She welcomed unconsciousness.
Asier knew the instant the pain had overwhelmed her. Her entire body went limp against the rock, and her desperate keening died away.
He swore again, his hands shaking as he worked quickly to pull away the last of the worm’s barbs. He had no way of knowing if she was dying, or just in extreme pain. Was it venom? Was she reacting to the setae themselves? Was she going into anaphylactic shock? Was her nervous system shutting down?
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small flask. He’d started keeping it with him after his first encounter with the cone tree sap.
He opened it, and then hesitated for a minute. He didn’t know much about human physiology. The neutralizing tonic might have no effect at all. Or, it might harm her instead of helping her. But he couldn’t do nothing. Even unconscious, she shook with agony, her face a tense grimace. Humans were compatible mates with Scaevens. He had to hope that meant Scaeven medicine would work on them.
He tipped the flask and poured the tonic down the length of her leg. He used his palm to rub the liquid into each and every wound. She had a long scar, a thin pink ribbon, running from the inside of her knee, all the way up her inner thigh, where it disappeared into her flight suit. The scar fascinated him, but not in a prurient way. His concern for her survival allowed him to ignore the fact that he was running his hands over a long, smooth, sleekly muscled female leg. Instead, he looked at that wicked scar and felt only admiration. She was a survivor, this human. She would survive this.
He poured more tonic on her leg, and continued to sweep it into her wounds. It took some time, but her trembling slowed, and then stopped. Her breathing eased.
At long last, her eyes blinked open. She looked around, groggy and unfocused, until her gaze settled on Asier. She watched him hazily.
When he was done, he closed the empty flask and slipped it back inside his jacket.
“How many pockets do you have in that thing?” Her voice was faint, but steady. The color was returning to her cheeks. She pushed herself up to sit, moving weakly, but steadily. Asier allowed himself to hope that the worm’s venom only caused pain and not eventual death.
“Are you in pain?” Asier asked.
“Yes. But nothing like I was.”
“What do you feel?”
She rubbed at her injured leg. “I feel like I’ve been stabbed fifty times by a barbecue fork.”
“Can you walk?”
Fear flashed into her eyes, and her gaze shot to the disturbed soil where the worm had snared her.
“Will you let me carry you?” He touched the bandana, checking it was still secure.
“Maybe we could just stay on the rocks.”
She was already so much slower than he was. Waiting for her to hobble over craggy ridges on an injured leg would take forever. And besides the logical arguments, something inside of him demanded to take care of her.
“We can cover more ground if I carry you.”
She regarded him nervously. “But, won’t that be… difficult?”
Yes. Agony. But it would be a different kind of agony to watch her limp, exhausted and frightened, for the length of time it would take to reach his ship. She was too stubborn to accept her biological limitations, but perhaps under his protection, she could at least rest.
“This is the most efficient solution,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, surprising him. He made note that she was more easily swayed by logic than by chivalry.
“So…” she shifted awkwardly, keeping her weight off her injured leg. “How are we going to do this?”
He wanted to carry her in his arms. But that had nothing to do with efficiency. It’d be easiest to carry her on his back, but he didn’t know if her legs were long enough to comfortably straddle him for the next two days, or if her thighs were strong enough to grip him for so long a time.
Dangerous thoughts. He forced himself to breathe evenly, looking away from her for a moment.
“We need a sling,” she said.
He glanced back at her, and the tattered remnants of her right trouser leg. She followed his gaze.
“That should work,” she agreed to his unspoken question.
Using his knife, he cut the trouser leg free of her suit, sliced it into strips, and then tied the strips together into a loop. He took off his arc rifle, and shrugged the sling on like a backpack. The loop went behind his neck, over his shoulders, under his arms, to hang down against his back. He crouched, and Lyra climbed onto him. Her slight weight shifted as she maneuvered herself into the sling.
“It’s like climbing onto a living statue,” she said, more breathless than the effort warranted.
When she was settled, Asier straightened slowly to stand. She wiggled in the sling, adjusting her weight. Her little body pressed against his back. Her legs straddled him, knees squeezing against his sides. He swallowed down the groan rising in his throat.
“Is that alright?” she asked. Her arms came to rest on his shoulders, palms pressed to his chest, just below his collar bones.
She needed to do so in order to maintain her balance, Asier told himself. Her touch was impersonal. Practical.
So why did he feel her trembling?
“Fine,” Asier said gruffly. Carrying his arc rifle in his hands, he set off. With each stride, she shifted against his body. He could feel her curving, female softness even through the layers of their clothing. He could feel her heat. He walked on, doggedly ignoring the stiffness in his groin.
It took some time, but eventually, she relaxed against him. He felt the contours of her body even more acutely. More time passed, and she laid her cheek against his back. Her breathing slowed. Her arms draped bonelessly over his shoulders. She’d finally fallen asleep. Both wanting and satisfied, Asier journeyed on.
Chapter Five
When Lyra woke, her cheek was stuck to Asier’s back, her hips ached from straddling his huge body, and her arms had fallen asleep from being hung over his shoulders.
His jacket softly mirrored the colors of her body—forming a pale halo where her face had been pressed against him, and black against her flight suit. The rest of the strange jacket softly mirrored the scarlet, navy, and gold profusion of the surrounding forest.
“You’re awake?” Asier’s deep voice rumbled.
“Yes.” She lifted one of her arms, making a fist and wincing as the feeling began to return. “How long was I asleep?”
“Most of the day.” He pointed to the sun, low on the horizon.
Had it been on the opposite horizon earlier? It wasn’t like her to miss these sorts of baseline observations. All her awareness seemed to be trained on the big, brawny Scaeven male, leaving her nothing for the basics of survival. Was it a lingering effect of his toxin?
She inhaled deeply, bringing oxygen to her addled brain. If she’d slept through most of the daylight hours on this planet, then she’d been out for nearly six Earth Standard hours. She’d drifted into partial consciousness here and there, but for the most part, she’d slept as deeply against his back as she did in her own berth.
“The traffickers’ ships have departed,” he told her, something cautious in his deep voice.
Lyra felt a sharp pang of guilt. She had left the other women behind without a second thought, condemning them to a lifetime of enslavement.