“And what did you do?”
Liam’s brows furrowed. “What do you think I did? I agreed but that agreement was forfeit before I even left. And it certainly was when I killed a fae male in our escape. Lost the fae princess in the process and we were pursued, but they’ll be back. And they’ll be back for blood next time.”
The dragon crossed his arms over his chest as Jonah took a step back. He had to get back to Maggie. They had to get back to town. With the fae on the warpath, there was no telling where they were and what they would do. They wouldn’t stay in their territory and if they believed Heidi was a witch, then they’d think the same of Maggie.
“I have to warn the town. I have to get Maggie out of the woods. Get Heidi and we’ll go.”
Liam shook his head. “She says here. With me.”
Jonah hid the surprise he felt. He had never known the dragon to be as protective as he was now. It was as if he had already taken ownership of the woman. It was something that dragons did, but he never knew Liam to do it, at least not with a person.
He observed Liam, trying to get a read on his intentions.
“I can, and I will.” It was the actual admission of a dragon wanting to keep what he believed was his.
Jonah shook his head. “It’s not safe for her out here. I’m not even going to touch on the fact that you can’t keep a human.”
“She’s safe with me,” he argued. “I’m keeping her. She was given to me in a contract.”
It took everything he had not to start yelling at the dragon. He forced himself to take a deep breath lest he got a fireball in the face. “Contact or no, you can’t keep a human. It doesn’t work like that. She’s not a piece of land or gold that can be traded or sold.”
He knew he’d hit the nail on the head when smoke curled from the dragon’s nose. He may just be barbequed alive yet.
“I’m keeping her. She’s safest with me. This discussion is over.”
The argument would last the entire day and into the night if he allowed it and even then, he doubted he’d win. “I don’t have time to argue with you. I’m going to get Maggie back to town.”
Jonah stepped back and leaped from the porch to the ground. As he raced into the trees, he raised his hand toward Liam. Their discussion wasn’t over, but it was being put on hold. He had to get back to Maggie and get them back to the safety of New Freedom. He didn’t doubt Liam would take care of the girl, but he hated leaving her there. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t force her from the cave without Liam intervening. He would just have to explain the situation to Maggie and get them out of there.
Sprinting through the trees, he tried to get back to her as fast as he could. He hoped she had packed up their campsite so they could get moving. Hell, he’d shift into a pack horse if he had to and let her ride on his back if he thought that could get them out of the woods any faster. He had to get to town. There were preparations to be made. Defenses to be put in place. They’d have to establish a watch to ensure there were no night time sneak attacks.
His mind raced with everything that needed to be put in place as he approached the campsite. He needed to get to Maggie and get her out of there safely. Get her out now.
But it was too late. It was too late when he saw them. Too late when the arrow pierced his thigh.
11
Maggie knew as soon as Jonah approached the campsite. She’d almost sensed him coming. He was running and every time his foot struck the ground, the earth seemed to shake beneath her. The three fae turned, instantly alert. Panic swelled in her chest and she had a hard time choking it down.
The male fae held up his bow, aiming the arrow in the direction of the small clearing next to the river. At that moment, Maggie made her decision. It was an easy decision to make.
As his footsteps closed in, she darted from her hiding spot. The male closest to her turned, his knife in hand. He was startled at her sudden appearance and she used that to her advantage. He raised the blade just as the butt of her gun collided with his face.
He fell to the ground and she slung the shotgun around in her hands. The arrow flew from the bow at the same time she pulled the trigger. The blast nearly took her off her feet, but her aim was true. The fae fell to the ground, a dinner plate sized hole in his chest.
She swung to aim the shotgun at the female, who was already stringing an arrow.
“Don’t even think about it,” Maggie bit out.
She heard the rustle behind her and swung around. The fae who’d held the knife was on his feet and leaped for her, only an arm’s distance away. Blood streaked his face from where she’d hit him with the shotgun as he sliced the air. She raised the weapon, but a shot rang out before she even pulled the trigger.
He fell to his knees in front of her, the blade dropping from his hand. It landed with a thud on the ground. His brown eyes were wide as he stared at her, shock etched on his face. When he fell to his back, she saw Jonah behind him, the gun in his hand still smoking.
Maggie turned back on the woman, gun raised. Her hands were out in front of her and her mouth hung open.
She took two steps back. “You’ll regret this.”
“You’ll regret it if you don’t leave right now,” Maggie bit out. As much as she wanted to, she wouldn’t shoot someone who wasn’t immediately threatening her life. Even if she really wanted to.
There was a buzzing above her, but Maggie didn’t look up. The female fae did before lifting from the ground. She kept the gun trained on the retreating fae. There were two of them still in the air, she saw as the female joined them. Maggie watched as the three took off toward the east, the female turning to cast a long glare in her direction.
When they were gone, she lowered her gun and turned to Jonah. He was laying on the ground, limp. The handgun sat a few inches from his hand where it had fallen.
“Jonah!” she cried, racing to his side.
She fell to her knees next to him., her eyes instantly going to where the arrow was protruding from the top of his thigh. It was buried in the muscle, half the shaft embedded under the skin. His face was flushed, and his breathing was shallow. When she touched her palm to his cheek, it almost burned her.
“Poisoned arrow,” he said weakly.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She shook her head. “What do I have to do?” She couldn’t get caught up in the gravity of their situation. She had to stay focused on what needed to be done.
“Get it out.”
She’d heard that you shouldn’t pull an arrow out, that it would cause more damage and there was a risk that the arrowhead would break off inside his leg, but she wasn’t a doctor. She was a chef and didn’t know how to treat anything except a minor cut or burn.
“How?”
“Push it through.”
“Oh, God….” Her heart was pounding in her chest at the thought of what she would have to do. She didn’t even know if she had the strength or the stomach to do what he asked of her.
“I can’t do it. You have to,” he said as if sensing her fear.
Biting her lip, she nodded her head. The poison seemed to have sucked any strength he had, and she had to help him roll onto his side. To keep him still, she straddled his calves and rubbed the sweat from her hands on her pants.
She stripped the feathers from the back of the arrow and gripped the wood. Taking a deep breath, she pushed with everything she had.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she cried as the arrow ripped through his flesh.
He was silent, but she could feel the muscles tense beneath her and his jaw clenched. And still she pushed until she finally felt it give and heard the rip of the fabric. When the bloody arrowhead protruded out of the back of his thigh, she let out a long breath.
“Don’t…don’t touch…don’t touch the arrowhead,” he warned in between gasps.
Pulling the arrow, the rest of the way out was more difficult than she thought it should be. The slickness of his blood made it impossible to
grasp. She’d pull it an inch before her hand would start to slip. Terrified of touching the stone head, she readjusted herself and heaved again. This time the arrow came the rest of the way out.
Throwing it to the side, she held her hand over the back of his bleeding thigh and stroked his arm.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Let me bleed,” he instructed. “and help me get to the water.”
She crawled off his legs and pulled on his shoulders as he struggled to push himself up. When he was sitting, she clasped his arm and struggled to help him to his feet. He stood on his right leg, unable to put weight on his left. She slung his right arm over her shoulder and held onto his chest as he limped toward the water’s edge.
They went a few feet into the water until he said, “Okay.”
She steadied him as he sat in the river and she knelt beside him. The cold water washed the blood from her skin and there was a steady stream of red that blended into the current from the wound on his leg.
Jumping up a second later, she left him in the water and rushed over to her pack. The flare sat right where she’d left it and without hesitation, she lifted it straight into the air and pulled the trigger. If the sound of gunshots didn’t already alert the men that they needed help, then the flare lighting up the sky would do it.
She was back by his side in the water a moment later. He seemed to have relaxed in the water, the pain that had been so evident in his features was gradually easing away.
“It is helping?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“What do you need?”
“Something to drink.”
“I’ll go get a water bottle,” she said, stepping toward the shoreline.
“No, don’t leave me.”
She sunk to her knees next to him and did the only thing she could think of. Dipping her palms into the water and then lifted them up to his mouth. His lips were hot against her skin as she tilted her hands. When he finished the mouthful, she dipped her hands again and repeated the process until he shook his head.
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes closed.
“What else can I do?”
“Just stay with me,” he told her.
She nodded her head even though he couldn’t see her. Her eyes continually scanned the horizon and the tree line. While she didn’t think the fae would come back right away, there were two dead fae at their campsite. They’d be back if only to retrieve the bodies.
The redness of his skin eased and gradually his face paled. His fiery skin began to cool. The water was still streaked with blood and she began to worry that he was losing too much blood.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” His eyes opened slowly, and he looked at her. “Will you help me up? We need to get out of here.”
She nodded and helped him to his feet and back to the campsite. He limped, but at least he was able to put a little more weight on the leg than he had before.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again.
“I think most of the poison has come out. I don’t feel like my heart is going to explode in my chest anymore.”
“Oh.”
“I need your help getting my pants off.”
“Okay.” She didn’t hesitate to help him. He braced himself by holding onto her shoulders as she undid the button on the khakis he wore. When she got them unzipped, she pushed them over his hips, her hands brushing the wet pair of boxer shorts he wore.
“I have to sit,” he told her, not meeting her eyes.
She helped him to the ground just as she heard twigs snapping behind them. She jumped, grabbing her shotgun from where it sat a foot away from them and turned it in the direction of the noise.
“Don’t shoot, Maggie!”
When she lowered the shotgun, Al and Mike stepped out of the trees. She and Jonah must have been a sight, between Jonah bleeding profusely, sitting on the ground with his pants around his ankles, her being a soaking wet mess holding a shotgun, and the two dead fae on the ground not far from them.
Al whistled through his teeth as he took everything in.
“What in blazes happened?” Mike asked, rushing toward her and Jonah. He didn’t miss the dead fae either.
“Poisoned arrow,” Jonah told him.
“Jesus.” It was then that Maggie saw the realization cross Mike’s face when he remembered whose company he was in. “Uh…,” he stammered, glancing between Maggie and the dead fae on the ground.
“It’s fine Mike. Maggie knows. Speak freely.”
He blew out an audible sigh of relief. “Well, shit, son. Al, send up the other flare.”
“On it,” Al replied. A moment later another flare lit up the sky.
Mike dropped his pack on the ground and started digging through it. “Maggie, get the boy’s pants off the rest of the way, will you? I think I got some first aid stuff in here.”
She did as she was told and pulled Jonah’s pants off from around his feet.
“I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” Mike told her as he pulled out what looked like a clean t-shirt. “Here, put that underneath that wound before dirt gets in it. I need a clean area.”
“I don’t think she’s uncomfortable, Mike,” Jonah said. “She’s my mate.”
“Your mate?” Al asked in disbelief.
“Yes. As of yesterday, actually.”
Another low whistle. “Your mama isn’t going to be very happy that she didn’t get to meet the girl first.”
“I’ll deal with my mother later.”
Maggie couldn’t help but smile. Jonah wouldn’t be talking about his mother if he wasn’t starting to feel better.
“Welp, congratulations son, but you got a poisoned wound here, so if I were you, I’d shut it and let me clean it,” Mike said.
“Did you find the girl?” Al asked Maggie as Mike worked on Jonah’s leg. Maggie wrapped her arm around his back to help support his weight.
“No.”
“Yes,” Jonah said over her.
“Yes?” she asked him.
“She’s with the dragon,” he said to all of them, “safe and unharmed.”
Maggie almost choked. “With the dragon?”
“Yes. She’s safe in his cave.”
“No way would Heidi stay in a cave voluntarily. She complained about the cabin the entire time she was there. And about the woods. And the bugs….”
Al snorted.
“She’s safe. That’s all we need to know right now,” Jonah told her. His eyes told her there would be more information upcoming later, but that it would be when they were alone. She nodded.
Jonah grimaced when Mike poured something over his wound. “You’re a lucky one,” he said a minute later. “If you hadn’t gotten into the water when you did, this would’ve killed you.”
“What are you pouring on it?” she asked him.
“Oh, this?” He tilted the bottle. “It’s moonshine. Kills the bacteria and neutralizes the poison.”
“And burns like a son of a bitch,” Jonah ground out.
“Yup, that too. It can also be used for pain relief.” He held the bottle out to Jonah, who vigorously shook his head. “I don’t get you kids. There’s no shame in killing your pain in a bit of alcohol until we can get Pecora to look at you.”
“That’s the doctor,” Al supplied.
“Let’s get some pants and shoes on you and then we’ll head back,” Mike said as he wrapped a long strip of cloth around Jonah’s wound to staunch the bleeding.
Maggie helped him dress before changing into dry clothes herself. Al shifted into a mule and she helped Mike load their packs onto his back. Mike kept his own pack on his back but told her that he saw no reason for either she or Jonah to carry their packs since she’d have to help him move along. They fashioned a walking stick for him out of a straight tree branch and after a few minutes and a few long drinks of water, they headed back toward New Freedom.
Considering Jonah was injured, she was su
rprised by the good time they were making. Perhaps because now they were mostly traveling downhill, and it helped to not have twenty-five pounds on her back.
They seldom rested for longer than a few minutes and she could see the strain starting to show on Jonah’s face. When the sun sunk below the horizon, she stopped them.
“That’s enough,” she said. “He needs to rest and I’m exhausted and can barely see where I’m stepping.”
The men stopped and looked at her. Mike shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll stop here then. Keep it minimal. No fire, no tents. We sleep on the ground and head out again first light. Stay under the trees.”
“No fire?”
“Fae,” Jonah told her. “We don’t need to show them where we are.”
“Oh.”
The ever-looming threat had her checking the sky through much of their hike, but thankfully, there’d been no sign of them. Maggie helped Jonah sit on the ground and waited, with her back turned, as Al shifted back onto two legs. He’d all but told her he didn’t care if she saw him naked earlier, but she didn’t want to see.
“You’re going to have to get used to seeing strangers naked,” Jonah said with a chuckle.
She grinned as she unrolled one of their sleeping bags. “Yours is the only ass I want to see, thanks.”
“I’ve seen Al’s ass since I was a kid. You’re better off not looking,” he said laughing as he crouched down in front of Jonah. “Let’s see that leg, son.”
She left Mike to help Jonah while she dug through her pack for some food. The past days had left her nearly ravenous all the time. It was hard to satisfy hunger pangs eating nothing but tuna and trail mix. Whenever they got back to town, she’d go by the diner and get a massive cheeseburger. She salivated at the thought as she tossed a handful of trail mix in her mouth.
When Sparks Fly (Netherworld Series Book 3) Page 15
