Blood By Candle-Light

Chapter Seven: Proposition

Querina Forest

Night

“I have a proposition. Interested?” Rania asked. 

Augustus stood there, dumbfounded, leaving his lips trembling and eyes searching for a proper answer. 

Rania rolled her eyes, then proceeded to lift herself from the ground. Sharp pain shot through her spine and stomach wound, forcing her to retract on the ground. Augustus chuckled, then carried her through the forest to her meager campsite. 

Colorful feathered furs were spread across the dirt with a couple of dented pails filled with bloodied rags aside them. Ash and wooden splinters were across the way as though a fire burnt out early morning. Sharpened knives and freshly made bows laid strewn across the tarp of Rania’s small cot. 

Without her permission, Augustus began rummaging the campsite to procure a medical kit. After several minutes of tearing apart the camp, he found a small kit. There were two needles––one curved, the other… strange. The needle’s base was the same, then it forked into thirteen separate heads. The tips seemed to be dipped in a toxic serum. The center makes for a fourteenth head and was thicker than the rest. It also had a small opening, but it was unclear what for. 

Augustus placed the needle back in the kit and grabbed the curved needle. He gathered a thin, clear string as well. He paced over to Rania, instructing her to lay down as he started to sew her belly together. Rania braced his arm, biting down on her lip to press through the pain. He gave her a small smile, but his eyes looked at hers with lust and hunger. 

***

Rania Shutpa's POV

This isn’t what I wanted. Augustus should have left me there to rot. Death I can take, but a blood-sucking pet? His eyes are fiery, like mine. They, however, swirl like flames, and mine, like magickal sparks of dragon flowers. 

I feel the pain course through my torso, and I begin to sweat. He’s nearly finished with stitching my wound, but the heat from the fur I wear is unbearable. 

Finally! I limp my way up against a tree, the ground wet from sweat and blood. Augustus props my bow under my arm to help with balancing my weight. 

Why is he looking at me like that? His smirk is quite attractive, and I blush while looking away. I stare at one of the pail buckets, and mouth, “Water.”

He looks back and heads over without asking me to repeat myself. He fills the bucket with water from the stream and picks up a clean rag that lay folded next to the extinct fire. The cloth plunges into the water, and he makes work of it by squeezing the water out and gently tapping my skin with it. 

I jolt from the cold touch. My legs shiver in delight. What is he doing to me? I close my eyes, then feel heat radiating in front of my lips. As if his skin is about to come into contact with mine. Something brushes across my mouth, and then I feel his lips press against my ears. 

“Strip,” he commands. 

I push him back with a surprising look graced across my face. “I f*****g won’t! I don’t take orders from a vile creature of night.” 

He shakes his head, chuckling a bit louder than before. “You are in no shape to care for yourself. Let me help.”

“No.”

“Well, then I’m not interested.”

My eyebrows arch, confused as to what he’s saying. s**t, I’m bloody stupid. The proposition. I extend a huff, then nod. “I didn’t forget. If I must, then you will need to help me undress. But you must change me from behind.”

Augustus tilts his head to the side, seeming a bit disappointed that he will not be able to look at the beauty beneath the fur. If he didn’t belong to Lady Bulna, I would have let his wandering eyes soak in my nakedness. But this is tit for tat. Favors for favors, I think to myself.

He nods, then slowly turns me around so that my arms may hold to a tree for support. My cheeks burn as I feel his hands glide across my skin, making my arms jolt. 

“I must say, this will be difficult for me,” he whispers in my ear. 

My lips curl into a slight smile, then a gap appears, as I alleviate a shallow sigh. “Why is that?” I ask.

“Because…” his voice tapers off as he begins wiping my body with a drenched cloth, expelling the dirt and blood from my body. Then his hands wander to my stomach. “I have two places I cannot touch. Mind finishing?”

I gulp hard, closing my eyes, and cursing my s****l frustrations. I nod, then reach for the cloth still in his gloved hands and clean my breasts and v****a. After that, he dumps cool water above my head to clear any excess dirt and blood. 

***

Augustus Shetherport’s POV

Why are women so complicated? I sigh, holding a soaking wet cloth to clean Rania. She has been wondered by Thrimina, no doubt, and needs to be cared for, Lady Bulna would fume at the loss of her prized poacher. Honestly, at this point, I’d rather die than deal with that b***h.

Rania seems clean now, but I douse her from head to toe with a bucket of clean water with an added measure. I watch specs of sand trail down her back, creating a river on her spine, and splashing off her glistening buttocks. My member twitches. Blushing, I quickly turn around and start a fire to keep her warm, as it is terribly cold this time of night. 

Twinkling stars gaze upon us, wishing us sweet dreams and blissful sleep. I wait for sleep, in hopes to see Thrimina again. This time… to speak. To share my past with her. What of this proposition did Rania speak of earlier? Is it about Thrimina?

I eye Rania pulling out the furs I skinned a couple of days ago, and study the colors of each hide with a large smile on her face. I can’t help but chuckle at her childish behavior, even after sitting there for possibly hours bleeding out. 

I turn to her, clearing my throat to gain her attention.

“Yes?” she asks.

“The proposition. What was it?”

“Oh…” She wraps a butterscotch-colored hide around her, then lets out a sigh. “Something attacked me, Augustus. It—”

I cut her off. “It was the feathered-fox, I know. She escaped from an abandoned cottage a few miles back.”

She looks at me confused, licks her lips, then shakes her head. “I aimed a strychnine-laced arrow at the feather-fox, and it did not claw or retaliate against me. This is different.” Rania stands, makes her way to a satchel that lays against a tree stump, and pulls out a dagger. She holds it in her hand like a treasured possession, then trudges toward me. 

“What is that?” I ask her, knowing what it is but still curious.

“It was given to me by my mother. ‘Use it well,’ she told me.” She places it in my hands, motioning me to look at it. 

The hilt seems to have been molded with gold and ammolite. The reflection from the fire shows different shades of oranges, greens, and yellows. The preserved, Motley Golden Python skin for the grip, accentuates the multiple colors on the hilt; with the guard made of rare Adamantine. 

“My mother said that this dagger was crafted from Tullü, God of Justified Chaos.” She points at the guard, her eyes suffocating with anger. “Most of the humans in this world believe Adamantine is a metal made by and for the Greeks. Can you believe it?”

“Why are you telling me this?” I sneer, handing the dagger back to her. “What does it have to do with your proposition? Which, by the way, you never explained.”

She rolls her eyes at my nagging, and obviously disinterested, tone, then sits beside me, staring into the fire.

“If you help me capture the hybrid—unharmed—then you will receive this ceremonial dagger as a token of my appreciation.”

“Why unharmed? Wouldn’t my master want her dead?”

“Not this one. I have a feeling that the last hybrid has to do with a moon ritual, as its markings resemble night.” 

I ponder the information, reluctant to give a definite answer. Though the relief of keeping Thrimina unharmed pacifies my conscience, it won’t be easy to hand her over to Lady Bulna. 

I ascend from the log, my eyes gluing to the milk-filled moon—full and bright—slightly swaying side to side. 

Rania leans over, anticipating my response, but I refuse to give it. 

Before she can speak, I leap into the air, flying to weigh my options, and hopefully find Thrimina along the way. 

***