Free Drink of Me by Jacquelyn Frank Page A

his mind, he was far from the bath and Reule, yet he knew his Prime was now physically by his side, watching him steadily, ready to end the pain he’d asked his friend to suffer if necessary.
    Mildew, must, and terrible cold. Every inch of his skin was throbbing and burning with open, fresh, and barely healed wounds. There was something strange about what he felt, even as sadness overwhelmed him again and again, a despair that tightened his lungs, forcing tears to fall even when he was too thirsty, too hungry, and too tired to weep. There was sleep in short, taunting snatches, but always the cold. Then that strange vibration again, humming the length and breadth of his—her—body. Weak, but growing stronger as time continued to reverse her condition.
    Jakals. He sensed them, was aware of them, but she could hide herself from the Jakals dancing gleefully right beneath her. Then he (she) felt her arms and legs exploding in horrible agony.
    Darcio leaped forward, roaring in pain as he fell before the bench onto his knees, Reule’s hands guiding him and now holding him as he yelled and shook. Alone, but not? Alone, but being tortured? No marks, only the pain of it. Driving, driving deep. And still they didn’t know of her, even though she wept and shuddered with the emotions the Jakals so desired to devour. Days rotated further into the past, hunger easing so it was sharp but not agonizing, as did thirst, the presence of the Jakals fading within forty-eight hours until she was alone in truth.
    Splinters rammed under skin disappeared, mildew and mold rashes faded, cold gave way to warmth as her body slid to the third floor, the second…the first. Slow, the trip taking most of a day to make because she’d crawled up while in ferocious agony. There was the burn, the raw scorching along her hips, spine, and shoulders. Hair tangled, scalp torn and bloodied. Every inch bruised, bones even broken. Some twice over.
    Since the scenario was running backward, Darcio was confused. Three days ago she’d had broken bones, today she didn’t. How was that possible? He wasn’t required to seek the answer. Reule had only wanted to know if the Jakals had raped her. They hadn’t. They hadn’t even realized she was there, though he knew not how. Still, what trauma had left her alone in such a state? A fight? Had she been attacked after all, only by a different assailant?
    Confusion swept through him as his body ached and throbbed in sympathy with the plight and pain of a small woman who turned out to have the stamina and fortitude of the most seasoned warrior. Experiencing the trauma she’d undergone secondhand, Darcio wasn’t so sure he would’ve been so persistent or resourceful. Then again, she wasn’t Sánge, and his natural defenses would’ve made this a much altered experience for him.
    “Darc, stay focused,” he heard Reule encourage him gently, his Prime’s voice concerned but firm.
    So it continued. Dampness and the stench of the swamps and bogs of the damplands. Earth. Grass. Beneath his hands and knees. Crawling inch by inch over changing terrain, every movement exquisite agony, yet the only thing keeping him warm in the pre-winter chill. A fall, brutal, snapped his arm in two. Then soreness between his legs, hard aches in his thighs.
    Shadow felt Reule tense next to him, but his Prime mistook the cause of the discomfort. Darcio had been an accomplished horseman for far too long not to recognize a saddle-sore backside. The fall had been from a horse. She’d broken her arm falling from a high-set saddle. She’d fallen from pure exhaustion.
    Then there was riding, the speed breakneck. He could tell by the windburn on his face, the whipping of hair that pulled at a scalp already beaten raw. How? How had it come to be, the battering that caused pain to worsen as time drew nearer to the origination? He was close to the cause. Darcio could feel it, and he dreaded it. He dreaded it because he knew it would be worse than all