by Imogen Sera
He shrugged and then smiled pleasantly, and she was annoyed at the little flip her stomach did at the sight.
“Are you… digging? What are you doing?” she said impatiently.
He ignored her and continued. She sighed and he looked at her in surprise when she plopped onto the ground next to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, glancing at her curiously.
“Guarding you,” she said. “You’re not getting in the house.”
He looked down at himself, and then at her much smaller form. He raised his eyebrows at her.
She stared back at him, unflinching.
He laughed and turned back to his work. “I’m Helias,” he said, not looking away from the dirt in front of him.
“I don’t care,” she muttered, not looking at him.
“You’re very pleasant.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said, shifting on her bottom. “Because I’m the one on your property, digging a hole in front of your house and refusing to explain myself.”
He ignored her. A minute later he turned from his work and rose, seemingly finished. There was a short row of small plants in the fresh dirt.
“Done?” she asked and he nodded. “Thanks for the lovely landscaping. Please leave,” she said flatly, still sitting on the ground.
He extended his hand to her. She looked at it for a moment, sighed heavily, and accepted his help to stand. She tried to ignore how big and warm his hand was.
He looked very pleased with himself. “These are the herbs you need,” he said, gesturing to the small plants. “They’re small now, but they’ll be much bigger in a few weeks. Florence told me what you use,” he added.
She looked up at him, suspiciously. “That’s kind of you.”
He smiled widely at her, and she found herself smiling back.
“You still can’t come in,” she said. “I am sorry.”
“I understand,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
“But maybe you can describe what type of books you’re looking for? I could find them for you and you could borrow them.”
He grinned at that. “I suppose I should be honest then,” he began. “I’m not a dragon hunter, I’ve never even heard that term before. I’m researching illnesses.”
She regarded him suspiciously. “Why did you say you were?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. You were the one reading the book.”
She laughed. “It really is my friend’s book. And I detest the dragon hunters, they come here frequently begging for access to the house so they can find evidence to support their fairy tales. You can imagine how I assumed?”
He nodded. “Fairy tales?”
She rolled her eyes. “They believe that dragons exist.”
He stared at her thoughtfully for a minute. “And you don’t?”
She answered with a glare.
He paused for a moment, and then began abruptly. “I need any books you can find mentioning illnesses, especially if you can find anything similar to the plague that has happened before.”
She nodded. “I’ll need to look tonight, can you return tomorrow to pick them up?”
He smiled broadly and she found herself looking into his eyes. A prickling dread flooded down her spine as she stared into their green depths; some ancient, primal part of her was screaming at her to flee. He told her twice how grateful he was, unaware of her distress, and then picked up his bag and turned to walk down the path back to the road. She silently watched him leave, feeling relief and an odd sense of loss at the same time.
She regretted telling him to return.
. . . . .
Helias arrived early the next morning. He found himself eager to see Ingrid again; he was sure the information she could provide him would be useful. The soft, subtle curve of her hips or the sound of her laughter or the way her eyes sparkled when she was amused had nothing to do with it. Nothing.
He paused in front of the huge manor. It was impressively sized, tall and sprawling, all gray stone and a dark steep pitched roof. Windows lined the house, three high and spaced evenly, but they were all covered with dark purple drapes. The front garden was neglected with no flora at all, but there remained marble benches and empty fountains, relics of better days he supposed.
He knocked on the massive door and waited. After a long while a tall, slim, blond woman answered and gawked at him. He smiled tentatively at her and asked for Ingrid, and she nodded very quickly before shutting the door in his face. A few minutes later Ingrid slipped through the door with a large satchel in her hands, and nodded at him with a furrowed brow. He took her in for a moment; she was somehow lovelier than he remembered.
“Hello,” he breathed.
“Hello,” she said quickly, and held out her bag. “This is what I found, would you like to take a look and see what’s helpful?”
He nodded. As he took the bag his fingers brushed hers, and he could swear he saw her shiver slightly. His eyes were on her all the while.
She gestured to a bench not far from them, and he sat while Ingrid stood nearby. He picked through the ancient texts quickly, and handed her back two of them.
He looked up at her and grinned. “Thank you. I was hoping that you would have time to answer questions about the plague for me?”
I’m very busy actually,” she said shifting awkwardly, looking intensely uncomfortable. “I have eggs to collect and I’m-” she trailed off, gesturing helplessly.
Her obvious discomfort was new to him. He wondered briefly if she could sense what he was, but he remained focused on the task at hand. “May I help you? And you can help me with information while we work?”
She looked around, clearly trying to find an excuse, and then sighed audibly. “Sure.”
They walked together across a large empty field. She seemed to relax as they walked and even asked him about his research. He told her the truth, but the short story which omitted many of the details. He told her about how a similar illness had struck his hometown, at seemingly the same time that the residents of Dragongrove had fallen ill. He had been dispatched to learn all he could, and after years of study he’d arrived here. She didn’t ask any questions about his home for which he was relieved, but also strangely disappointed. He asked her about the vast empty fields, and she informed him that they had once been lush farmland, but nothing had grown since the plague began.
They reached a series of chicken coops, and she showed him what he was looking for. He supposed it was obvious to her that he’d never done work like this, but she was endlessly patient, even after he stepped on an egg for the third time. He questioned her as he worked.
“So everyone who lives here contracted the plague and survived, correct?” he asked, looking up at her from where he was crouched over the ground.
She nodded slowly.
“Can you describe how you felt in the hours that you first were ill?”
She paused for a moment. “Well, I suppose not everyone here contracted the plague.”
He rose and looked at her, surprised. “You never became ill?”
She shrugged.
“But you nurse the ill?”
She nodded.
“Is that safe for you?”
She shrugged again. “It seems to be, I’ve been doing it for eight years.”
“Are you immune then?”
“I suppose,” she said, bending over and plucking an egg from the ground to put in her basket. “Listen, no one really knows about this, so can we keep it between us?”
He nodded. “Do you know of anyone else who can’t catch it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s a hard thing to test for unless you feel like exposing a lot of people and see which ones live.”
He looked at her strangely. “How did you discover that you couldn’t get it?”
“Everyone here died except for me.” She shrugged and continued. “I thought it was a fluke. I was alone here for awhile before John showed up, cov
ered in boils, looking for our healer. I couldn’t just turn him away so I did what I could for him. More people showed up the same way and eventually it became clear that I couldn’t catch it.”
His mind was racing with possibilities. He spent the next few minutes asking her seemingly unrelated questions, and she seemed confused but played along anyway. They were finished with the chickens before long.
“Thanks for the help,” she said as they walked back toward the house, smiling mischievously at him. He was fairly sure he’d broken more eggs than he’d collected.
“I don’t think you’d have been able to do it without me,” he teased, returning her smile. “I’ll go through these books tonight,” he said, patting the bag that hung over his shoulder. “If I’m back tomorrow to return them will you have more time to answer my incessant questions?” He grinned at that.
She nodded, cheeks flushed prettily in the cool air, pausing in front of the steps to the front door. “I’ll try to save a task that involves heavy lifting for you.”
He laughed at that and waved goodbye to her as he turned for the path out of the grove. As he began his long walk back to the inn he was overcome with the feeling that he had found much more than he had counted on.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ingrid found herself constantly preoccupied by Helias. He had been coming to the manor nearly daily for a month now, always with questions and willing to help, and she’d made it a habit to save her outdoor chores for the early afternoon when he usually arrived. They had become friendly and she found herself looking forward to seeing him, and noticeably cranky on days he didn’t visit.
But she was preoccupied far beyond those few hours each afternoon; he was on her mind constantly, driving her crazy. She clenched her legs together uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure why thinking of him caused so much heat to pool between her thighs, or why her head constantly was full of deliciously filthy thoughts about him. There was some sexual tension there for sure, at least on her end, but it was more than just that. She was sure, though, that tonight in bed she would imagine those intense green eyes in that strong, lovely face, dipping low along her body, coming to rest where she wanted his mouth the most. Green eyes staring at her as she felt his hot breath on her belly, on her thighs, on her-
“Ing!” Lily called, sauntering into the kitchen. “He’s here.”
Ingrid started and collected herself. The pan in her hands was delightfully clean, she’d been scrubbing it for the last 10 minutes.
“Really, Ingrid,” Lily said, looking over her flustered friend. “When are you going to give in and just fuck him?”
Ingrid rolled her eyes.
“Seriously though, you need to get laid.”
“I have sex all the time,” Ingrid insisted.
“Not with anyone you give a shit about.”
“Yes, that’s the point,” Ingrid said, drying her hands, and then it was Lily’s turn to roll her eyes.
“You’re a disaster,” Lily called after Ingrid as she went to find Helias in his usual spot in the front garden.
Ingrid opened the huge front door and stepped out into the sun. Helias was seated on the bench, bent over one of his books, golden hair gleaming in the sunlight. She smiled at the familiar sight, and crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame for a moment. He noticed her then and grinned.
“Admiring me as usual, Ingrid?”
She laughed. “Obviously,” she said, as she descended the stairs and stopped next to him. “My books please?” she put her hands in front of her expectantly. He reached into his bag and placed a large stack of heavy books in her arms. She nearly staggered under the weight.
“I could carry them for you if you would let me in the house,” he said with an impish smile.
“Nice try,” she responded, and disappeared inside the house with her books, depositing them on the desk in the library. When she returned to the garden Helias was standing, examining the herbs he’d planted weeks ago.
“You said they would die.” He turned to her looking proud of himself.
“Well you’re here babying them everyday,” she shrugged.
She led him across the grounds as they chatted companionably. Today there was a fence that needed to be fixed, and as they worked he questioned her again about the plague. Ingrid was sure she’d told him everything she knew, but he seemed intent on making sure he didn’t miss any detail.
The afternoon passed in a pleasant way, the warm sun providing a break from the constant clouds and rain that had hung over the area the past several weeks. Helias seemed very pleased with it, and when they were finished and slowly walking back to the house he announced his intention to study in the garden for the remainder of the afternoon.
“That sounds nice,” Ingrid smiled, “I wish I could keep you company. We got a new patient last night and I’m on duty this afternoon.”
They paused in front of the steps. “Thanks for your time,” Helias said, his customary goodbye.
“Thanks for your help.” She smiled as she recited her customary response.
Suddenly, though, he grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. His large hand was warm, and his kiss on her hand impossibly light. Her stomach clenched at the unexpected contact, and he stared right into her eyes, his gaze blazing. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ingrid.”
She nodded, flustered, and rushed inside.
. . . . .
Ingrid strode along the long hallway to the infirmary, her hand tingling and her mind blank aside from one thought: she wanted Helias. She had half a mind to turn around and go back to the garden, kiss him senselessly, and see what would happen. She paused in the hall, hesitantly. She didn’t understand what it was about him. He was handsome, of course, but she’d met handsome men before and had never been this preoccupied with thoughts of any of them. She felt so aware of him, as if she could feel the space between them; and if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want there to be any space between them. She could scarcely make it five minutes through her day before she was once again imagining being folded in his big arms, or his soft lips on her mouth, or her breasts, or between her legs. She wanted it so badly.
Ingrid was no stranger to sex. She’d spent her later teenage years without adult supervision, and after her family was gone she’d spent a long time seeking solace and love wherever she could find it. She’d never found love though, not the real thing. In her more recent years she’d become much more guarded. Now sex was for physical pleasure only, an excellent outlet, and she was discreet and thoughtful in her choice of partners. She wasn’t some sex-starved virgin who couldn’t keep her mind off of a crush.
That’s what this was, though, just a crush. She shook the tempting thoughts from her head and continued down the hall to the infirmary.
She was eager to see the new patient, and when she arrived she picked up the patient notebook from the desk and flipped to the most recent page. Mira had recovered and moved into a bedroom on the second floor, so there were currently eight patients, six men and two women. Five were near death, two were likely to recover, and the last was waiting to be assessed. She glanced around the room, looking for the new woman… but she wasn’t in the bed designated for new patients. Ingrid counted the patients in bed, once and then again. Seven. She counted her list again. Eight. Someone was missing.
Ingrid breathed deeply, mind racing. Maybe she had died already and it hadn’t been recorded? She studied the book, noting that Rebecca had been the last resident on nursing duty.
She ran through the house, calling Rebecca’s name. She found her in the kitchen with three other residents, and after a hurried explanation they all returned to the infirmary. Rebecca assured Ingrid that the new patient had been alive and conscious but resting when Rebecca’s time was over. Ingrid tried not to panic. There were many ways out of the house, and they couldn’t have a patient wandering around, exposing innocent people. She took a deep breath. It was much more likely that the poor woman was just frightened and hid
ing in the house somewhere.
Searching all of the dark corners of the manor took the residents nearly an hour, and there was no sign of her. Ingrid had a gruesome thought then, and a creeping dread settled along her spine. She raced to the front of the house and flew out the front door. There was the infected woman, slumped on the ground in a puddle of bloody vomit; and Helias was next to her, stroking her back, murmuring something to her. He looked up the stairs at Ingrid and shot her a helpless look. Ingrid stared back, horrified.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Is this alright?” Ingrid asked gloomily, gesturing around the library.
