Page 50 of Night of the Witch
The thought makes my fists bunch. I will do this to save the innocents. But if anyone hurts her, they will pay.
15
FRITZI
I cross my arms. “This goes both ways, though. If I’m going to help you, you have to help me too.”
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t seem to have heard me—his eyes have dropped low. I think at first he’s staring a bittoointently at my breasts, but his face hardens, and I realize his gaze is fixed on my wrist where it’s crossed over my chest.
I look at the angry red welts bleeding across the back of my hand.
I yank my arms down.
“You’re injured,” he says.
“Tends to happen when witches are around hexenjägers.”
He’s standing over me, the lantern flickering on the table beside me, and its unsteady light pulses the emotions on his face.
Regret.
Fury.
Pain.
I have no time for his self-flagellation—the Three damn these Catholics, really. “I’ll need supplies to—”
“Sit.”
“I—excuse me?”
“Sit,” he repeats and brushes past me, back to the bag he took off during our conversation. He rummages in it for a beat before he turns with a jar and a knot of bandages.
I can’t stop the surprise that flashes across my face. “I don’t need your pity. I’m fine.”
It’s a lie—my wrists burn terribly—but I’ll be damned if I accept that kind of help from him. I need to get Liesel and get out of Trier, not waste time tending to woundsheinflicted.
He crosses the room. I’m still standing when he stops in front of me.
His brows raise, and he eyes the chair against the back of my legs, the implied command heavy in his gaze.
My chest tugs, defiance sharp and biting. But he still says nothing, just stares at me in a long, weighted silence, and I know, in the clenched set of his jaw and the steadiness in his eyes, that he won’t break.
I thought I knew stubborn.
I thought I was stubborn.
This man makes it a religion.
I suck my teeth and drop back on the chair. When I reach for the jar and bandages, he bats my hand away and lowers to one knee.
My heart heaves against my ribs.
“I’m not tied up,” I tell him, hating the waver in my voice. “I can bandage my own wounds, thank you very much.”
That earns what must pass for a sardonic look. “I don’t doubt that you are very skilled at taking care of yourself.”
Is that an insult? It feels like an insult, but I let him take my wrist.
