Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Nate hissed in agony.
Oh, God. The leather had melded with his skin. She could feel it—and she knew enough about basic medical care to fear he had third-degree burns over a lot of his back.
This could be fatal. And what if… he didn’t come around again.
“Brace yourself,” she said as she locked her teeth.
“Wait, you can’t lift me—”
Sucking in a deep breath, she punched her feet into the ground, and used all the muscles in her thighs and her ass. It was a hard graft, but she got him up off the snow.
“The hell I can’t carry you,” she grunted.
“I’ll walk—”
As Nate started to shove himself against her hold, she glared at his flushed face. “Cut that out or I’m going to drop you on your head—God, do you always argue with everybody and everything?”
“No,” he snapped.
“Now I know what people feel like around me,” she muttered.
It was not a catwalk model-strut to be sure—although even if she’d been on a level floor and not carrying two hundred fifty pounds of loose-noodle deadweight, she doubted she could ever pull off the Mharta routine with her hips. But she made it through the woods, and what a relief to get out of all the cloying branches and underbrush. In the meadow proper, she made better time, although it was a trudge, her lungs burning and making her think of her saying she didn’t mind getting burned.
Ask, and ye shall receive.
Nate, meanwhile, was not doing well. His lips were peeled off his fangs, and his raw, singed hands were clawed up in front of his chest like he was trying to limit the contact he had with anything.
It was a toss-up as to what would hurt him more: Lying in the snow, waiting for death and then the revival to come, or this trip to the house, his raw back exposed, all the jostling and bumping making things worse for him. And what if he didn’t die out in the forest? He’d just be out in the elements, suffering.
What a mess—
“You… shouldn’t… take me inside,” he gritted. “Too upsetting… for them to see… me…”
“I already… thought… of that…”
Well. Weren’t they twinsies, a little panting duo.
Halfway to goal, she had to stop and catch her breath. She wanted to put him down, but she was afraid if she did, she wouldn’t have the strength to lift him again. Besides, as bad as things were on his injured back now, laying him out in the snow?
That was going to kill him for sure.
“You… know… something…” she said between gasping inhales.
“… what…”
“I’m… really… fucking tired… of you… dying on me.”
As wind whipped around them, her eyes sought the only light in her tunnel, the only light there was: The farmhouse off in the distance. Her brain told her it was just about three hundred yards away. Her body was convinced it was more like seven hundred and fifty thousand miles.
She started walking again because the only thing worse than going forward was staying put and her strength draining out completely.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot…
And that was how it went. Meanwhile, the house seemed to be on some kind of rail system that drew it farther and farther away, the closer she got. Every time she stumbled or thought of pulling another pause, she stared harder at the lights and thought of how much it would hurt to be burned and in the cold, in the snow.
Nate’s suffering was her motivation.
“What,” he groaned.
She glanced into his pasty face. “Huh?”
Those blurry eyes sought her own, and seemed to focus the way she was on the house. “You keep… saying my… name.”
Nalla shook her head. “No, I… don’t.”
“Yes, you… do.”
“Shut up.” The chuckle she got back was not right. “That is… not funny…”
Nate started laughing in earnest. “This whole… situation is so… totally fucked up. Oh, my God… ow, ow, ow… don’t make… me… laugh—”
“I’m not!”
“You… are…”
“I’m…” She choked out a laugh. A couple of times. “Not… funny…”
She had no idea what was happening. One minute, she was on fire from exertion while getting a burn victim to a house where no one could find out he was under the roof because of the condition he was in. The next, she was laughing, too. So hard, she lost hold of him and they both fell into the snow in a tangle.
As they both howled and giggled and snorted at absolutely nothing, and everything at once, she had a thought, in the way back of her brain, that there were so many different ways to release emotion. You could curse. You could throw things. You could run until you fell down. You could trap it inside and go banked geyser ’til you lost your shit.
You could cry until your eyes swelled up and your nose plugged solid and ran at the same time.