Her back was warm against his chest, her neat little butt smooth and round where it nestled against his groin. His groin, which was definitely enjoying the close contact. Maybe the day was looking up.
“I’m afraid I only have one cloak,” Miho said, as a kelf handed it up-passing it to Kett, he noticed.
“Well, that means we’ll just have to share,” Bael said, wrapping it around them both, grinning as Kett leaned right back against him. “Hard life, ain’t it?”
“Certainly seems to be for you,” she said, shifting against his growing erection.
By the time they made it to Miho’s elegant house with its flamboyantly curved roof, Kett was in agony. Sleeping outside in the cold hadn’t done her leg any good at all, and jolting it into sudden exercise this morning had been the kiss of death. Every movement of the munta as it trotted along happily after Miho’s horse jolted fresh pain through her leg until she could hardly breathe.
Bael, of course, had no idea she was in pain. He seemed to be enjoying the bumpy ride, rubbing his big cock against her with every sway of the munta. Kett wasn’t turned on. She might have been, had her leg not been causing her such agony, but pain had never been arousing for her. This sort of pain was threatening to kill her.
But she didn’t let on. She never let on.
Miho slid elegantly from her horse in the pristine stable yard. “The kelfs went on ahead and prepared a room for you,” she said. “There is food and a hot bath.” She frowned and shouted something in Xinjiangese to a kelf, who nodded and scurried away. “And medical supplies. Come. It is cold out here.” She glided away toward the door of the house.
Kett couldn’t move. Bael didn’t seem inclined to. She supposed that was because he was sporting a massive hard-on that he didn’t particularly want to display.
“You get down first,” she managed through gritted teeth. “Keep the cloak.”
He hesitated. “You sure?”
She nodded, tears in her eyes as his movements jolted her leg just the tiniest bit. How the hell she was ever going to make it inside, she had no idea. She didn’t even know how she was going to get off the munta.
“You coming?” Bael asked, looking up, and she managed a nod but didn’t move. He frowned, then his eyes slid down to her bare thigh where the mangled, twisted scar glowed, pink and vicious. Kett ignored him and, with a monumental effort of will, swung her left leg across the munta’s back. If she could slide her weight onto her left side, she might just-
She squawked in sudden pain and surprise as Bael scooped one arm under her knees and wrapped the other around her shoulders, cradling her against him. A trickle of fresh blood slid down his arm, but the arrow wound didn’t seem to be causing him any extra distress as he supported her full weight.
Breathless and astonished, she stared up at him. He grinned back.
“I know you have your pride, my sweet, but I have mine too, and I just can’t allow you to walk barefoot a moment longer.”
Kett opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“No no, don’t protest,” Bael said, adjusting her weight in his arms as he carried her across the courtyard, following an obviously amused Miho. “Nothing’s too good for my angel.”
Kett finally recovered her voice as they entered the warmth of the house. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Saving my lady the exhaustion of walking a step farther,” Bael said grandly. Then added in a whisper, “And the embarrassment of admitting she can’t walk at all.”
“I can-”
“Sweetheart, you couldn’t even dismount.”
Miho led them down vast hallways before opening a door and ushering them inside a room with a large bed and lacquered furniture. The low window looked out over an exquisitely designed garden. There was a large table covered with food and steam flowing from a second door. To Kett, it looked a lot like heaven.
“There are clothes in the closet,” Miho said, “and the bath is hot. If you need anything, call for the kelfs.” She indicated a bell pull. “And try not to pick a fight with any of them.” She gave them a bow then left, closing the door.
“Will you put me down now?” Kett asked.
“And watch you lying there all naked and helpless? Actually…” Bael seemed to be considering this.
“Knock it off.”
He grinned and strode through to the bathroom, dumping her in a huge sunken bath filled with scalding water that steamed fragrantly and shocked her into silence.
Feeling a little like a lobster plunged into the pot, she could only stare up at Bael, but he was already leaving the room. Feeling returned gradually, her skin throbbing in the mad heat, her muscles forced to relax. Her leg seemed to have given up the fight, faced with such indomitable heat, and she managed to move it an inch or two.
Bael came back in with several plates of food, plonked them by her elbow then went back out again. Still speechless, Kett stared at the piles of sandwiches, noodles, vegetables, kebabs-and then Bael came back in again. He put down more food, a couple pitchers and a tray of medical supplies, then dropped the cloak and stepped into the bath.
Then he leaped like a cat on drugs and yelped, “Fucking hell, that’s hot!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Kett asked, recovering her voice. She picked up a pitcher, sniffed at it and ascertained that it was beer. Which she proceeded to drink.
“Bleeding hell,” Bael swore, bravely going back in. He gingerly dunked his arm under the water, flinching as heat seared the arrow wound.
“Yep.” She grabbed a sandwich and devoured it whole. Unable to remember the last time she’d eaten anything, she was suddenly ravenous.
Bael picked through the bottles on the food tray, sniffing at a few until he found one he liked the smell of. But instead of drinking, he poured it all over the wound on his arm, stiffening in pain. Kett frowned; he was wasting good saki.
“Food good?” Bael asked as he took a pair of tweezers from the tray and started picking at the hole in his arm. He watched Kett as she demolished the sandwiches and started on the noodles, eating them with her fingers.
“Right now I’d eat a raw kelf,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Kelfs really annoy me.” He paused, apparently realizing she wasn’t impressed by that. “You do know I was joking, right?”
“You do know that kelfs aren’t known for their sense of humor, right?” She grabbed a kebab and ripped the meat off with her teeth.
“Well, I do now.” He extracted something from his arm and dropped it on the tray. “How’s your leg?”
“Five by five.” The empty kebab stick clattered on the plate.
“What does that mean?”
“Fine.”
“Well, clearly it’s not, since five minutes ago you couldn’t even move. What happened?”
She swallowed a handful of noodles and washed it down with beer. “Just an accident.”
“An accident involving something with big teeth?”
She gave him a sharp look, not easy to do with a mouthful of tomato. Swallowing the food, she said, “Really big.”
“What was it? A dog?”
“Bigger.”
“Are we going to play that game where I ask questions and you answer with single words? ’Cos we could be here for some time.”
Her mouth once again full, Kett held her hands about ten inches apart. Bael raised his eyebrows. She chewed and swallowed and said through half a mouthful, “Sabertooth. Really big teeth.”
He whistled. “You got bitten by a sabertooth tiger?”
She shrugged and quaffed some more beer. “Yeah. Piece of advice? If a sabertooth tiger ‘really annoys’ you, don’t pick a fight with it. Don’t taunt it. Just get the fuck out of there.”
Bael opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded. He gestured at the tray of medical supplies. “I think the pills in the brown bottle are painkillers.”