Frost Bitten (BxB)

Chapter Twenty-Four

You know, I would have very much preferred to stay in the wonderful world of sleep, where my dreams could manifest into anything I could ever want. Like tonight, I had dreamt that Asurah was back in my arms, and that everything had gone back to normal. Asurah had been checking something on his holographic tablet, while I stripped to get into bed. We had flirted back and forth until I was able to coax him into the bed where we made love all night long. I was so happy in that dream, and good God did it feel real. For a time, I really thought that things had finally gone back to normal, that all this bullcrap with Vextian and Ferriah was all a figment of my imagination.

But of course that wasn't the case, for when I woke up, I was back in that damned ship, with sand practically falling into every orifice it could get to.

Ugh, I freaking hated sand.

Once I was fully conscious, I dragged myself up into a sitting position and exhaled slowly, my gazing lingering on everyone else's sleeping forms before it fell onto my knee. The metal piece was still jammed into my leg, and judging from the look of it, it had somehow managed to sink deeper in my sleep. Fantastic. Now I was going to have such a fun time trying to pull that damn thing out so that I could wrap my injury up with whatever was left in the medkit Jox found. It seemed my days were getting better and freaking better.

Not.

I ran my fingers through my curls and gripped the bottom of my pants, tugging until I was able to rip off a decent sized chunk to wrap around my knee after I got that damned metal piece out. I would have left it in...but unfortunately Teiken had been right. With our mission, I couldn't risk moving around too much and having the piece shift and sever an artery. Besides, with us being in a desert, the sand could help clot the blood up to prevent any more bleeding.

God that was going to be the worst part of it. Not even the idea of pulling a metal piece out of my leg could amount to the pain I would feel when I shoved sand onto the open wound. I mean hell, sand was already a gritty, irritating feeling on your skin. Imagine it in a, possibly infected, wound. Yeah, I was already dreading the idea...but if it would help, then I really didn't have a choice.

But first, I needed to get this damn metal thing out of my leg. So I took a deep breath and gripped it, counting to ten before I tried to yank it out, and holy freaking crap I couldn't do it. Nope. As soon as I started to pull it out, sheer agony shot through me so suddenly it brought tears to my eyes. God that sucked. And what was even crappier was the fact that I had only pulled it out a couple of millimeters. My body was now howling in agony, and dammit, I couldn't stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks.

In simpler words, with the positioning of the metal piece and how agonizing it was to pull it out even those couple of centimeters, I needed help to get this damn thing out of me. I don't know what stupidity possessed me to think I could do this on my own...but now my body was screaming at me because of that dumb mistake.

I continued to grit my teeth until I saw movement from the corners of my eyes, my brows pinching together as I turned my head, a breath of relief leaving me as I witnessed Delkele stirring. His brows furrowed with discomfort as he sat up, and after a moment of checking over himself to make sure no permanent damage was done, he sensed me staring and turned that crimson gaze in my direction.

"Thank god you're awake," I spoke, watching Delkele frown in brief confusion, "Jox has been worried sick over your gargantuan butt."

At the mention of the Glacic's name, panic swirled in those crimson eyes as he began looking around the wreckage, the man relaxing when he saw Jox sound asleep against a half buried crate. His gaze softened, and without even looking at me, he spoke. "And how is he? I-I tried to shield him as best as I could..."