Page 23 of Foundling

“There might be other creatures in there.”

Hmph, Attalus huffed.

His vision went perfectly still. “Did you hear that?” Another strange pause. “I think he’s—ow! Fucking traitorous shit—ow!”

Something scrambled up onto Attalus’s snout, and he heard a series of tiny, heroic squeaks.

The female pointed threateningly at the squeaker. “Bite me again and I’ll let the unicorn eat you.”

Whatever this was—the last sparks in his dying mind or a strange scene concocted by his delirium—it certainly seemed like a fae woman arguing with a pine marten standing on his face.

Attalus wanted to ask, he really did, especially given that he increasingly suspected he wasn’t dead—just close to it. Yet, his body wouldn’t move, the venom coating his veins and locking his muscles tight. Dragons ran hot, but he could tell he burned with fever, and his hearts raced too quickly as the venom attacked them.

All he could do was lay there as the woman continued to inspect him and grumble. She cursed the twin goddesses of the fae, as well as the sea and sky gods the dragons were partial to, the orcish All-Mother and Ever-Father, and even the human fates. She ran the gamut, giving each their hateful due, as she worked her way down his body.

He knew the moment she found the bite wound. Breath hissed from between her teeth, confirming to Attalus that, yes, it was as bad as it felt. It might even have opened again.

“C’mere and hold the weasel back…Because I don’t want her to bite me again…Detain, not eat…Well, I’m not picking the fur out of your teeth if you do.”

There was a mighty scuffle of outraged squeaks and colorful curses before he sensed the woman kneel at his head.

With two fingers, she peeled back his third eyelid, letting light stab his eye. Attalus growled and winced at the blinding pain—but as his eye adjusted, something incredible happened.

He saw her.

The woman kneeling beside him truly was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. White hair in a loose plait fell to pool on the ground it was so long. Sapphire eyes rimmed in white lashes blinked at him under a concerned frown, and lilac lips had been pulled unhappily to the side.

He tried to croon for her again. Don’t worry over me, doe, he wanted to tell her. I’ll be just fine, for how could I die now having seen your perfect face?

That’s what she was. Perfection. A vision. His very own—

“If you can hear me in there, I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

Attalus’s hearts wrenched in his chest when magic began to crackle across his scales. Wait wait waitwaitwait—

She was right, it fucking hurt.

He didn’t know, really, how much time passed after that. However, he was convinced now that he was indeed alive, for he couldn’t believe such pain could follow him into death.

What got him through the blistering agony of an open, envenomated wound was the promise of seeing his mysterious maiden again. He could sense her near, scent her, too, and her nearness gave him the incentive he needed to stick around a while longer.

There was often a weight on his snout or skull, and he liked to think it was her offering comfort; although, the weight often smelled too much of marten to be totally clear.

As he lay there in that vulnerable state, his fever raging and his body useless, he felt a strange, foreign magic pressing against him. It wasn’t malicious; no indeed, if anything, it seemed almost…curious about him. When it wasn’t coating his wound, encouraging the veins and muscles to heal and scales to regrow, he could often feel it tickling his wings or poking at his fangs.

Whenever he tried to inspect it for himself, coax it closer with a warm breath or cooing rumble, it fluttered away, a shy thing. He became entranced by it, so much so, that he hardly realized enough time had passed for him to open his eyes again.

Attalus finally came awake to a quiet, cool cave. The smell of ash was still present but not overwhelmingly so. His body was stiff and sore from laying on a cave floor, making his movements clumsy when he reached down to gingerly inspect the bite wound.

He found that strange magic there, twisting between his fingers. What he didn’t find was blood or seepage or even infection. New skin had closed over the wound, and he itched something fierce with the new scales already growing in.

“No itching.” A smack on his claws startled him.

Attalus looked up to behold his vision. A shuddering breath escaped his lungs to find her not a figment of his fevered imagination, but a real, breathing woman.

And what a woman.

Long legs led up to a trim hourglass torso below perfectly rounded breasts and slim shoulders. That long, thick white plait laid over one, trailing down past her hips, where her fists had gathered into a universal sign of female annoyance. Those jewel eyes glittered coldly down at him, her beautiful mouth thinned with apparent displeasure.