Page 12 of Bite of Passage
“Do witches smell like people?I don’t have a super sniffer like you.”
“They smell different than you.You fell out of thin air.That’s powerful magic.”He put his sword back into the sheath on his back and pushed his coat aside to put a hand over the area where he’d been hit by the fire sword.She expected him to complain, like any other person would.He didn’t.
“Let me see what he did to you.”She pushed his hand out of the way without permission and moved aside his leather coat to duck her head near the wound.The need to evaluate the injury came second nature.
“I’d give anything for a flashlight,” she said.The dim light sucked for a good visual inspection, but she pulled apart the edges of his soft cotton shirt where it’d been torn from the fire sword to find seared skin and oozing blood.“Motherfucker, that must hurt.”
“It does.”A little chuckle came out of him.
Laughter wasn’t something she’d ever heard from him on the show—genuine humor.She glanced up.The mirth reached his eyes.
He loomed over her by well over a foot in all directions.“You’re tall,” she said.“And big.I didn’t think you’d be so…”
“You’re short.”
She compressed her lips and snapped upright.“It’s not nice to point out a lady’s deficiencies, especially when I’m not wearing shoes, and I just saved your ass.”
His smile showed off even, white teeth and those huge fangs.Had she ever seen him grin like this?Maybe she had.Her brain racked through the older episodes.With him this close, smelling like oiled leather, blood, and—oh dear lord, whatever that heavenly scent above everything else was—shorted out her brain.She couldn’t sort out if this was him pulling his fake seduction routine or the real Skarde.
Her hand was somehow back on his hard stomach.She snatched it away.His ridged abdomen had been on naked display three episodes ago when a fae undressed him in an attempt to use sex to manipulate him into killing off a demented second cousin of hers.Bad on him for letting the fae use him to begin with.He was smarter than that, or at least she hoped he was.
The episode ended before Gemma got a chance to see what happened in the bedroom.Oh, she’d have watched in full graphic detail, if they’d shown it.
“I’m dizzy.I’ve never felt this from being close to someone.You being you…you have some sort of allure thing that’s sucking my ability to think out of my head.”She swallowed hard and crossed her arms.“Sex is not coming into the picture.Shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I?Didn’t mean to.”She fanned her face.
“Where are you from?”he asked in that raspy voice which was far more potent in person.“Your accent is odd.”
“You’d never believe me if I tried to explain it.Somewhere not here.I’m not even sure how I got here.One minute you were hell bent on dying.The next I’m here in the cold, miserable forest shooting your psycho wizard.”
“Go back where you came from.Petra’s army is on the way to finish me if the wizard failed.”He glanced behind him and tilted his head as if listening.
“You need to leave too.”
“I can handle it.”
She reached in to touch near his injured side again with barely a press…
He hissed and growled.His focus snapped back to her.
She jumped away from him.“It’s cold, the rain is picking up, and you’re bleeding.You’re barely recovered from a spell.You might be decent in a fight, but you can’t handle an army by yourself.”
“Humans are child’s play.”
“Do you want to die?”She cocked her head.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but she saw it.
The biggest badass on the show was going to let them capture or slaughter him?Not on her watch.“What if she’s brining more than humans?You’re not invincible, even if you do have immortality and some ninja skills on your side.They’ll slice off your head or something.”
He massaged the back of his neck.“You have no idea of what I’m capable.”
“I think you wanted that wizard to kill you.Since when did you become suicidal?”
He released a frustrated snort.“I had a plan.If you’d let him use the hex on me instead of… I don’t know how you even lifted that crossbow being so tiny.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“You almost hit me.If he’d cast the death hex it would’ve boomeranged back at him.”He pulled out the Celtic pendant around his neck as if that explained everything.
