Page 4 of Blood & Roses

He turned and spat out a mouthful of blood, wiping it with the back of one gloved hand. “Miss Nightshade, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” I confirmed, frowning at the blood and pushing a little more magic into him as he turned to sit in thesnow. I wasn’t sure what he meant with his claim about endangering my life, but I assumed I was not the original target of the stag. “And you are?”

“A client,” he grunted, spitting out another mouthful of blood before leaning back on his elbows in the snow. “I’ve been following you since the tavern. That was some nasty work you did.”

“Thank you,” I replied, frowning at him curiously. “Poisoning is something of a specialty.”

“Good,” he grunted, pushing himself to stand. I rose with him, trying to help steady his weight against my shoulder. We were awkward, but we managed, and I brushed the snow from my skirts as I stepped back to examine him. His skin was rather pale, possibly from blood loss, and he raised a brow at me as he held the wound in his side. “I’m hoping your services are for hire.”

“That depends,” I said, glancing up the path. The cold had already seeped through and chilled me to my bones. We needed to get back to the cottage. “Can you walk? I can only slow your bleeding out here. I need my supplies to properly heal you.”

“You’re the bloodweaver,” he grunted, stumbling a step. I threw his arm over my shoulder, trying to steady him again. He was at least a foot taller than me and heavily muscled, and I struggled under his weight. But he was able to move with my support, and we began the trek toward the cottage. “Figures.”

“And you’re a shifter,” I guessed, frowning because this guess didn’t fully make sense. “But you’re not naked.”

The male raised a brow at me, and I blushed. “My sister’s mate is a bear-shifter,” I explained, willing the blood from my cheeks with my magic. “He doesn’t remain clothed when he shifts, though.”

The male grunted in understanding. “I’m Elandorean,” he explained, wincing as I struggled over a rock in the snow and jostled his injured side. “We don’t shift the same way when we borrow a shape.”

Elandoreans, I knew, could shift into any creature, but I supposed it wasn’t time to get into the logistics of Elandorean magic with the huntsman bleeding all over me.

“You were the crow in the village,” I realized, breathing hard as I struggled to trudge through snow while propping him up. “And your name?”

“Let’s dispense with the pleasantries until we are out of the snow,” he growled, his keen eyes flashing with irritation. “It’s too difficult to talk and walk and bleed at the same time.”

“Absolutely not,” the huntsman growled, sniffing at the green liquid in the vial I held before him. “Not after what I saw you do in that tavern.”

“Gods above,” I rolled my eyes, catching Lena’s smirk as she left me in the kitchen, the huntsman sitting stiffly in a wooden chair before the hearth. I had several questions, including why, exactly, he had been following me, but I’d decided they couldwait until he wasn’t actively bleeding all over the floor. Being only half-elven meant his wound was healing only slightly faster than human wounds, although a full-human would have already bled out. “What possible motive would I have to poison you?”

“I can think of several,” he said cryptically, pushing the vial back at me. “You drink first. Show me it’s not poison.”

I sighed, contemplating letting the irascible huntsman die rather than argue about blood alchemy with him. He must have seen me bite into the poison apple, so I didn’t know why he thought this would prove the potion safe. Regardless, I couldn’t drink it.

He waited, the scar over his eyebrow made him look even more skeptical than he probably intended.

“Ican’tdrink it,” I said, pushing it back at him. “It hasyourblood in it. To speed the healing. It will makemesick.”

Most blood-based potions worked this way, only healing the owner of the blood, while poisoning all others. It was an effective way to make poisons, as evidenced by the death of Mr. Birchwood earlier that very morning.

“But if you prefer,” I said, sighing with mock resignation and moving to the sideboard where I fished out the sewing kit, “we can do this the old-fashioned way.”

The needle glinted silver in the light of the hearth, and the huntsman paled a little. Males could be such babies.

“Fine,” he grumbled, drinking the potion and gasping as his wounds knit themselves closed. “Gods above, that stings.”

“No more than needle and thread would have,” I argued. “Mr…?”

“Ravenswood,” he said, his teeth still clamped tight as the potion worked to mend his wounds. He finally relaxed, a sign the magic had done its job. “Rowan Ravenswood.”

“Rowan,” I mused, testing out the name. “After the tree?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he drawled, twisting experimentally to test his injuries. “Thank you for not poisoning me.”

“It was the least I could do,” I said, cleaning up the supplies I had used in my healing potion. “Although stalkers shouldn’t get such consideration. Why were you following me?”

“I wasn’t following,” he replied. His face betrayed nothing as he added, “I was appraising.”

“Why were you appraising me, then?” I asked, feeling irritation rise in me at this male’s inability to answer a simple question. “And why exactly did you say it was your fault I was in danger? Was that stag after you?”