Chapter 4
Four
Govek was in agony.
The boar had gouged out a chunk of his side. One healing tincture hadn't been enough, but he was loath to use another, especially since the Spring of the Fades was close enough to spit in.
His senses were still fucking muddled from leaving Rove Wood, and now his nose was scorched, blistered, and aching. Whatever vile tincture the woman—Miranda—had used to throw off the wolves had burned him as well.
Fuck his raging instincts back to the Fades who'd given them to him. If he hadn't been so desperate to get a taste of the woman's true scent, he wouldn't be half gone right now.
Why did his base urges always lure him right toward the women he should avoid?
"Do I belong to you or with you?"
Govek sucked in a shuddering breath as the woman's voice tingled through him like a balm. He should not have scented her. Should not have given into his wretched urges, but the damage was done. Fucking done.
She was imprinting within him. Her essence was soaking into his mind and connecting her to his being. He could feel her presence like a gentle hum in his head, steady and unyielding.
"Did you hear me?" Her warm fingers brushed the back of his wrist and Govek was crushed by the longing to wrench her off her feet and into his arms.
Why did she keep touching him? Didn't she see what he was?
"Before you said I belonged ‘with' you, and now you say I belong ‘to' you."
He did not think there was much of a difference. This woman's speech was so strange. Her every move and word clouded his mind.
He'd seen her fall out of the fucking sky like a Fades-blasted conjuring.
"Are you of the Waking Order?" Govek snarled, too low, too viciously. He'd terrify her, and she'd flee, and his instincts would force him to give chase.Such exertion would cause his puncture to worsen, and it would be sheer torture trying to hunt her down.
He should have bound her. Then she wouldn't be able to run. The beastly desire had his fingers itching to retrieve the rope from his pack.
"You mentioned that already. Is it some sort of club?" She sidled up close enough that he could feel her warmth radiating against his tender flesh. She looked so fucking good in the cloak he'd made. He wished he could scent her again, but if he got too close, her tincture would wound him further.
But under it, on those few patches of skin not doused in the vile concoction, she smelled better than any female he had ever been near. Like honey and crisp morning sun.
Fuck! What was wrong with him? He should try to stop the imprint, not strengthen it.
She continued to chatter. "I'm not a member of any clubs. I don't have time for them. I work two full-time jobs just to afford my apartment. Three, if you count the under-the-table babysitting gigs."
His brow twitched. She sat on babies?
"Gosh, the Youngs asked me to babysit next week, didn't they? They pay really good, but dang, it's a chore. I love Taylor, but she's a menace sometimes. Her tantrums are loud enough to piss off the next town over."
The woman trailed off and a haunting expression dimmed her features. Her eyes grew misty, and her voice trembled. "They're all dead."
His claws extended. "Dead?"
She snapped to attention, hugging herself tight. Whatever had happened to these babies she'd sat on was clearly weighing on her mind.
And her existence wore on his.
"How did you get here?" Something wasn't right with her. Humans didn't have magic. She shouldn't have been able to just appear.
Was she a trap? Why was she babbling about death?
Her haunted brown eyes pierced into his soul and hooked in his gut.
"I don't know. I was in my world, and then I got chased off a cliff." She shook her head, looked off into the woods again. "I must be dreaming."
"In my world." She was from a different world?
He should leave her here in the woods.
That thought had his veins bursting with heat, scorching him from the inside out.
He was imprinting hard.
And that was fucking nonsense, too. It should have taken at least the full length of a moon before imprinting even began. Yerina's imprint hadn't set inside him until almost a full season had passed.
Yet somehow, this woman was thoroughly embedded after he'd simply watched her fall out of the air.
He'd heard of instant imprinting before, but in legends—stories told to children. He had never heard of a single occurrence where it had been real.
"It's so pretty," she said, more to herself than to him. "I can't believe my brain imagined all this. I hope I..." She stopped walking, her eyes skewered a golden coneflower, half withered in the mud at the base of a barren oak. "I hope I don't come to before I die."
His heart seized at the thought. "This isn't an imagining, and you will not die, woman. You are my conquest."
For the will of Fades! Why did he keep calling her that? She wasn't his blasted conquest. He wasn't going to take a conquest. He was going to war. To Baelrok Forge, where Karthoc's legions trained.
She finally glanced away from the flower. "Your conquest, huh? What exactly does that mean?"
She didn't know what a conquest was. Where the fuck was she from?
Govek ground his teeth.He should leave her here.
And then she reached out her blasted, warm, perfect fingers to touch his arm. It had been so Fades-wretched long since he'd been honored with such gentleness, and his mind was in blazing tatters.
And her imprint raged deeper.
"I will care for you," he finally managed. The truth of it stung his throat. He'd spent far too many miserable hours trying to care for his prior woman, only to have it all crumble around him. He'd given everything to Yerina. All that he had the power to give.
And it wasn't enough.
There was no overcoming his own vile nature and lack of control. He could only hide it for a short time before it finally bubbled to the surface.
"That sounds really nice," she whispered.
His heart thundered so hard it warmed up his chest. Miranda's eyes were so soft on him they may as well have been the rapids he'd just endured. She wrenched him under with her tenderness and he helplessly allowed her to batter him.
"Where are we going?" she asked before he regained his senses. "Or are we just going to wander about in the woods for a while? I'm fine with that, by the way. Wandering around. It's..." She fixated on a flock of robins flying overhead. Their arrow formation pointed toward the Rove Tree, and Govek clenched his fists.
It was too blasted early for them to be abandoning the outer woods for the protection the Great Tree offered. Winter was coming on hard.
"Tough guy? You okay?"
He scowled. "My name is Govek, woman."
"Call me Miranda, and maybe I'll call you by your name, too."
He growled low in his throat, the sound a threatening reverberation that sent the birds who had been chattering pleasantly into uneasy silence.
The female did nothing but raise her dainty brows in interest. She rubbed at her chest. An area he had been desperately trying to avoid staring at. "Ooh. That's tingly. How do you do that?"
He had never met a challenge quite the likes of this human, and his curiosity grew greater than his reservations. He took a moment to examine her fragile form. She was average height for a woman, which meant she only came up to the middle of his chest. She was wearing fucking scraps, and the cloak he'd given her wasn't tied together properly. Her waist was so slender he could span it with two hands. Her cheeks were ashen, the bags under her light brown eyes were heavy, and her hair was so matted and unwashed he could not discern what the actual color was.
She was not an impressive specimen to behold. Certainly not the kind of creature he would have thought could withstand his threats.
A caress to his forehead caused him to realize how close he had leaned into her.
Too close. The sweet, honeyed scent of her managed through his muddled senses and skewered his gut. It sent his mind spiraling into fractures and made his knees want to crumble.
Then her fucking tincture started to burn.
"You don't look so good." She stroked her fingertips along his forehead before covering it with her palm. "You're really hot. Er—I mean temperature wise, not attractive wise. Not that you aren't attractive because you totally are, I just—Dang it. Uh—" She backed away, cheeks bright pink.
Govek gulped, hardly able to keep up with her frantic babbling.
"Just... just forget I said anything," she said. "You have a fever. Or I think you do. I don't know what orc body temperature is supposed to be, but you weren't that hot a few minutes ago. Are you sick?"
Fever? He forced himself to straighten, reassess his condition.
He pressed back his soaked woolen cloak to take stock of the gouge.
"That . . . looks bad."
Distracted from the task, he glanced at Miranda's pale face, her trembling frame.
"That looks like..." Her wide eyes fixed on his side. "Looks like something you might get from falling off a cliff."
What was this insane babbling about? Why was she so Fades-wretched confusing? "I got this from a boar."
"A boar?" Her brow furrowed. "You mean like a pig?"
"Yes. One with spikes at the base of its great tusks." He took a threatening step nearer. "Did you have anything to do with that?"
It wasn't logical. He knew that the moment the words left his lips. Of course, she didn't have anything to do with the boar.
And yet he stalked nearer still, looming over her, his very bones wanting to render the truths out of her throat by force.
She fucking bridged the gap between them and lifted the edge of his shirt so she could look at the injury again. Govek froze, shock icing him over.
Her hands were so blasted tender as they grazed his flesh. It made him forget the throbbing agony. "Oh, man, this looks really, really bad. Do you have bandages or anything? I can patch you up."
Govek adjusted to finally look at himself and his chest seized with shock.
Rapidly, he became aware of his physical condition. He'd been so caught up in the woman he hadn't realized how hard he was breathing or how clammy his skin was. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, and his left hip was going numb.
"Are you okay?" His conquest's worry cut through him. "Are you going into shock? Sit down."
Ignoring her order, Govek ripped the edge of his shirt away to get a better look at his puncture wound. He found it grisly—oozing blood and pus. Black veins snaked from the hole like shattered glass. His whole side was turning purple.
"Goblin poison. Fuck."
How the humans had gotten their hands on goblin poison was beyond him, but it did not bode well for the Under-Dwellers. Apparently, their retreat into the structure of Faeda had not been deep enough.
"What's goblin poison?" Miranda asked with not nearly the amount of worry one would usually have speaking those words. "What are goblins?"
He couldn't answer her. His mind was foggy and his limbs were starting to tingle with the telltale numbness that came before full paralysis hit.
Paralysis that led to inevitable death.
"Fuck," he raged, though it came out slurred and sounded odd.
He flung his pack off his shoulder, finding the task alarmingly difficult, and tried to open it. There was nothing inside that would help him. There were no orc-made tinctures strong enough to fight goblin magic.
The Spring of the Fades was his only hope. It would heal him. He turned toward it, only to have his legs collapse. He hit the ground hard, but barely felt it.
The woman said something that sounded like a question, but he was too busy getting his muscles to obey his commands to pay her any attention.
But he should have. He needed aid.
Aid from her? He didn't even know where she had come from.
His energy evaporated in waves and he laid down on his back in the wet leaves.
"What are you doing? I meant just sit down. Okay, fine. You do you," the woman conceded.
His eyes were blurry, but he could still make her out. "Fade Spring."
"What?" She settled down next to him. Her brow furrowed. "Let me help you back up." She tried to pull on him, groaning with exertion. He could sense the pressure of her grip on his arm, but couldn't feel the warmth.
"Spring," he gasped, pointing a single finger as she lifted his arm. She was so fucking weak. "Water. Drench out the... poison."
"A spring?" She looked into the woods. "Where? I don't see it."
For fuck's sake. He wasn't even surprised. Not a single person in this miserable world gave a fuck if he died here in the dirt. He shouldn't have expected this mystery woman to either.
For all he knew, she was the one who had poisoned him. Or at least was in league with the humans who had trussed up the boar. They'd stolen goblin poison. They could have stolen magic that could make her fall from the sky, too.
Though... for the life of him, he could not recall any being on Faeda ever having such powerful skills.
It didn't matter if he understood it or not. His life depended on her.
"H-hurry," he managed, closing his eyes. He wouldn't be able to blink in a moment and he didn't want to be trapped with them open. "Water."
He heard the wind in the trees, the fidgeting of the woman as she got a little closer. The frigid grip of numbness sliced over his senses. Filling out his chest. Pulling down his limbs. He could not even feel the air going into his nose and throat. The only way he knew he still breathed was by the simple fact that he hadn't passed out yet.
And he would soon.
Panic raged through him and it hardly registered because he was already so fucking gone. At least he could still hear.
"Huh. Well, this is suddenly boring."
Govek wished he couldn't hear after all.
Though, he supposed now would be the time she would bring out her cohorts, and he'd learn the truth of how she had gotten here. One mystery solved before he breathed his last.
"Should I continue on without you? But like... where?"
She didn't know where to go?
"I'mma get so lost if I go anywhere. I've never had good navigational skills to begin with. Though I guess since I don't really have a destination, I can't get lost. Hm, kinda tricky, that one. Can you get lost if you have nowhere to go?"
What was she rambling about now? Was no one coming to fetch her?
Was she . . . really alone?
As alone as he was?
"This is an awfully nice dream, but it's a little cold. And I'd rather be completely distracted."
Completely distracted from what?
"Dreaming about you just lying here isn't exciting enough. Maybe I should fathom up a carnival next?"
Oh, for fuck's sake.
This was it. He was going to die. He was going to suffocate next to a crazy woman who thought she was in a fucking dream.
Her dream. His nightmare.
"Hm, not working."
Was she honestly trying to create entertainment for herself?
"I'd rather you just wake up, though. You can get up now."
Sure, I'll get right on that.
"No seriously. Get up." There was another pause. "You're worse. Why are you getting worse? Why can't I control anything?"
He raged with the need to yell at her and yank her from her insanity.
If she hadn't come here to kill or capture him, then she should hurry up and save him.
"I really don't want to be alone."
If she didn't want to be alone, she needed to go get the fucking water.
"Get up now, please. Really. Up you get." She made a sound like she'd just tried to lift him, but he didn't feel it.
It was almost like floating in an abyss. Relaxing, if he could forget he was moments away from his demise.
"Okay, okay. This isn't working. I wonder..." Rustling sounded nearby. "Look, dude, I'm stealing your stuff. Wake up and stop me." She was digging through his pack.
Some of his panic ebbed to make way for amusement.
"Let's see, what else do we have—ow!"
Amusement over. His instincts roared to life, fighting hard against the poison. She was fucking injured. He could smell the blood, and he couldn't do a blasted thing about it.
"That hurt. I'm hurt. Dreams don't hurt."
The fear in her tone was agony.
"Dreams don't hurt. This... this is real. Is this real?"
He wished he could answer her.
"Please get up now."
Then the truth of it all hit her, and fuck, he almost wished she'd go back to blissful ignorance.
"Oh god, oh my god. Okay. Okay, you said... where's the water pouch?"
Govek would have held his breath if he had control of that.
"Okay, I'll be back. I'll be..." Her feet pounded on the hard ground, and her voice faded.
Govek almost never called to the Fades for aid. They had answered so rarely, but he was not above begging this time. Begging for her life as well as his.
It seemed like an eternity. Long enough he feared she hadn't made it.What if a predator picked her off?
Fuck! He'd never fought so hard in his life. He willed his muscles to move, and heaved his focus, butall that hit was a dizzying sensation suggesting his lungs were losing their ability to expand.
Then the snapping of a branch met his ears. He heard her heavy breath next. He'd never heard anything so blissful.
"Okay," she was breathless. Fabric rustled and ripped as she uncovered his wound. He heard splashing and knew she was pouring the water on him, but he still couldn't feel it. "Okay, was that enough? Is that working? Oh god! I don't know what I'm doing—help!"
No! She would bring every predator within twenty leagues.
"Help! Is anyone out there? Please! We need a doctor!"
A doctor? What is that? Did she mean healer? Her words were so strange. And her clothing was so odd and unfit for the cold weather. His nose could usually pick up individual ingredients within any stew or tincture he came across.
There wasn't a single plant or potion within her tincture that he could recognize.
Because . . . they were not from Faeda.
She'd fallen from the sky.
And no one was coming to her aid.
Any thought that she may have been laying a trap, that she might have been deceiving him, died away.
Was she truly from another world?
Blast, what were the Fades doing to him?
"I'll be back, I swear." He heard her rapid footfalls dying in the distance as she ran from him.
Panic roared through him. She'd just called every predator in the near vicinity and now she was tromping through the woods like the easiest of targets. Had she no sense at all?
If he'd thought the wait before was an eternity, this one was eons. It left him quaking in miserable madness. And even worse, he was getting his feeling back, but could barely twitch a finger.
He would be able to hear Miranda screaming in agony as she was torn apart, scent her blood in the air, but wouldn't be able to fucking move.
This fucking worthless imprint. Gifting him the ability to scent her on the wind. Hear her call him at great distances. The instinctual drive to cleave to her would thrum and burn while he listened to her be eaten alive.
"Okay!"
He hadn't even heard her run up, he'd been so caught in his panic.
"I got more." This time, when she dumped it on him, he felt a slight tingling. "I think... I think it's working."
It is. Stay the fuck here.
"I'll get more."
No!
She was gone, and Govek would be as insane as she was by the end of this.
He strained all his senses against the goblin poison, trying to feel her in the dark void of his mind. His blackened vision was prickling with dappled color as he tried to open his eyes.
Finally, she was back, drenching him again. He wished she'd dump it on his head. Heal his burned nose so he could more easily scent for any predators around them.
She touched his side, and he felt the pressure.
"It worked. I can't believe that worked. That shouldn't have worked. It's flipping water." There was a shuffling sound, then ripping. "Bandages. Okay, I've got this. I've got first aid training. I know what I'm doing. If I can get Kenny Frits's bloody chin patched up, I can handle this, right? Right. I mean, he's not even wiggly like Kenny was. God, I wish you would wiggle. Please move."
More pressure against his side. He didn't need bandages. With the amount of spring water she'd dumped on him, he would likely be healed enough to get up soon.
"Why are you so freaking heavy," she grunted. He could feel her moving him this time, but only the pressure of it. There was no warmth or texture yet.
"There, there. More water."
Fades, please tell her he did not need more water.
They did not aid in this. As usual. She drenched him again. "Should I go get more?"
Frustration made his hands clench slightly. If his claws extended, she didn't notice.
"Please wake up. The black vein thing is gone now. Why won't you wake up?"
Warmth pressed into his torso. The tickle of hair.
She was resting her head on his bare chest?
Govek focused on that sensation. He had never in his life had someone rest on him this way. He wished he could feel it properly.
"Your heart sounds okay." Her hushed tone raked over him. "Dang, you smell good. What do you bathe in? Pine trees?"
He was uncertain how to process such a compliment.
"Okay. He'll wake up soon. It's okay."
He would. He could almost get his eyelids to twitch.
"Five things I can see. His healed wounds, his chest rising"—she paused as if looking around—"weird trees, red autumn leaves, and birds. So many birds. Four things I can touch."
What was she doing now? What was the point of this?
"His chest... again." Her hand stroked down his flesh. A warm hand. He would have groaned if he could have.
Her fingers trailed down his arm to his wrist, clasped it tight. "His heartbeat. My wet clothes and the cold ground. Three things I can hear. Heartbeat again. Birds too. Wind in the trees."
Govek noted that she sounded much calmer. Her breathing was deep, her voice was almost musical and slow. This was relaxing her. And him too.
"Two smells." She sucked in a lungful of air and breathed deep. "Man, you really smell good, and I smell like bleach."
Bleach. Was that the name of the tincture she was coated in?
Her lips fluttered over his heart. "One taste."
Govek sucked in a breath as his eyes popped open.
"Oh, my god, you're awake! Are you okay? Can you talk?"
He forced himself up on an elbow, only to nearly fall right back over. "Shirt."
"Shirt?" she repeated dumbly.
"Your fucking shirt," he grated out, each word hard won. "Where is it?"
She looked down as if she'd only just noticed she was only wearing a thin garment that barely covered her full, plump breasts. It held them tight to her body, pressed them up and together. He could easily see the outline of her nipples through the cloth. His fingers twitched with want to touch her.
The Fades really were testing him.
"Oh," Miranda covered herself with the cloak. The one he'd given her. It still looked fucking good on her, but not nearly as good as her naked torso. "I used it for..." She looked down at his wounds.
Following her eyeline, he saw she'd ripped up her shirt and wrapped it around the puncture wound. He tore the useless fabric off and revealed nothing but smooth, undamaged skin.
Miranda gasped and her hands pressed into his side, fingers splayed against his flesh. They were deliciously warm. "Oh, my gosh! That really worked. How did it do that? It's like magic or something."
"It is magic," he muttered. "Where are you hurt?"
She ignored his question. "Magic. Are you serious? You're not kidding. Oh my god. What is going on with this? How did I get here?"
Questions he also wanted the answers to, but there were far more pressing matters at hand. "I need to get to the spring."
"Oh," she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. She tucked the cloak around herself in a way that concealed every part of her body he desperately wanted to get a better look at. "Let me help you."
His snort of a laugh came out more like a choked gulp. He'd crush her to a pulp under his weight. As if to prove it, she slipped her hand into his, gripping his wrist and trying to pull him up.
"I can help?—"
He yanked away, careful not to touch her with his fingers—his fucking claws were threatening to extend—and laboriously he managed to get his feet underneath him.
"Okay. I guess you're really... you're all right?"
He was wavering slightly, but he would make it. "Just lead the way."
She stepped closer, completely undaunted, and took his arm. He was so startled by her actions he simply let her.