would require another favor before he helped me again.
“I’m not good at dealing with blood yet,” I muttered, perfectly aware that I was covered in blood and had managed not to pass out at the sight of it this entire time. Still, I turned my head away, focusing on Gwyn’s gloriously naked chest and abs.
I hadn’t had much time to appreciate his general shirtlessness before, but damn, he was a nice distraction. The tattoos of poisonous plants wove all around his arms, shoulders, and down his back and chest.
Robin drew in a hissing breath and my head automatically turned.
“No.” Jack put his hand in front of my eyes, blocking out the sight of whatever Carabosse was doing to him. “You don’t want to see this. Save the fainting for later.”
I grumbled, but did as I was told for once.
A small eternity later, there was a new sound: the clink of metal on metal.
“Bullet’s out,” Carabosse announced.
I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank the Blessed Branches.”
“I’m stitching now. Better to keep your eyes focused on that washboard for a little longer.”
Color flooded my cheeks when Gwyn smirked.
The witch was speaking softly to Robin. “You’ve taken Faebane before, haven’t you? Usually the Fae are corpses with this much in their system.”
I heard her moving around as she spoke. Silke had said something similar when brandishing the gun at Robin… not even you’re immune to those.
Which made it sound an awful lot like he’d tried to be.
“A pinch in my coffee once a month,” he said, his voice tight. Carabosse must be stitching already. “Not enough to grant full immunity, but enough to slow the effects of a larger dose.”
“Mmm.” There was admiration in the witch’s voice. What a twisted pair they made. “Some might call that suicidal.”
“I prefer to call it preparation.”
I buried my face in my hands. Of course I was working for the guy who deliberately poisoned himself. It seemed like I was destined for a lifetime of insane bosses.
Carabosse snipped a thread, and said, “You can sit up, now.”
I looked up at the sound of fabric shifting on wood.
Robin was still covered in grime, but the only remainder of the wound was a neatly stitched line. The black veins emanated from the area, unfaded, but no longer spreading.
“I gave you a large dose of a counteractive potion when you arrived.” Carabosse crossed the room to a large cabinet peppered with alchemy materials and began sifting through it. “But you’ll need to continue taking it daily for the next three weeks to completely reverse the effects.”
Her steel gray eyebrows drew together when she glared at Robin. “That dose on the bullet would’ve killed any one of your friends several times over. I expect a little more prudence from my patients, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Robin said, sitting up a little straighter. I stifled a giggle at the sight of the elderly human woman beating a Gentry into shape.
Carabosse’s eyes snapped to me. I quickly adjusted my face to look more serious. “Now it’s your turn.”
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, but both Gwyn and Jack took me by the arms, picked me up, and carried me to the table, where they plunked me right next to Robin.
“Don’t argue with the nice lady, Bananas,” Gwyn told me sternly. “Your feet have seen better days.”
I looked down at the offending appendages and winced. They were pretty bad. I’d seen satyrs with nicer hooves.
“It won’t hurt, dear,” Carabosse assured me. I tried to smile as she pulled a stool over, got out a pair of tweezers, and began pulling little bits of stone out of the cuts in my feet.
“Well, not that much,” she amended. I was gritting my teeth and trying my absolute hardest not to stiffen up or jerk away.
Gwyn stood next to the table, his arm comfortingly wrapped around my waist. Robin laid his hand over mine on the table.
Jack retreated to the bench again. His full lips were pressed flat, but he watched Carabosse working on my wounds with laser-like intensity.
Part of me wanted to ask him to come back and hold my hand, too. He’d taken no credit for his role in this, and favor notwithstanding, he hadn’t been required to interfere.
But I already had two big, strong guys holding my hands. Asking for a third seemed greedy.
“Jack?”
He looked up at me. For the first time since I’d met him, he was disheveled. He’d swept his white hair out of his face, and Robin’s darkened blood had soaked into his white