Page 36 of Land of Shadow

“These are deep. They’ll probably scar.”

He doesn’t respond, just continues with the unmitigated eye contact. Heat creeps up my neck and into my cheeks as I wipe at the injuries. “What’s this goo?” I peer more closely at the deep wounds, the edges almost seething with the viscous white-green slime. “It’s not pus, not an immune reaction, I don’t think. It’s almost like … Hell, what is it?” I meet his gaze again. He has long, black lashes that frame the deep blue of his eyes. Smooth skin, save the gouges, and full lips. By any measure, he’s a gorgeous man. By my measure, he’s also an asshole.

“Venom.”

I may not be outdoorsy, but this isn’t a snake bite or scorpion stab. I cock my head at him. “Venom from what?”

Silence again.

Frustration wells in me. “How can I treat you if you don’t tell me what happened to you?”

“I didn’t ask for treatment,” he says dismissively.

My teeth clack as I snap my mouth shut. He’s not going to talk. Fine, I won’t either. I’ll make it just as awkward. I don’thaveto talk.

He rests his arms along his thighs, and I think I feel what might be one of his thumbs pressing against my leg. If it is, he doesn’t notice or pull it away. Instead, he’s focused on me in that unnerving way of his. As if he knows what I look like naked, or maybe can read my thoughts. Is that part of his superhuman schtick? “You’re a dick.” I think at him. He doesn’t react. Okay, so maybe no mind-reading.

I wipe at the scratches, cleaning off the ooze that’s begun to crust over. Once they’re clear, I toy with the idea of stitches, but the cuts already look better, the edges relatively straight. With some compression, they’ll heal by themselves without carrying another scar from the stitches. I apply wound glue, then cover with gauze. Iwouldbe explaining all this as I go, but there’s only the sound of my work. Because I’m tired, and scared, and yeah, fucking childish apparently. But I need a win. Something. Anything to show I have at least anounceof control over my life. Once I’m finished, I remove my gloves and toss them in the trash.

Valen swipes up everything I used to work on his injuries, dumps it in the small trashcan, then grabs my alcohol and pours it on top.

Motherfucker. I grit my teeth. My instinct is to say something along the lines of ‘unnecessary’ or ‘isn’t that a bit much?’ but I’m still waiting him out. If he’s trying to dominate me with silence, well, two can play that game.

He stands abruptly, and I stumble backward to avoid touching him chest-to-chest. Or perhaps chest-to-stomach given his height. He takes my elbow with a gentle firmness and keeps me upright.

He moves back into my bedroom. “Now that we’re done?—”

“Ha!” I win.

He turns and looks at me. “What was that?”

“You were saying?” I ask.

He sighs as if he’s the most put-upon man on the planet. “Do you have anything for me?”

“No. Like I said, the sample is no good. No white blood cells means we can’t sequence DNA, and the red blood cells are degraded and … odd.”

“Odd how?” He moves closer, and I’m suddenly acutely aware that we’re in my dim bedroom in a secluded penthouse where no one would hear me scream. He’s big, far bigger than I am, though I’m by no means skinny. He could hurt me. Badly.

He runs his tongue along his teeth and backs away to the doorframe where he leans again, nonchalant in that haughty way of his. “Tell me, Doctor. Odd how?”

I swear he’s mocking me. “Call me Georgia.” I force my eyes not to roll. “And odd in that the cells are misshapen beyond anything we’ve seen short of fatal cases of Sickle Cell. But even then, at least some of the cells are normal. What you gave me—it must’ve been tampered with.”

“Is that an accusation?”

“It’s just a fact.” I shrug.

He stares at me, his face still bearing his condescending, amused look. The silence grows again. He looks me up and down slowly. Rudely. I itch to cover myself somehow, hide from him. It’s a bizarre sensation, like a rabbit that’s been spied by a raptor overhead. I hate it. Valen doesn’t seem to mind at all. Still like the surface of unmoving water, only his eyes showing movement, life.

Words bubble up inside me. The too-direct looks from him, the way we’re alone in here together. My skin heats, nerves and worry turning my cheeks pink. God. “At the inauguration …” I blurt, then fail to figure out where I’m going. I try again, “At the inauguration, you saved my life.”

He simply watches me.

I tangle my fingers together, still unsure of what I’m trying to say. “I mean, you didn’t have to. You could’ve … you could’ve saved yourself, but you helped me. I just wanted to say … I wanted to say thank you. That’s all.” God, why was that so hard? “But then you killed those people,” I add. “Just … you just killed them without?—”

“Thosepeoplewould’ve killed you and thought nothing of it.” His voice has gone cold. “They deserved far worse than they got.”

The slight misgiving I felt earlier about being alone with him grows like an unwanted seed. He has no qualms about killing. In fact, he has no emotions about it whatsoever. I could argue with him about the unjustness, but I’ve already had this conversation. With Juno. I can see this one will end much the same way.

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