I turned my head, and he made contact with my cheek.
“Be a love and give us a kiss.” His voice was lazy and seductive, deeper than normal.
Something low in my belly clenched, and it pissed me off. I wasn’t kissing the us to whom he referred. Did his dragon think like a second, individual person? I wondered. Ultimately it was irrelevant. Angry without understanding exactly why, I said, “This should sound familiar—bugger off.”
“You kiss blokes with that mouth?”
“You kiss the girls with that forked tongue?”
He reacted as if I’d slapped him. His eyes became clearer, and he took a sloppy step backward. “Beautiful,” he snapped, “just bloody beautiful. You’re welcome.”
I cringed and rolled away from him, embarrassed to have behaved so ungratefully. But I couldn’t seem to find it in myself to apologize. He’d crossed some invisible line I hadn’t know I had. I’d begun to see him as a man, a very desirable man, and he had ruined that fantasy for me. Now the monster seemed to overlay the whole of him, and I couldn’t see around it.
“You’d best get up and get a shower if yeh’re wantin’ one,” Bahlin said in a hard, brogued voice. “Tarrek will be back soon with clothes, I’m sure.”
I bit my cheek, turning back toward him to apologize when I saw my shoulder. There was a pucker of pink scar tissue and the area around it was bruised and looked like I had a huge hickey. But the shoulder appeared fine, if a little stiff. My eyes sought his as my finger gently poked at the healed wound, and he stared at me without blinking.
“You did this? With just your breath?”
He gave a sardonic grin. “Oh no, fair lady. No’ joost me breath but me bloody forked tongue, a bit o’ saliva and a little controlled fire, as weel.” His tone was so acidic it could have blistered the paint off a car.
“Look, cut me some slack, o-oh shit.” I flipped the covers off my legs and slid to the floor, my knees only slightly wobbly. “Oh, man.” I yanked Bahlin’s shirt back on with unsteady hands.
“What?” he asked, striding toward me, gripping my shoulder and spinning me to face him. I cringed, and he dropped his hand. “Do yeh think I’d strike ye? By the gods, woman! I’ve no’ hit a woman since the Dragons’ Conquest of 1712, and that was war.” He threw his hands in the air and spun on his heel, stomping toward the bedroom door.
“Stop,” I cried, and he froze. “Please, don’t leave, Bahlin,” I said. “I think I was poisoned.”
“Shot and then poisoned? Yeh’re the unluckiest of people.” His brogue softened a syllable at a time until it dissolved. He turned back to face me. “Wait. Are you serious?” He walked toward me slowly.
“I’m dead—ha—serious.” I took a couple of steps toward him so we met in the middle of the room.
“Tell me.”
“Tarrek was in the room when I woke up. I asked for something to drink, and he gave me some blue stuff that the healer left for me and then the whole thing happened about finding Maddox and then you showed up.”
“I didn’t just show up, Maddy. I’ve been here the three days you’ve been knocked out.”
“You waited for me? Why?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
“Oh yeah,” I said, “the promise to Aloysius.” Why make more of it than it is, right?
“Sure. That’s it,” he whispered, stepping closer to me. “Go on.”
I pulled my fingers through my hair, tugging on the ends trying to stimulate my still sluggish brain. “Um, Tarrek went to get you, you guys came back and then…then… Where is Tarrek?”
Tarrek came back into the room more than two hours later. It had given Bahlin and I a chance to talk and for me to take a short nap. Regardless of Bahlin’s contribution to my healing process, I was still human and incredibly tired.
“A death warrant has been issued for Maddox.” Tarrek’s eyes were drawn and grief etched hard lines around his mouth and eyes. “He’ll be killed on sight.”
I felt so sorry for him, but I was afraid to extend my sympathy lest he remember it was sort of my doing. So I stuck to the case. “I take it he hasn’t been found then.”
“The sithen has been searched. He’s not here.” Tarrek sat in a chair closest to the bed and looked at me, his hand absently reaching for the dirk. He took a deep breath as if to say something and