Heart of Fire (5 page)

Jessalyne eyed the dark elf once
again.

Tyber continued. “They were
high-born elves, light elves, fully imbued with the magic of old
Shaldar. This one is a mixed-breed, a mud blood, a halfling. By any
name dark elves are dangerous creatures with tempers as black as
their skins. They have their own magic, but few survive birth when
the midwives do their jobs properly. Neither elf nor human claim
them, and for good reason. They are trouble in the flesh.” Tyber
spat on the ground.

Petal stopped just paces from where
the herd stood watching and bent to drink from the river. The
warhorse came along side, putting the dark elf in plain sight.
Jessalyne stared. The parts of him not covered by cloak or battle
leathers revealed broad curves of thick muscle. His smooth,
luminous skin was the deep charcoal grey of iris root dye, but with
the subtle glistening sheen of oil on water. She wanted to touch
him to see if the color would rub off on her fingers. The thought
of it made something quicken inside her.

Black as a starless night and
partially tied back with a leather thong, his long hair hung over
one shoulder, exposing his most telling feature: his ears. Angled
skyward, they were undeniably elven and covered with strange silver
runes.

Even unconscious, he was
intimidating.

Her mouth hung open. She closed it.
“I don’t think he’s well.”

Tyber snorted. “Lady Jessalyne, I
know your heart on this already. But no good can come of helping
this creature. It’s best to let nature do what the midwives did
not.”

She faced the alpha buck. “I am a
healer. I cannot dismiss the sick so easily. Beside, I need to know
why he has my father’s animal.” She tossed her hair back and walked
toward Petal.

“Lady Jessalyne...”

She kept walking.

Tyber muttered something she
couldn’t hear.

At Petal’s side, she stopped and
gazed at the strange horse and rider. She swallowed hard. They
seemed much bigger up close. She made eye contact with the
slate-colored warhorse. The animal snuffled softly.

“I mean your master no harm,” she
told the horse. There was a tremor in her voice she didn’t
recognize.

Sweat dampened the dark elf’s hair.
She reached out and rested her fingertips on his forearm, unwilling
to touch his face. His skin blazed with fever. He moaned, and she
jumped, snatching her hand away. Tyber and his men started
forward.

“I’m fine. He is not. He burns with
fever.” She grabbed at the horse’s reins expecting protest, but the
horse dipped his head lower, giving her a better grip on the
leather.

“I’ll lead them to the cottage, but
I’ll need assistance getting him off his mount and inside. I also
need Corah’s help making enough antidote. Whatever sickness this
is, the herd must be protected.”

Tyber opened his mouth to argue, but
Jessalyne raised a hand to cut him off. “Then don’t help. I’ll do
it on my own. I need to know why the elf has my father’s
animal.”

Setting his jaw, Tyber grudgingly
agreed. “Territt, Willem, go with Lady Jessalyne. Help her with
this...creature. Confiscate his weapons, then stand watch outside
her cottage. Corah may go to help with the antidote.”

Jessalyne led the big gray while
Corah walked next to her with Petal. The guards stayed on either
side of the warhorse. Despite Corah’s attempts to disguise her
glances, Jessalyne noticed the girl’s attention to the dark
elf.

“Just take a good look and be done
with it, will you? I doubt he’ll notice you staring in his current
condition.”

Corah shook her head, but her gaze
danced over the elf. “I’ve never seen anything...anyone...any elf,
whatever he is, like him.” She smiled at Jessalyne. “I dare say you
have either.”

Jessalyne returned the smile. “I
haven’t. That’s a sure thing.” Life in the grove had shown her very
little.

She directed the guards to carry her
newest patient into the room so recently occupied by Orit. The boy
hadn’t taken up quite so much of the bed.

After asking twice, Jessalyne got
Corah into the kitchen to boil water. She then asked the guards to
take the animals to the old stable. One task remained, one she’d
have to do herself.

The guards had taken his leather
breastplate but left his cloak. It lay over the stool where they’d
thrown it. She picked the length of fabric up to hang it. The
fragrance of horse, leather, and something darker filled her nose.
The spicy scent was unlike anything she’d smelled. She shook her
head, forced herself to focus. She dashed the cloak over a peg to
get it out of her hands.

He lay on his back, legs sprawled
out, feet hanging off the sides of the bed. She unlaced the first
of his knee-high boots and pulled it off. A slim blade clattered to
the floor. The guards’ search hadn’t been very thorough. Tyber
would be angry if he knew. She turned the blade in her hands,
recognizing the design. The dagger was a Feyre, elven steel, twin
to the blade the elven council had given to Tyber. Perforations
honeycombed the blade like metal lace, making it as light as a
wasp’s nest, but elven magic made it nigh unbreakable. She set the
dagger atop the stool to give to the guards.

After his other boot, she untied the
laces at the neck of his tunic. The worn grey linen clung to his
hot, damp skin, outlining the contours of his chest in soft relief.
Her fingers brushed the sooty vee of skin beneath the laces. She
inhaled. The feel of skin beneath her fingers was rare. Her belly
tightened. She would have to touch more of him to get the shirt
off.

Loosening the wrist ties, she took
his hands in hers one by one and eased his arms through the
sleeves. His broad palms were calloused, his thick fingers rough.
What would that hand feel like against her skin? She pressed her
palm to his, comparing the size. Her hand looked like a
child’s.

Unable to lift him, she see-sawed
the bunched fabric between him and the bed until she had it at his
shoulders. Avoiding contact was impossible. Her fingers grazed his
chest and her breath caught in her throat. His skin was so smooth,
the muscle beneath so hard and hot – like river stones warmed in
the afternoon sun. She laid his tunic over the footboard. The
patched fabric was torn in two places and needed
washing.

His sweat-glossed skin shone like
tarnished silver against the ivory bedclothes. Thick black locks
splayed out around his muscled shoulders. What color eyes hid
beneath those velvet-fringed lids? Glancing at the blade she’d
found on him, she studied him more carefully. No scars that she
could see. Nothing marked him but the runes on his curious
ears.

He was as different in his coloring
from the cervidae as she was. His strong jaw and straight nose gave
him the countenance of man used to getting his way. She stared,
unable to look away. Like the time she’d stumbled upon a den of
sleeping wolves, watching him ignited two senses; fear and longing.
He was beautiful in the way of all wild creatures, and if Tyber
were right, just as deadly.

His chest rose and fell
rhythmically. She wanted to touch him again, to know once more the
feel of his skin, any skin, beneath her fingers. Tentatively, she
traced one of the silver runes on his ear.

He moaned and she pulled away. She
stepped back, thunderstruck by the acute nearness of him and the
way his palpable maleness permeated the room. There was something
about him darker than his skin.

“What have I done?” she whispered.
“Why have I taken this man into my home?” To find out why he had
her father’s donkey? He might have robbed her father. Or
worse.

She backed out of the room, grabbing
the Feyre as she went, and shut the door harder than necessary. She
pressed her hand against her mouth, and composed herself before
going into the kitchen. With so much work to be done, she did not
want Corah to think she doubted her decision to help the
elf.

She squared her shoulders, and took
a deep breath. I’m a healer. He won’t harm me. Still, she vowed to
see him well and on his way with as much haste as
possible.

After depositing the Feyre with the
guards outside, Jessalyne strode into the kitchen. “I need you to
start an elixir base while I study my mother’s books for some hint
at what this illness is. Now, what would you use?”

Startled by Jessalyne’s burst into
the kitchen, Corah almost dropped her mortar and pestle. She
stammered for a moment, “Um, let me see, angelica root, dried
monk’s blossom, hyssop – no hyssop would be for a bath, this is an
elixir, so ground parsley seed and...”

“And?”

“Alder flower?” Corah asked
hopefully.

“Yes! Well done.” Jessalyne pulled
one of her mother’s books from a shelf and began flipping through
it. She looked up at the girl, lost in some daydream. “Will you be
making that elixir today?”

“Of course, sorry,” Corah nodded,
head down.

Jessalyne knew who occupied the
girl’s thoughts. “Mind the work at hand, not the creature in the
bedroom. Besides, you are betrothed.” Corah’s cheeks colored. She
dipped her head lower.

Jessalyne pulled one of her mother’s
books from a warped shelf. She scoured the text for some indication
as to what malady they were fighting. The faded scents wafting from
the yellowed pages reminded her of her mother. She smiled. Her
mother would have helped anyone in need.

“I think this is it.” Her finger
stopped at a passage near the bottom of one page. “We need a few
more ingredients.”

Lastlight settled as they finished
the brew. Jessalyne and Corah strained the concoction through a bit
of fine linen into a narrow-necked jar. They each took a dose, then
plugged the jar with a cork stopper and sealed the cork with
wax.

“Be sure everyone gets a dose, fawns
and elders first. There’s no way of telling who was exposed.”
Jessalyne smiled at her shape-shifting apprentice. “You’re a good
student. Thank you for your hard work.”

“You’re a patient teacher,” Corah
said.

Jessalyne waved the comment away.
“Off you go.”

Corah left, her precious cargo
cradled in the crook of her arm.

I’m alone in the house with him.
Jessalyne shivered. Stop behaving like some foolish chit. There are
guards outside the front door. He’s too weak with fever to be
dangerous. And even if he were, I have my magic. Just give him the
elixir and be done with it.

She took a measure of the elixir in
a mug and a cool damp cloth with her into the back bedroom. She
nodded her head toward a small oil lamp on the bedside table, and
it flickered to life, brightening the room with a soft glow. He
slept fitfully, the covers tossed aside. Light from the oil lamp
danced across his skin.

She set the cloth on the table and
hesitated. Giving him the elixir required touching him again. She
sat on the edge of the bed, as close as she dared, and studied his
face. He didn’t look that dangerous. In fact, he looked more feral
than dangerous, and wild creatures could be tamed.
Sometimes.

Dark elf. She mouthed the words
silently, not knowing his name. The shadows in the room caressed
him as though they knew him and for a brief moment, she envied the
darkness.

She slid her hand behind his head.
He moaned softly, but this time she didn’t jump. He wouldn’t hurt
her for helping him, would he? She lifted his head enough to bring
the mug to his mouth, trying not to think about the silkiness of
his hair between her fingers or the lushness of his lips. She
trickled as much of the liquid as she could into him, then eased
his head back onto the pillow.

The last few ribbons of blue-black
hair slipped through her fingers. She reached for the cloth, eager
to occupy her hands with something else besides him. No, not eager.
Reluctant, for in truth his skin infected her with the desire to
touch, the urge to caress. She shook her head. This was not the
proper behavior for a healer.

She mopped the sweat from his brow
with the cool linen and left, taking his shirt with her to wash.
The cottage was too dark. She slashed her hand through the air.
Small flames flickered to life in response, the pair of candles on
the mantel, the tableside lamp by her chair. Better. The light
calmed her.

His life relied on the healing power
of the elixir now. She had no intention of using her gifts to heal
him. None. Ever. Tyber had said dark elves had their own magic, and
she knew too little about the alchemy of such things to chance
clashing with whatever power flowed through him. It simply wasn’t a
risk worth taking.

Chapter Three

A concert of drum-pounding pixies
played in Ertemis’s head. What tavern had he spent last night in?
The Dirty Dwarf? The Fig and Gristle? Nay, neither of those was
right. He opened his eyes a slit.

“What the...” He sat up too quickly,
and the pixies pounded harder.

If this was an inn, it was one of
the nicest he’d slept in of late. The room was sparse but clean.
And wretchedly sunny. It wasn’t like him to leave the curtains
open. It also smelled better than any place he’d ever stayed. He
smelled food – hot griddlecakes and smoked trout by the scent of
it.