His Wicked Days

Chapter Two

It's just a wounded face, I told myself. You've seen wounded faces. So I tried to be impartial against some repressed emotion as I reached for one of his closed eyes to pull the lid apart to check his pupils. The moment my fingers fell on his skin my wrist was locked in an iron grip.

The short scream I gave echoed around the empty gardens as the Fae's breath came fast. I could see the pain each inhale caused in his eyes, a bright honey gold, as he stared at me with his hand around my wrist.

My heart was pounding behind my ribs, my lips and throat dry, but I found my voice and spoke as calmly as I could. "It's alright," I said as he took me in, his long fingers tight on my skin. "I just want to help you."

He stared at me for a little longer, weakness and pain slipping past his shock, and then he released my wrist and let his arm drop with a thud. Through his ragged breathing, he said, "Leave me."

With those two words his head lolled to the side, away from my gaze, and he took one final breath that sounded like a surrender. But he wasn't close enough to death for it to take him just like that, and those two words chilled me to the bone.

Leave me, Amos had said when I'd tried to coax him into talking. Leave me, he'd told me, yelled at me, whenever I tried to make him smile or make him move. So I had. I'd let him wallow, I'd let him grumble, and I'd let him suffer.

Leave me, his last words to me as I screamed and cried and tried all I could to stop the bleeding. I wished then, so hard that it made me shake, that the bitch of a human girl who had snapped his heart in two could see him there, in his final moments, as he bled for her. But not as much as I'd wished I'd never listened to his demands.

I took in a deep, tight breath and looked at the wounded creature in the snow below me. I blinked the memory from my eyes, but it stayed in my heart. "You need attention," I said to the Fae, though it seemed I was saying it to myself. "The wound on your leg is--"

"Let it fester," he said roughly, "and get away from here." His voice was cold and deep, and it sent a shiver of fear down my spine. I had a suspicion that if he yelled it could bring down the house behind me.

His dark words made my stomach turn. "You need help," I told him carefully. "Let me help you."

"I need nothing," he stated, and he tried to push himself up. The moment he bent his waist he cried out and fell back into the snow with a grimace. I caught his head before it could crack against the stone.

"Take it slow, don't try to move," I said as he struggled for breath. I looked behind me to the massive house, then across the gardens and out towards the rolling fields beyond. "Are you alone here? Do you live here?"

I couldn't imagine anyone living in this vacant place full of disrepair, but when I looked back down I found a set of golden eyes glowering at me. "Get away from here," he rasped out. "I didn't ask for your help, I don't need it."

You certainly do, I thought, but saying it aloud would do no good. I'd handled my fair share of stubborn patients. "You have terrible bruising around your head and chest. It's why you're finding it hard to breathe," I said, just as he tried to take in a deep breath. He looked at me, dazed. "And why you might be a bit delirious. And then there's your leg. The wound there is deep and it could get infected if we don't get you inside."

"Then let it," he grumbled, trying to sit up again.

I shook my head. "Do you want to die from an infection?"

"It would be better that way!"

Birds flew off at his voice, which boomed and echoed around us for far too long. I pulled back from him as his chest heaved and he did his best to keep the pain of it from showing on his face. He fell back on his elbow, the exertion of his sudden anger too much for his battered body.