Page 58 of Heart of a Witch
I attempted to grab Buttercup, to stop her from biting again, but she’d already slipped through my fingers and was gone. One bite was bad, but two wouldn’t have given us a chance.
Rain lashed down, soaking his shirt and clinging it against his toned muscles. If he died here, both our necks would be inside nooses.
Elijah laid his head back against the grass, his bloodshot eyes finding mine as the storm clouds darkened the gardens. I dropped to my knees at his side, grabbing his wrist in my fingers. His blood was seeping through the fabric, veining out in warning. I pushed his sleeve up and gasped. Buttercup always had been the bitch of the two, but I could never have expected this.
I ran my thumb around the two prolonged punctures, swallowing thickly when I saw the blackening under his skin. The venom was spreading.
“Fuck!” His scream shattered through my brain, forcing me into action. “Ale-Eva, run to the house. There’s a bottle of purple liquid in my dresser. It has a black stopper.” I looked at her through blurred eyes. “Hurry!”
She nodded, closing her slack jaw, then turned to run.
A groan escaped his lips as he bit back a third scream.
“It’s okay.” My breath hitched.Think, Tori, think. “I’m going to need you to sit up. Can you do that?”
He tried to angle his body forward, but he groaned through clenched teeth, dropping back. I needed his arm to be lower than the level of his heart.
“Lean against me,” I said, moving until I was behind him.
He groaned as he pushed his back up against me.
I moved my legs to either side of him, taking his weight until the back of his head was resting against my shoulder. “That’s enough.”
I glared at the bite. I’d never seen firsthand the result of a black Salvian viana, but I’d heard stories of those who were bitten. Rarely any made it out alive. Soon, if the stories were correct, he’d begin convulsing. If the shock didn’t kill him first. He wrapped his fingers around the bite and moaned.
“You’re going to be okay.” I squeezed his shoulder.
His eyes rolled back.
“You need to stay calm. Eva will be back soon. I have a remedy that will stop the venom. I usually keep it on my person, but I left it at home…” I shook my head. “I know it hurts, but soon the pain will subside. I need you to stay awake and as calm as you can be. Can you say something? Anything?”
I wrapped my arms around him as shivers ran up his back, then down his arms. Splaying my fingers over his chest, I felt his heart racing against my fingertips. Every few seconds, it would skip a beat.
“W-where is the snake?”
I breathed in deeply. I had no idea where she’d gone. I eyed the grass, panic setting in momentarily. I was mad at her, but I couldn’t lose her. “Safely away,” I lied.
He was fading away, his eyes closing.
No, no, no. “Elijah.” I grabbed his shirt. He was sweating even under the rain. I unbuttoned it, and he flinched. I peeled it off him and used it to wrap around the area. “Your back.” My eyebrows pinched in the middle. Long, jagged scars ran the length of his back, zigzagging across each other, some pinker than others. “What happened?”
“Don’t.” He groaned, trying to turn away.
“Did you have an accident?”
He shuddered. “It-it’s nothing,” he said through chattering teeth. His temperature was all over the place. I needed a distraction. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about the scars, so I made a mental note to bring them up later, if he survived.
“Tell me about your mother,” I said quickly, remembering him bringing her up once.
He scoffed a laugh. “Y-you want to t-talk about my mom… now?”
I pressed my lips together. “Yes.” I scrambled around my mind for questions. Anything to keep him not focused on the pain. “Did she look more like you or Corbin?”
“Corbin,” he said, shaking out a short exhale. “I-I hate she never had a chance to meet h-him.” His breaths shallowed as cold seeped through. Even I was shaking, and I didn’t have venom forcing its way into my veins.
Where in the underworld was Alex?
“How did she meet your father?”
