Page 45 of Kill the Beast
Until something plummeted into the lake and broke her battle-trance.
The mermaids shrieked at its sudden appearance and scattered, their tails ribboning as they fled deeper into the dark, silty water. Lyssa screamed, furious at being robbed of her vengeance, the bubbles streaming from her lips almost obscuring the pale blur swimming toward her.
Alderic.
He wrapped his arms around her and hauled her out of the lake, dumping her on the rocky shore and pounding her back with the flat of his hand. She tried to curse at him, but instead she spewed up a glut of water she hadn’t even realized she’d swallowed and began coughing violently.
“What are you doing?” she croaked when she finally caught her breath, looking up at him through the wet tendrils of hair plastered to her face. “I wasn’t finished!”
“Were you trying to get yourself killed?” he shouted at her.
“I wastryingto make them pay for what they did!” She coughed again, her lungs raw from the frigid air, the remnants of icy water.
His shoulders slumped, and he heaved a sigh. “All right, murder-for-brains. Let’s get you back to camp. You’re bleeding worse than the dog was.”
She growled in frustration and struggled to her feet, wrenching away from Alderic when he tried to steady her. The battle-haze was fading fast and every part of her hurt—she had been clawed to shit, and was certainly feeling it now—but she still had her pride. When she was confident she could walk without falling over, she made her way over the sharp, slippery rocks lining the shore and waded back into the icy lake.
“What are you doing?” Alderic asked.
“Looking for the canteen,” she snapped. It was impossible to see anything in the dark water, even with the moonlight gilding the surface, so she swept one foot back and forth instead, feeling for the container. “You know, the one we need for the spell? The one I toldyouto grab, becausemyarms were full of injured dog?”
He winced. “Oh. I’m sorry. That particular request must have gone in one ear and right out the other without making a dent.”
“Clearly.”
“Was it on the dock when you came back down?” he asked.
“One of the mermaids had it,” she said, cursing as another sweep of her foot turned up nothing but more rocks. This was useless; the damned thing was probably at the bottom of the lake, and she was in no condition to go searching for it now. “We’re going to have to get it tomorrow, once it’s light out.”
Alderic wrapped his arms around himself. “What happens if we can’t find it?”
“Then you just delayed this entire enterprise because you couldn’t follow one simple order.” She rubbed her hands over her face in frustration, the clammy chill of her fingertips grounding her further in her body. “There are roughly seven or eight days left until the blackmoon. If we have to go back to Ragnhild’s for another canteen and miss what’s left of the waning moon, we won’t be able to gather the water until thenextwaning moon, which means we won’t be able to kill the Beast until the next turn of the seasons. By then we’ll have to collect the ash wood all over again, too.” She heaved a sigh at his confused expression. “The act of gathering items gives them power, but that power fades after a while. We need them to be as potent as possible, for the sword to work. One job, Alderic. I gave youone job,and you couldn’t even do that.”
“I—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She turned on her heel and limped back to the stone steps leading up the cliffside.
“I’m sorry,” he said anyway, hurrying after her.
Lyssa ignored him.
The climb back to camp was sheer agony, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, to shove the pain down deep. Alderic tried to steady her with his hand at her back again, but this time she wrenched away from him.
When she collapsed in one of the camp stools beside the fire, Brandy whined with worry from where he still lay on the blanket that had served as their makeshift operating table.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Stay there.” He whined again and got up regardless, wobbling over to the eiderdown cushion next to her and settling as best he could with his stitches. She rolled her eyes but reached down to rub his ear all the same. “Why does no one ever listen to me? I told you, I’m fine.”
Alderic hovered beside her, fiddling with one of his waistcoat buttons. “You most certainly are not fine.”
“I’llbefine,” she spat. She turned to glare at him, but her eyes snagged on the ragged scar at his throat. Dimly she remembered that he’d lost his cravat saving Brandy, but she must have been too distracted before to notice what had been hidden beneath it.
“Tend to your own wounds instead of staring at mine,” he said icily, before striding off toward the tent.
She scowled and peeled off her sodden shirt, hissing when the fabric stuck to her skin. Her hands were trembling with the aftermath of her battle-fury, and her throat was still raw from coughing up all that water. She took a deep breath to steady herself, the pain a reminder that she was alive. When she was a little calmer, she inspected her injuries. There was a trio of shallow slices on her stomach—Lyssa must have killed the bitch before its claws got deep enough to disembowel her—and she could feel the ache of another set on her back, near her left shoulder blade. One of the mermaids had definitely taken a bite out of her neck, but it had missed the artery, thank the Lady. She stood and shucked off her shredded pants next, revealing a deep wound on the front of her right thigh.
Alderic sucked in a breath when he returned. “Those look bad,” he said as she stood shivering in her underwear and breastband, the firelight playing over the hard muscles of her body.
“I’ve had worse,” Lyssa said, wincing as she sat back down. It was true, but still… it unnerved her, how badly she had been hurt without even realizing it.
