Page 76 of Brody
“That bad?”he asked, attempting a smile that turned into a grimace of pain.
I’d studied venoms my entire scientific career.I’d seen rotting flesh, full-body poisonings, and nerve-destroying toxins.Nothing had prepared me for this.This wasn’t just venom.It was something older, something with intent.I could almost see it hunting for his core, seeking the fragile bridge between his human and wolf sides.
My mind calculated survival probabilities while my heart seized with terror.His accelerated pre-feral condition was speeding the venom’s spread.
“We need to get you into the water.Now.”My fingers moved to his belt, working it free with unsteady hands.Each second that passed was another moment the venom worked deeper into his system.
The gravity of our situation hit me like a physical blow.This wasn’t a laboratory, and Brody wasn’t a test subject.He was my…
No.I wouldn’t let myself think that way.Not now.Clinical detachment was what he needed, not emotional chaos.
Yet my hands betrayed me, lingering on his burning skin longer than necessary, my fingertips memorizing the contours of muscles I’d traced in darkness just hours ago.Images flashed through my mind, Brody laughing in the kitchen that morning, the way his eyes had softened when I’d told him about Oxford, the gentle touch of his hands on my feet at the bathing pool.Each memory sliced through my mental armor with surgical precision, leaving me bleeding and exposed.
“Don’t you dare leave me now,” I whispered, the words escaping before I could swallow them back.“Not when I just found you again.”
I poured more of the oil along the waistband of his jeans, where dried blood had fused fabric to skin.The foam separated cloth from wounds, allowing me to ease the denim down without causing further injury.When the pants caught on a patch of dried blood, he groaned, the sound tearing through me like physical pain.
“Almost there,” I promised, finally freeing him from the last of his clothing.
The full extent of the damage became visible, stealing my breath.The venom had spread down his left side, the luminescent tendrils pulsing beneath his skin in a sickening rhythm.Where they reached his pre-existing tremor sites, they seemed to intensify, causing muscle spasms so severe I could see the strain on his tendons.
“It’s moving too fast,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears as I kicked off my own hiking boots.My fingers fumbled with the laces, desperation making me clumsy.I peeled off my sweat-soaked socks and reached for the hem of my shirt.
Practicality, not modesty, dictated my next actions.I needed to be in that water with him, skin to skin, the mate bond our best hope against the Fae venom.I stripped quickly.Yet as my clothes fell to the floor in a hasty pile, shirt, sports bra, jeans, underwear, each discarded with single-minded purpose, I couldn’t ignore the electric awareness that this would be the first time our bodies touched with nothing between us.Last night in the pool had been different, deliberate, controlled.This was a raw necessity, primal in its urgency.
I stood naked in the golden light of the Fae dwelling.My nipples tightened in the cooler air, goose bumps rising across my arms and thighs.My body remembered his touch from the night before, the careful massage, the way his hands had moved over my feet with reverent attention, and responded traitorously despite the dire circumstances.
This wasn’t about desire but survival.I repeated the mantra silently at the thought of holding his bare body against mine.
His eyes, though glazed with pain, tracked my movements.Even dying, he was still Brody.
“If this is what it takes to get you naked again,” he slurred, “I should have gotten scratched sooner.”
A strangled laugh escaped me, half sob and half genuine amusement.Even dying, he was trying to make me smile.
“Idiot,” I whispered, sliding my arm around his waist to help him into the pool.“Don’t you dare joke right now.”
His body radiated like a furnace against mine, fever consuming him as the venom worked its way deeper.The horrific glowing network beneath his skin made each muscle and vein stand out in grotesque relief, like a living anatomy lesson gone horribly wrong.
As we slid into the COL water, I positioned myself behind him, pulling his larger frame between my legs, his back against my chest, where I could hold him upright.The water embraced us with liquid warmth, clinging to our skin like a living thing.It immediately began to steam around the venom sites, releasing an acrid smell that made my eyes water and throat constrict.
The COL water tasted of minerals and magic against my lips, carrying whispers of power older than human memory.Around us, the luminescence of the gemstones embedded in the pool’s walls increased, responding to the venom’s invasion with counterpoint rhythms of blue-white light.The air grew thick with opposing magics, Fae venom and Fae healing, crackling with unseen energies that raised the fine hairs on my arms and sent electric tingles across my scalp.
Brody’s blood mixed with the water, creating copper-scented crimson clouds that dissipated into nothingness, absorbed and neutralized by the COL’s purifying properties.Each point where our skin connected, my thighs against his hips, my chest against his back, my arms around his torso, burned with an intensity that transcended physical heat, as if the mate bond itself sought connection through our flesh.
I reached for the bottle of healing oil I’d placed at the pool’s edge, pouring a generous amount into my palm.The substance glowed brighter in proximity to the water, transforming from oil to luminescent foam as I smoothed it over Brody’s wounds.
“This is going to hurt,” I warned, just before pressing firmly against the worst of the gashes, forcing the healing foam deeper into the wound.
His body arched in my arms, a hoarse cry tearing from his throat as the three magical substances—the COL water, the Fae healing essence, and the malevolent venom—waged war inside him.
I held him tighter, tears streaming down my face that I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t acknowledge.“Stay with me, Brody,” I whispered against his ear, all pretense of detachment gone.“Please.Stay with me.”
His skin burned against mine as the fever raged higher.The water around us began to glow faintly blue where it touched the venom, the two substances reacting with increasing volatility.His body convulsed, muscles spasming as the toxin attacked his nervous system.
My inner cheetah clawed against my consciousness, desperate to help our mate.Do something, she demanded.Save him.
“I’m trying,” I whispered aloud.I shifted position, pulling Brody more firmly against me, maximizing skin-to-skin contact.Instinctively, I placed my palm directly over his heart, feeling its erratic rhythm beneath my fingers.
