It amazed Rae how thoroughly Lyr provided every component, down to the bowl. Garr never blinked at the good fortune of finding everything he needed along his path.
It occurred to Rae that the Skorvag might provide for her residents more thoroughly than Amazon did for the humans of Earth.
“Do you, uh, need some help?” Rae’s voice was softer than she’d expected.
Garr, his profile to her, methodically ground herbs together with a round stone, the corded power in the muscles of his forearm obvious from the motion.
He put everything into the mortar except that dried fig. Rae was so entranced by the creation of the poultice that Garr’s voice caught her unawares: “You are stubborn.”
“Maybe you should get to know a girl before you kidnap her. Might have saved you some trouble.”
“I could tell you were stubborn right away. A good quality for my taliyar.”
She sighed, blowing a loose strand of her hair from her eye. She was caked in mud, exhausted, and didn’t have the heart to fight him on it while staring at those ghastly knives stuck in his back. “You need help or not, big guy?”
Glancing at her sidelong, the severity in his face finally softened. “Pull them out. This poultice is ready.”
Rae had interned at a veterinary clinic one summer while putting herself through her undergraduate.
She swore she wouldn’t get squeamish now, but the idea of doing this to a non-animal still roiled her stomach. “Just grab and pull?” She wrapped her hands around the unsharpened root of one knife.
“Delicately,” he insisted.
Nodding, she went for a clean yank.
His whole body went rigid. She could tell he was trying not to scream in front of his mate. It was weirdly endearing—she thought briefly of Reese and she was pretty sure if he’d even seen Garr’s wound, he’d have broken down into hysterics. So Garr is a filthy kidnapper. I still rank him a half point above my ex.
The pool beneath the waterfall wasn’t large, but was crystal clear. Beneath, the blue moss ended and instead there were hexagonal squama. Two of the plates started to glow faintly orange and Rae frowned at them.
“What’s going on in there?” She hoped her question distracted him, because she plucked the second knife out once he looked.
The prime winced, but otherwise her trick worked. “Those plates warm the pool.”
“Why?” The fact Lyr would heat a pool of water in the forest was fascinating. Maybe it had to do with fostering some kind of algae bloom.
“Because you’re filthy and unused to cold baths.”
“Whoa. I’m not taking a bath,” she said hastily. “Not in front of you.”
“You’re not taking one alone. Not after running.” He handed the dish with the poultice to her.
“You’re about to be very disappointed.” She had a cat as a girl, and she’d once tried to bathe it. Once. Rae intended to give him precisely the fight Tabitha gave her. Size mattered in such struggles, but so did a willingness to bite and spit.
Garr ignored her comment. “Pack each wound.” He indicated his shoulder, which hadn’t even bled much since she’d freed the knives.
The wounds went deep, but from his mobility and the clotting, she realized Ythirians healed much faster than humans. It had been an hour, and she suspected by tomorrow he’d have recovered.
She packed the poultice over each wound and Garr completed the process by using a strip from his otoya as a bandage.
He rotated his shoulder and nodded at her. “Good.”
In spite of everything, she allowed a tight smile. “I interned one summer with—”
Before she could finish, he snapped a hand around her wrist and stepped back into the pool—dragging her with him.
There was no time to bite, hiss, or gouge. She went headlong into the warm pool, submerged with Garr.
Water shot into her mouth and she came up sputtering, batting at him. He caught her one wrist, then the other, and spun her to face away from him. She writhed, but when he collapsed against the edge of the pool, she wound up in his lap.
“You bastard!”
“You can wash or I can strip you naked and do it for you.” His arm was around her waist—snug, like the ride bar on a roller coaster. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Rae made sarcastic bathing motions over either arm, her clothes sopping wet. She’d be that way all day. Her shoes, too! Just when she’d started feeling bad for him, he did this. “I hate you with the fire of ten thousand suns.”
“Good,” he murmured, voice a dark rumble in her ear. God. That sound set her on edge, made her aware of his warm body pressed into her. The wetted fabric of their clothes clung to their bodies, so that she could sense the sculpted shape of him beneath.