Fury Read online

  “The mirror, Nyx.”

  I looked to the left and saw the mirror, both of us clearly visible and I met his eyes in the reflection. I didn’t miss the small smirk he wore, but I ignored it when my gaze dropped to the blood coating his side. He threw his vest to the floor and I sucked in a breath.

  The claws on the animal had sliced from his back and around to his side.

  “Salem, you are not fine.” I said, my voice shaking a little as I took in the severity of the wounds. “I’ll go get Tasha.”

  He shook his head, “I sent her with Joshua. I’ll be okay, I just need to stitch up the cuts. Please, stay in here until I’m finished. There’s nobody to watch you in case he tries something else with you and until I heal I won’t be much use.”

  He said this as he worked on unbuttoning the cuffs at his wrists and I watched the muscles in his back bunch. Each movement had to hurt but he made no sound. My eyes moved back up to his face in the mirror and I saw the pain flash in his face before he schooled his expression.

  I wasn’t going to stand here and watch him struggle. This was my fault and if he’d been a minute later it would have been me sliced up.

  I walked around him and my hands pushed his away as I undid the buttons for him.

  “You’d think someone dubbed the King of the Underworld would be able to will the buttons open.” I teased, moving to the other wrist.

  He let out a harsh breath and my eyes flew to his face thinking I’d hurt him but there wasn’t any pain in his expression. His eyes were bright and both corners of his mouth were turned up. Had he just laughed?

  “It’s not a talent I’ve acquired.” He said, and even though the words were stiff, there was humor in them.

  He’d laughed and now he was teasing me back? If we walked back outside would we see his world frozen over?

  His hands moved to the top button of his shirt and this time, I did see pain.

  “Stop it.” I said, pushing his hands away and unbuttoning each of them for him. Once that was done I added, “Just drop your arms.”

  He listened to me.

  Listened and did as I asked.

  He must be seriously hurting to be this agreeable.

  I moved back around him and reached up to his collar. I was going to attempt to slide the shirt off his arms with as little contact as possible, but it was a slow process and every so often my fingers brushed skin.

  A trail of goosebumps formed on his skin where I touched him and I was sure that was due to how cold my fingers were from the outside air. When I finally got the shirt off of him I walked over and deposited it on the ruined vest.

  I had been trying not to think of what I was doing as an intimate thing, but I was failing. I dismissed the fact that he really was gorgeous, ignored the way my heart beat sped up as I took him in and rejected the idea that I could be attracted to him at all. Or I tried to.

  My body’s reaction to him had been a lot easier to ignore when he had only been the man who’d taken me. It was harder now that I saw him as the man who looked out for his people. The man who was dating a shrew of a woman in order to fulfill job requirements. The man who doted on Jane, depended on Joshua and Tasha and respected Charon just for being themselves. The man who had just saved my life.

  I swallowed hard to clear the lump in my throat as I said, “This is about where my nursing abilities end. You’re going to have to walk me through anything else.”

  “It’s fine. You can wait for me in here, I’ll stitch myself up in the bathroom.”

  I probably should have agreed with him and taken a seat on the couch, but I wasn’t going to let feelings I was definitely not—possibly, maybe—having, force him into more pain. Not when it was pain I was responsible for.

  “Yeah? You’re going to take care of this on your own? How are you going to twist to reach those cuts when you couldn’t even handle the buttons?”

  He turned to face me, winced, and I put both hands on my hips and met his stare with one of my own. He didn’t look like he was going to listen to me.

  He walked to his desk and began pulling things from drawers and I rolled my eyes and was about to abandon my crusade when he stumbled, just catching himself on the desk before he fell.

  I was already crossing the room to him when he sighed and said, “Can you sew a stitch?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced over to me, his eyebrows raising in question.

  “My Watcher taught us all to sew. She was kind of old fashioned.” I said, pulling out the chair tucked under the desk and turning it around.

  He nodded as he straddled the chair and a door appeared in the wall next to the desk.

  “You’ll need towels to wipe the blood so you can see the cuts.”

  I opened the door and grabbed several towels from the shelf, wetting each of them with warm water before I headed back into his room.

  I knelt behind him and was careful to avoid the cuts themselves as I wiped the drying blood from his back and side. By the time I’d finished, each of the hand towels were covered in black.

  He already had a needle threaded by the time I finished cleaning him up and explained how far apart each stitch should be and how deep. There was a small pop that had my stomach rolling each time it bit into his skin but I kept from throwing up by talking my way through it.

  “I was reading in the library when a door appeared. I assumed it was you.”

  He didn’t say anything but I needed the distraction.

  “You’d told me I could walk the grounds once this was over and I thought you were being nice, letting me out for good behavior or something. The forest was beautiful, Salem. I did put a rock in the door to keep it propped open but he moved it. I swear I wasn’t trying to escape, I just wanted to look.”

  “I didn’t think you were trying to escape.”

  That made me feel better.

  “What kind of trees are those? The ones that make up the forest.”

  “Bloodroots.”

  I scrunched up my nose and when he spoke I looked up to see him watching me in the mirror, his lips turning up at the corners again. “You don’t like the name?”

  “They’re beautiful for such an ugly name.” I stated, going back to stitching.

  “Nyx, they’re black trees with red leaves and when they’re in season, they drip blood red sap.”

  “Still.”

  “What would you call them?”

  I thought about it but shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ll come up with something.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  I ignored the implication that I had an opinion on everything. I’d made it through the first slash and asked how to tie off the stitching before moving on to the next one.

  “I’m sorry, Salem. This is all my fault. I should have realized you would have gone out with me if you’d wanted me outside.”

  “This is not your fault. I brought you into this. I made this your problem.” He muttered, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it. “I felt the magic in the forest change with the hunt and happened to look out and see you. I walked out into the forest just as I saw the hound lunge and it was me or you. I made another choice concerning you, only this time, it was the right one.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. There was pain in his voice and it wasn’t from the wounds. He truly did feel guilty about what he’d done and from the sound of it he’d regretted it. We fell into silence as I stitched and it was only when I was halfway done with the last cut I spoke up again.

  “I don’t agree with kidnapping people, Salem, but I understand why you did what you did. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have helped you if time would have allowed an explanation, so stop beating yourself up over it.”

  “And my excuse for the Land of Mists?”

  “Well, there is no excuse for that one.” I said with a grin, “That was just you being an impatient jerk.”

  Once I had tied off the last stitch and cleaned up the ruined clothes and towels,
Salem offered me the use of his shower, which I refused.

  “I don’t know how comfortable you’ll be covered in blood.” He said, “We’ll be in here until the others get home. I’m not leaving you alone again.”

  I thought about that for a moment and conceded.

  “Fine. But I’m taking some clothes too. I’m not getting back into these after I’m clean.”

  “Take what you need.”

  After my shower I walked into his closet and I couldn’t believe what I saw. There were suits. Black suits, gray suits, blue suits filling two-thirds of the closet. Just suits. Then there were the dress shoes and the ties, but the truly unbelievable part was the fact that the last third of the closet was full of t-shirts, jeans and even sweatpants.

  I grabbed a t-shirt and some sweats and pulled them on. I had to tie and then fold the sweat pants a few times to keep them from slipping off my hips, but it was better than my other clothes.

  When I walked back out into the room I saw Salem sitting on the couch. He looked up when he heard me and then reached over and held out a glass full of a maroon liquid.

  “You liked the trees so much,” he said, as I took the glass and sat on the other side of the couch. “I thought you’d like something good to tie to them instead of the hunt you took part in.”

  “Almost becoming prey to the fae didn’t take away from the beauty of that forest, Salem. But I appreciate the gesture.” I sipped the drink and was surprised. It tasted like caramel with a bite of underlying alcohol.

  “The sap is used to sweeten it and give it the color.” He explained as I took another sip.

  “It’s really good.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “So, what else is in the forest?”

  “Besides Dark Fae and their hounds?”

  I nodded.

  “A lot.” He said, sitting back before he winced and leaned forward again. “Anything in particular that you’re interested in?”

  “Just everything.”

  His lips curved up into a grin, “Oh, just that.” He said softly. He finished off his drink and set the glass on the coffee table in front of us.

  To my surprise, he was very forthcoming.

  He told me about Sprites, his description reminding me of troll dolls with butterfly wings. They were tricksters and the Dark Fae hated them. He told me more about the fae. How they lived in a village they built in the trees and that Fenris was their leader, along with his mate, Lanaya. He told me about different plants and fruits that I’d never heard of but a lot of them I had. We talked about the river that surrounded both the forest and the house. It was protected, barring all who would do him and his any harm.

  I listened with fascination as I finished my drink and when he’d told me all he could think of concerning the forest, I asked him broader questions about the Underworld itself. The lands were vast and more populated than I’d assumed. There were farmlands and people to work them, a small town just outside those lands where the workers lived. Further east were bigger cities where more of the population lived and Salem hated from the sounds of it.

  “Where did all the people come from?”

  “They were born here. We don’t make a habit of kidnapping, Nyx. You were a special case.”

  I grinned, “That’s good to know.”

  “There are some lines of families that were brought over from your world as slaves. But the Underworld hasn’t operated like that since before my father’s father.”

  “Brought over like you brought Joshua and Tasha?”

  “And Jane.” He confirmed. “Joshua had been a victim of a mugging. He’d been stabbed and was bleeding out when I found him. I offered him a choice though, I don’t like to force. Tasha had ovarian cancer, stage four. Jane was the product of a domestic violence of both parents. Neither of them up to the task of parenting. I found her reading in the hospital, black and blue all over. She was released to her uncle and he…he was not a good man either. I asked her if she wanted to go with me and she said yes.”

  Each one of them had been dying and he’d saved them. Given them a choice for a better life. No wonder they talked like they owed him everything. In a way they did.

  We moved from one topic to another and I listened to everything he was willing to share. Asking him questions, teasing him and laughing at some stories. But the longer we talked and with the adrenaline from the forest incident wearing off, my lids grew heavy.

  I fell asleep to the sound of his voice as he explained the hierarchy of his home.

  At some point, I felt the couch dip and a blanket was laid over me. I moved my head slightly to the pillow that was moved under my it and sleep took over again.

  Knocking pulled at my subconscious and I was vaguely aware of voices.

  “Come in.” Salem’s voice rumbled beneath me but I was too worn out to make sense of that.

  “Sir, I can’t find—”

  “She’s here.”

  “Would you like me to move her?”

  “No, but will you see to feeding Fitz?”

  “Of course. Do you need anything?”

  “No.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Night, Charon.”

  I dreamed of the creatures Salem had told me about, the places he described and I dreamed I was allowed to come and go as I wished. It was just a dream, but it was the best one I’d had since I’d been brought here.

  Chapter 6

  Iwas too warm. Something that had warred with my ability to sleep since I could remember. I could roll to the side of the bed that hadn’t been heated by my body or I could get up. The fog of sleep in my brain lifted, making my choice for me as I stretched out my body. My hair fell over my face with the movement and I was reaching up to push it back when gentle fingers tucked the strands behind my ear.

  My eyes opened and the first thing I saw was a bare stomach and long legs covered in a pair of dress pants. I didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to deduce the very obvious fact in front of me. I’d used the King of the Underworld as a pillow last night. I was tucked under his arm, but he moved it as I sat up, a blanket falling from my shoulder.

  “Morning.” He said, his voice was deep and raspy from sleep.

  Shock and surprise emptied my mind of what to say, so I said the only thing my brain seemed capable of coming up with in the moment. “I slept on you.”

  “You did.” He confirmed, and with effort he kept his face blank, but there was humor in his eyes.

  “You’re warm.” I stated, keeping up with obvious statements until I could make sense of this.

  He lost the battle he’d been having with himself as his lips twitched with amusement, “Did you expect me to be cold?”

  “You’re warm all the time.”

  The observation got me a grin and I wasn’t in control of myself enough to ignore a grin like that. An ooey-gooey feeling settled warmly in my stomach at the sight of it.

  “I guess that explains your eagerness to use me as bedding. You felt cold last night. I was trying to wrap a blanket around you but it was slow going with my back and side. You mistook my arm for a pillow and what kind of person would I be if I’d tried to wake you?”

  His back. The cuts and stitches. The reason I was in his room in the first place. How had I forgotten? I should have gone back to my room when I’d gotten tired. He’d been stuck on a couch because he was trying to be nice. There was no way sitting propped up with his cuts pressed to a couch would have been pleasant.

  “I’m so sorry, Salem. I should have gone back to my room so you could’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.”

  “I slept fine.” He said, his eyes on my face as if he was waiting for a reaction.

  “You would have slept better in your bed.” I pointed out, running a hand through my hair as I shook my head. “I didn’t drool on you, did I?”

  “I mopped it up with your hair.”

  The comment made me smile, “You’re teasing me?” I asked, his grin returning with my smile
. “If you weren’t hurt I’d throw something at you.”

  “I’d catch it.”

  I didn’t doubt that.

  “Is your back okay? The stitches held and you’re all right?”

  He nodded, but our attention was pulled from each other when voices echoed down the hall.

  “You’re telling me he’s sick?” Briella’s voice was both unmistakable and full of disbelief. “He doesn’t get sick!”

  “Briella, you can’t just barge in there!” Tasha yelled, not happy from the sounds of it.

  Oh no.

  After a week of tense mornings and snide comments I didn’t care what she thought of me, but this wasn’t going to be good for Salem. A part of me hated I cared because it would be fun to watch her try and make sense of this situation, but I didn’t need to make his life harder.

  “I should go. If you make a doorway, I can—”

  I started to stand, but he held up a hand and said, “No.”

  “Salem, I don’t want to cause problems between you two and she’s not going to be happy to find me in here.”

  “Briella is seldom happy and right now her happiness rates low on my list of priorities.”

  I wasn’t sure if Salem was just clueless of the problems this would cause him or if he was sure Briella would stay with him after this because she wanted the title, but selfishly I spoke my mind just as he got up.

  “I’d like to visit,” I blurted, the words coming out in a rush and he stopped walking, his back straightening as he took in my words. “After we’ve dealt with Abaddon. I like it here and I don’t think she’ll allow it if she thinks I’ve slept with you.”

  “You’d…” he trailed off, like he didn’t quite believe the words he was going to say before he turned and looked at me. “You’d want to come back? Voluntarily?”

  “Yes. I wanted to ask before, but I wasn’t sure if that’s something that was allowed or if…”

  “If what?”

  “If you and everyone else would want me to come back.” I finished.

  He didn’t say anything and I wondered if he was trying to come up with a way to let me down gently when the door knob turned and the door flew open.

  Briella swept into the room wearing a pale-yellow gown that clung to her form. The neckline was low and the cap sleeves fell off the shoulder. Her gaze went from his shirtless form before going around the room and landing on me. She looked over my disheveled hair, the clothes that weren’t mine and the fact that it was early and I was in here and her eyes narrowed.