over him, and it’s aimed right at me.

  I pretend not to notice his unwavering stare, just to save the final scraps of my sanity.

  It’s only after the last bullet has rolled onto the floorboards that the nausea starts to rise up in my chest. I’m struck with fresh waves of nausea; they roll over me like foamy waves take a beach.

  My face twists under the attack, and it’s all I can do to keep my hands steady as I bring a threaded needle to his shoulder.

  This time, when I swallow, I can taste the empty sick rising up inside of me. For a beat, I shut my eyes, hand hovering near his arm, and force pleasant images into my mind; memories of the Alps dusted in early-season snow, Capri and Saint Tropez, yachts and table-dancing and champagne showers.

  It does little good.

  I open my eyes and it strikes me with a violent shudder.

  Just the thought of pressing that needle into his taut flesh, over and over, to knit his wounds together into something puckered—

  No, no, no.

  Another shudder rattles me. My teeth clench against the nausea. But nothing comes up, because I have nothing to give the sick urges, I have no food inside of me, no bile, no water—nothing.

  I’m empty.

  The warrior grows impatient.

  With a mumble, words that are alien to me, and sound like barbed wire, he snatches the threaded needle from my hand. I flinch, tense on the bench, as though if I stiffen, no pain will come.

  But all he does is stitch up the wounds himself. Then he smears a beige balm—the same tone as his skin—over the holes.

  Watching me, he wipes his fingers clean on the bandages between us. He reaches down for the second satchel. As he plants it between us, I get the chance to scoot back on the bench, putting some safe distance between us. Well—what is safe? I’ll never be safe with him.

  But for the moment, I won’t be terribly hungry either, I learn; he pulls out a lump of baked bread, mostly eaten already. The lump is about the size of my balled up fist.

  And he hands it to me, his jaw tight, and his lashes lowered. I trace his gaze as it cuts to Spike at the post (who is apparently awake now, and watching us too closely) then back at me. To share, his eyes tell me.

  Hesitantly, I take the bread with shaky hands. He doesn't snatch it back, so I bring it closer to my chest, as if to shield it from him, protect it.

  Before I can bite into it or split it in half to share, he’s snatching up rope and grabbing my wrists. I wince sharply.

  His grip loosens and a frown pinches his brow together.

  He watches his work as he fastens my wrists together, then rises from the bench. Slowly, he takes me back to the post, keeping a pace that my aching body can manage.

  Once he ties me up to a hook, he makes back for the bench, leaving me with Spike in the silence, broken only by the crackles of the torch.

  I split the bread in half.

  Spike’s hungry gaze follows the hard lump as I hand it to him. He snatches it with as much greed as what lights up his muddy eyes, and he’s quick to bite into it.

  I drop down beside him and nibble on the edge. My experience in this new life has taught me that, after a sick-episode, don’t eat so fast.

  Apparently, it’s meal-time for the three of us. The dark fae fishes out some bread from the satchel for himself—and a jar of damp strips of meat, sort of like fish or fermented green ham. Super fucking gross. At least it doesn't smell. I don’t think my weak stomach could handle a stench.

  I’m finished my meagre ration before the warrior has eaten half of his healthy spread. He’s dug out more; something that I suspect to be some sort of nut-like cheese, and berries so black that I’m certain they are poisonous.

  Spike shifts onto his side after a while, his back facing me. He tries to sleep—and I mimic him.

  Maybe it’s that I haven’t slept in well over some days or that my entire body feels as though it’s been hit hard by a bus or that I ate something filling for the first time in a long while, but my eyelids are fighting against me. And I’m losing the battle.

  As I lean against the pole, drifting off to a world where monsters haunt me just as they do here, my fear creeps into my thoughts—is this my life now?

  Before, I had every intention of working out some way of killing this creature. But if I’m tied up all the time, watched so closely, I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to go through with it.

  The next option is to kill myself. But again, how and when?

  I hate myself in my final conscious moments before sleep; I should have used those last bullets on myself. I shouldn’t have let the adrenaline drown me, take me for a victim. I got so caught up in the moment that I couldn’t stop to think.

  I should be dead.

  But I’m not. I’m resting against a post in a windy, whistling, icy shed, prisoner to a dark fae, and a massive creep beside me who might try to cop a feel while I’m asleep.

  Still, despite all of that I do find sleep.

  Sometime during, I wake to turn sides. That’s when I’m faintly aware of the warrior hunched over on the bench, reading a map.

  He cuts his gaze to me.

  I turn my back on him and a mist takes over me.

  I don’t want this life.

  15

  Warmth brushes against my hot, sweaty cheek. The sensation draws me out of my sleep. I blink awake—and lurch back.

  Spike has scooted much too close to me during my rest, and he watches me. My widened eyes land on the one breathing too hot on my face.

  I’ve reeled back, horror slackening me for a frozen moment.

  Distantly, I note that in my peripherals, the dark fae is spread out over the bench and he sleeps. And that gives me an opportunity.

  I hike up my knee, prepared to deliver a precise boot to Spike’s face. But before I can even twist my face into a snarl, he holds up his hands, one finger lifted, and shushes me. His gaze cuts to the bench, to the sleeping fae.

  The message is written all over his hopeful face. He was meaning to wake me up, waiting for the warrior to fall asleep.

  I shift, leaning my aching—definitely bruised—side on the post. Letting my head rest on the rotting wood, I mouth, “What?” with more snark than maybe the question needed.

  “Kale got away,” he whispers, and my heart stops.

  The scowl that I wear starts to fade away, wrinkles turning to smooth lines. I sit up a little stiffer.

  I knew I counted someone missing from the scattered corpses. Well, I’d counted two people missing—but head injury and all that.

  My voice is hushed and rough, as though I haven’t had a sip of water in days. Have I...? “You’re sure?”

  “I saw him run,” he tells me, all secrets and leaning closer—so close that I can smell the sleep-stink of his rotten breath.

  I pinch my mouth shut. Try not to breathe.

  “It doesn't matter,” he adds with a glance over his shoulder at the motionless fae. “He won’t do anything about this...” With a jerk of his head, he gestures to us and our situation.

  “I’m only in this because of you,” I hiss before I even know the words have sprung to mind. That missing scowl returns, twisting my face. “If you hadn’t said anything about my freckles, I would have died back there.”

  His furry eyebrows knit together. “Is that really what you wanted? He wouldn't have made it quick, Coralie. I’ve seen how long they can draw these things out. And sorry, but I didn't want to watch that. Not again.”

  ‘Trauma’ creeps into my mind. Flashbacks of what he might have experienced and seen in his time with the dark fae army.

  But fuck his trauma, he’s only created mine in avoiding his.

  “I wanted to die.” My voice is firmer now, all hushes crushed to dust. “You stole my choice—and that’s just the kind of guy I think you are.”

  His furrowed brow smooths out. A mask slips over his face; stony. “I’ll remember that,” he promises, then shifts around to turn his back to me.

  He leans against the post, as though to find rest, but the tension in his shoulders alerts me that he’s still very much awake, and absolutely fuming.

  Perhaps I should be more concerned about his promise—or threat, more like. Maybe I should I worry myself over it but, in truth, I think there’s little he can do. We’re watched too closely by the dark fae; so little opportunity to set each other up.

  And, in all honesty, anything he does that might deliver me to my death is a blessing and I welcome it.

  Bring it on, little weasel.

  *

  Sleep is long gone for me after Spike’s stinky, hot breath woke me up.

  For too long, I’ve stared at the orange glow cast over the wooden boards above me, then rubbed my fingertips over the burnt-sun rust on the hooks I’m bound to. Eventually, I can’t fight it anymore and my gaze lands on the cardboard boxes in the corner.

  Everyone else is asleep.

  The fae hasn’t stirred on the bench, and I fleetingly wonder if that black powder stuff takes it out of him, or he needs to sleep to help recover from his quick-healing wounds.

  Spike is snoring, a gravelly sound, so I know he’s out cold.

  Who’s to say anyone will know if I sneak a look into the boxes?

  I try my luck and twist around the post to face the boxes. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I see that the others are undisturbed. The rustle of my ropes didn’t stir either of them.

  Arching away from the post, I stretch out my left leg. Kisses of pain bud all over my kneecap; I snub the pain, since it’s nothing compared to the hot, wide-spread ache that’s grown all over my back.

  Automatically, my tongue sticks out the corner of my mouth. Under the weight of the aches, my leg starts to twitch the farther out I stretch it. Still, I manage to catch the heel of my boot on the edge of a damp, soggy box. It’s nearest me, not on the pile, and sagging—so that’s the one I target.

  Hitching my breath, I hook my boot into the mouldy cardboard corner and pull my leg back to myself. The softness of the box makes little sound as it drags over the floorboards.

  I quit while I’m ahead. No use dragging it all the way over to me and risk waking up the psychopathic warrior on the bench. Or the rapey creep sleeping on the other side of the post for that matter.

  Scooting my butt over the floorboards, I shuffle myself closer to the box, meeting it halfway—as far as the ropes allow with some leeway still left over.

  Delicately, I peel off a slice of wet cardboard. But at my angle, I’m blocking the inside of the box, and I see nothing but shadows. Could be a horde of rats or spiders in there, for all I know.

  The thought spears me with an icy sensation that chills my spine and I twist away. Torchlight floods the interior of the box. And at what I see, a small smile dares to tilt up the corners of my chapped mouth.