Page 22 of Thon
The hounds make all the difference. The hounds and Krista, who is no warrior, but knows how to be distracting. The creatures keep coming at her, sensing her size and her weakness and trying to pick her off, but that only makes them easier targets for Thon, who rips them from their feet or slices into them before most can even touch her. Krista gets a few more jabs in—some fatal, some not—and then, as quick as it began, the whole thing is over.
Only when it’s quiet and they’re all standing together in the wreckage of the attack, gray bodies lying in piles around them, does Krista realize what she has just participated in.
“Oh Gods,” she mutters, turning a slow circle as she takes in the carnage. “What thefuckjust happened?”
“Assassin nej,” Pel says furiously, kicking one of the bodies. “Tsk. Hides aren’t even good.”
Noss spits.
“You’re bleeding,” Thon says. She looks around and finds that he’s addressing her.
She is? Krista follows Thon’s gaze to the outside of her forearm, which has a nice pair of parallel slices now. The cuts seem shallow and she doesn’t even feel them through the adrenaline, but they’re ragged and filthy. Mostly, she’s just sore. Very sore. Her ribs are killing her. But she looks over at Thon, his dark hair loose from its knot and tangled around his blood-streaked face, and he looks so much worse than she feels.
“Yeah, well. You’re bleeding more.”
He is. They all are. The worst is the one at the base of Thon’s shoulder, which still bleeds freely down the pretty green flesh she had just been admiring earlier. Krista can’t tell how bad the wound is for all the blood.
“Get the horses,” Thon says to Pel, the least damaged of the three. “Then meet us at the river.”
“Ya.”Pel leans forward into a jog, loping off down the road like he didn’t just fight an entire troop of hungry assassin nej. Krista stares after him, perhaps a bit delirious with exhaustion. Where does he get all that energy from?
Noss says something to Thon in Harkurian.
“It is worth the delay,” Thon answers in Standard, his eyes falling to the cuts on Krista’s arm. “The bites are filthy. We need to clean them. And use the salve.”
More Harkurian from Noss. The guy simply doesn’t care that Krista has just perked up with interest, or that this conversation applies to her.
“We’ll stay the night, then. Better a delay than an infection.” Thon jerks his head and the grumpy brother huffs a breath, but turns to go.
13
Thon
AdrenalinestillhasThon’sblood up. He’s agitated, restless, and his cock feels full and pissed off between his thighs. Fighting does that to him. Aggression gets him riled in this way, and his nostrils are full of Krista’s scent, and they are allalive. The simple rush of survival goes straight to his groin. Never fails.
Now is not the time,he tells himself firmly. They are all battered and need medical attention. First, they will wash off at the river, then they will apply the salve. Then they will rest. Krista will not want him right now. Maybe not at all after what she’s just seen him do. He watches her cautiously, trepidation sitting heavily in his chest.
“Wow, Thon. This isgorgeous,” Krista gasps, stopping at the treeline despite everything. She is clearly in pain—she walks as though her body aches—but she still has it in her to see beauty here. And itisbeautiful. Thon has lived in this region for so long that he sometimes forgets to stop and look at it. The river ahead is shallow, full of enormous, mossy boulders and white, bubbling water. The banks are green like everything else, mossy all the way up to the water’s edge.
“I’ve never seen a place like this,” Krista says, wonder coloring her tone and making it soft as she drifts to the shore. Thon can thank his acute hearing for understanding her at all.
“Stay with Noss,”he instructs the hounds, though the command makes his brother’s head turn.
“Where are you going?”Noss asks in Harkurian. He smells agitated and his movements are jerky, nor has he spoken any Standard since the battle ended—a sure sign that Noss is under stress. He will need some time to settle himself and Krista will need privacy so that she can remove her muddy clothing.
“Krista,” Thon rumbles. How bad off is he that he feels his cock twitch hopefully at the sound of her name on his lips? “Would you rather go there?”
She follows his gaze downriver to a spot where the boulders pile high, effectively creating a screen between this spot and the place on the other side. She will have some privacy, but they will be close enough to assist Noss if the need should arise.
Nodding, Krista starts that way, her steps heavy.
“I want to know as soon as Pel returns,”Thon tells his brother. Pel will have the salve, which they all need to put on their wounds. All of the open ones will need attention. Perhaps Krista will apply it for him, her soft hands soothing gently over the damaged places. He nearly groans aloud, forcibly drawing the sensitive tip of his cock back up into his sheath and gritting his teeth against the delicious slide.
Rather than climb over the boulders, Krista takes the long way around them, cutting back into the trees and moving slowly, her arms wrapped around herself.
“Are your ribs damaged?”
“Just sore, I think.” She smiles tiredly over her shoulder and makes her way over the mossy bank, shuffling for the water’s edge.