Page 21 of Bitter Heat
Bursting to the surface with a harsh gasp for breath, he shook the water from his ears and eyes. Feeling strong and yet tired, he began to tread water. The lowering sun sparkled on the water and shone in the sky. As the days lengthened into summer, he would be able to stay out in or by the lake longer and use fewer candles as well. Not that he’d even used his first candle yet. He’d been far too tired after his first day with Dr. Crescent to study.
A cry rent the air, human and pained.
Janus searched the land to his right, twisting about in the water, trying to discover from where the sound had come. The echo of the cry bounced on the water, off the cliffs on the east side of the lake, and through the mountain’s hills and valleys, obscuring its source. The sound faded out, and Janus anxiously waited for so long that he finally assumed he’d imagined it, or that perhaps it was the cry of one of the wildcats.
It came again.
This time Janus was able to pinpoint its origin as coming from the land to his right. He treaded water a bit longer, heart pounding, listening for confirmation that he was right about where the pained cries were coming from. He nodded sharply, certain when a third scream split over the water. He started to swim.
The space between where he was and the area of the forest where the hair-raising screams sliced through the sky was no easy distance to cover, and yet he dragged himself onward through the lake water. The cries stopped and didn’t start up again for a long time. Janus paused in his swimming to listen and, as the silence lingered, he glanced back the way he’d come, considering the stretch of beach along the woods below the boarding house. He could go back, ask Zeke about the screams, and they could go together on land to check out the problem. But just as he’d decided on that course of action, another horribly human cry rose up.
Someone needed help. There might not be time to get Zeke. So, he continued on.
His strong strokes began to fade to weaker ones as he strained toward the narrow, pebbled beach along the western strip of the lake’s edge. He’d started to grow scared for himself, and his strength had nearly given out, just as he reached the shallows and his feet touched bottom. Flopping forward, he heaved himself ahead on his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath and listen for the cries again. Pausing for a moment, lake water dripping from his nose and chin, he listened, his eyes scanning the forest’s edge. Just as he was about to stand and begin to search the woods, a man crawled from the tree line onto the beach. Naked.
Janus stood up in the thigh-high water, hands on his hips, mouth open in astonishment and fear. The scent that drifted to him on the breeze was instantly familiar. The man crawling on the ground was Kerry. Janus recognized the berries and musk that had gotten under his skin from his first glimpse of the man on the porch. He gawked, trying to grasp what he was seeing.
Kerry dragged himself—stark naked, dirty, and streaked with blood from the waist down—toward the water. His long, bedraggled hair was full of pine needles, bark, and leaves. He was suffering and in distress.
Janus leapt forward, running through the shallows. Water droplets kicked into the air, sparkled, and cracked into rainbows in the sun. By the time Janus broke free of the water, Kerry had collapsed, stomach and face down, into the pebbles. He twisted in pain and groaned in a harsh, low tone, like a foot crunching in gravel.
As Janus fell to his knees next to him, water lapping at their flesh, Kerry began to heave and shake with sobs.
“Kerry? It’s me, Janus. What’s happened to you? Has someone hurt you?”
Kerry moaned, deep and rough. He shook his head, saying nothing.
Janus scanned Kerry’s body, noting the bloody legs and genitals, and his stomach sank. Rape? Or, more likely, miscarriage. He whispered, “Kerry? I’m here. I’m going to help you.”
Kerry moaned and shuddered. In his left hand, he gripped a small pill tin. Janus tilted his head, recognizing the imprint on the side. His heart clenched. Those pills were intended for use when a pregnancy had already gone awry, to help when a babe wasn’t expelling properly, and as a last resort to save the omega’s life. Had something gone wrong with Kerry’s pregnancy?
“Kerry, did you lose the baby? Kerry…can you talk to me?”
Kerry shivered and groaned. “I don’t know. Did it work? Is he gone?” he rasped, his eyes bleary and lost, his body clenching in agony again.
Janus pressed his lips together, his blood running cold. If he understood correctly, Kerry had committed a hanging crime today with the aid of the pills. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his thoughts. Opening them again, the decision made, he acted before he could change his mind.
Gently, he pried the tin from Kerry’s hand and then threw it into the lake. Right or wrong, he wasn’t going to let Kerry hold on to evidence like that, and now, with the pills beneath the water, he could forget that he’d ever seen them at all. Quickly, he took inventory of Kerry’s state: no fever (thank wolf-god), harsh womb cramps, as evidenced by the tight ball of muscle beneath his navel, and bleeding.
Janus leaned forward and breathed in: berry and musk. That strange blend that was neither right nor wrong but meant Kerry was still pregnant. No hint of death or rot. So far, the baby was holding on. Whatever Kerry’s intentions might have been, and no matter how much he’d suffered, Janus didn’t think he’d been successful in his plans.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Kerry croaked, his lips dry and cracked, the corner of his mouth bleeding. “I’m doing this…” He groaned and squirmed as though he wanted out of his body. “Alone.”
“Not now, you’re not.” Janus rolled Kerry onto his side and lifted his head into his lap, trying to make him comfortable. The fact that they werebothnaked only struck him when Kerry’s filthy, long hair brushed against his dick. He stroked calming fingers through Kerry’s curls, cleaning out the worst of the small sticks and leaves, willing Kerry’s pain to calm enough for Janus to be able to examine him.
“Kerry?”
The sudden stillness of Kerry’s body was his only acknowledgment that he heard him.
Janus asked, “Have you seen any tissue? Or just blood?”
“Blood. But it hurts so much. The cramps are so strong.”
“They’re very painful?”
“Yes.” Kerry’s voice cracked, and he writhed against Janus’s leg, but he pushed on, trying to talk to Janus. “He can’t possibly withstand them.Ican barely stand them,” Kerry gritted out. He cried out as another spasm hit.
They weren’t in the clear just yet.
