Daughters of the King |✓|

Chapter Thirteen

I'd seen Gunnar get sewn up once before, but he'd been unconscious. This time was different.

The savages lived in crude huts and up in trees. They lived like cavemen. Like thousands of years of evolution had never happened, and they had nothing but a thin cot spread out onto the bare floor of a hut for Gunnar to lie in. He'd lowered himself into it without making a sound, bleeding quietly into the dirt, even though he knew they had nothing to ease the pain with. The physician, if you can even call her that, was a middle-aged woman with bright feathers sewn into her short hair and a voice like sandpaper.

"I've done it many times," she promised Gunnar, although he refused to speak to or look at her, and he flinched whenever she touched him.

He had no choice, though. She sewed him up quickly while he clutched the wool bedding with both of his big fists, his face scrunched up as he waited for it to be over. I watched the whole thing, I'm not even sure why, until she cleaned him up as well as she could and left. Then I sat on the floor beside him.

"You okay?"

"Fine," he bit out.

He didn't look fine. He looked a mess. We both did, I suppose.

He hissed suddenly in pain, clutching the bedding again, and I considered holding his hand, like I'd done last time, but then quickly wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

Empathy was still a stranger. We were only beginning to get to know each other.

"A word, please?" interrupted a hoarse voice from outside the hut.

Gunnar and I exchanged a puzzled look.

"Can you come out, please?" the voice called again.

Gunnar's eyes darted up to meet mine, and he looked... nervous. I suppose he would be, since they'd shot one of his own just yesterday.

"I have to go see what they want, but I'll come right back," I promised, pushing to my feet.

Every part of me screamed with fatigue, but I'd passed the point of being tired, and now I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to sleep anytime soon.

Gunnar nodded reluctantly, his gaze unfocused and clouded by the pain.

"Try to sleep it off," I instructed, although I wasn't sure it would help him any.

He could die from infection, for all I knew.

He nodded again and shut his eyes with visible effort, while I wavered by the door., I didn't want to leave. I was nervous, too, about what they wanted—what they might do. Just because one wild woman was willing to sew him up, didn't mean another wouldn't come along and slit his throat.

There were no rules out here—no laws to live by.

But I had no choice. I glanced back at Gunnar one last time. He was stretched out on the cot at my feet, and it felt strange to see him looking so human. He was bare-chested and immense, swallowing up all the space the cot had to offer, but he was also vulnerable. The truth is, I felt a twinge of ownership. He was putting his life on the line for me, and although a part of me resented that, I can't deny I felt grateful. My soldier, I thought to myself, in the same way someone might think, my servant.

Then I exited the hut before Gunnar could open his eyes again and find me standing there examining him like a piece of useful machinery.

The same bearded one, the one I called the leader, waited for me outside. You wouldn't have thought he'd spent the whole night traveling, same as us, since he barely looked unrested. His face was creased with smile lines above his dark beard, and his eyes were bright and squinty, like there was something funny here—like it was amusing to him that he'd managed to ensnare us.