“Not if it’s done right. In fact, I bet if you had a really good flouncing, you’d enjoy it for weeks on end. At least.” He winked at me. “I didn’t catch your name, pretty lady.”
“Zam.” I looked past him, seeing Balder under a couple of trees, his head low and his back leg cocked, favoring it.
“Well, Zam, you escaped the queen of the giants, which in and of itself is impressive. But I have to ask, did you know they would stop and listen to your story?” Marcel did a little half-step, a hop and kick as if a bug had landed on him. I raised an eyebrow.
“No. I’d forgotten that part of the information pack I read until the last minute.”
“Information pack?” He let out a noise that I suppose was a laugh, but to be honest, it sounded like a goat being strangled. Which made my lips twitch upward.
“Dude, you cannot laugh like that.” I shook my head.
“Can’t help it.” He did that same braying, strangling goat scream and I had to stop walking.
“Sweet baby goddess, stop it!” I took a half-hearted swing at him. “Every predator within a ten-mile radius will hear that and think you’re being tortured and then come looking for what’s left of you!”
He slowed his horrifying laugh to a low-end chuckle that was at least not so friggin’ loud. I shook my head. “Go on, get out of here.”
“You don’t want my help?” His face fell as if we were best friends and I’d just told him I hated his goaty little guts.
I tried to push past him but he moved with me. “What are you going to help me with exactly? I already turned down the flouncing.”
“I could help your horse over there, stitch him up, make him good as new.”
I sighed and tried again to go around him to get to Balder, but Marcel kept himself between us. I flicked an ascending eyebrow and held up the kukri blade I’d not yet put away. “Seriously, get the fuck out of my way.”
He held up both hands as if surrendering. “I also saw your buddy, the big blond dude on the black horse. I can tell you what direction he went.” Marcel waggled his eyebrows and fingers at me at the same time. “And for all that, just a quick flouncing. Twenty minutes, tops.”
I stared hard at him, his words slowly sinking in. “You saw Steve? When?”
“Oh, right about as your horse crested the hill. He took one look at you coming over the top and the queen’s hand coming for you, and took off fast as he could go. Not real brave, is he?”
Any gratefulness for keeping Steve alive, saving his ass—again—fled in a flurry of anger so hot, I thought my clothes would burst into flames. Not that I had that kind of magic, but in that moment, I could almost feel it under my skin, like a phoenix rising with a fury as scorching as any blaze.
Marcel’s eyes widened. “You okay?”
I put a hand out to him, palm against his chest, and shoved him out of my way. I didn’t think I could handle speaking right then for fear of what would come flooding out of my mouth. As it was, my mind raced, dancing forward with just what Steve was up to.
He’d take the jewel back to Ish, show her that he’d gotten it all on his own, hoping I was killed by the giants. Thinking I was dead, he could take all the glory. Again.
“Satyr-flouncing face-sprayer, I’m going to kick his ass all the way to the desert and back.”
Marcel laughed behind me. “I’m going to steal that one. If you don’t mind.”
I reached Balder and he gave me a dirty look, his ears pinned to his head. I held up both hands. “I’m sorry, my friend. But you had to get up that hill or end up inside a giant’s belly.”
He snorted and one ear flicked forward. I reached out and touched his uninjured hip and he leaned into my hand. I had to let my anger with Steve go while I worked on Balder. The horse was far too sensitive to my emotions to give him that anger when he didn’t deserve it. I stroked a hand over his side and pulled my medic bag from the back of the saddle. In a matter of minutes, I stitched the wound closed, making tight, neat wraps of the thread so the sutures would hold and heal while he walked.
“Half a flouncing to make him whole? Ten minutes. I can’t go less than ten minutes if we’re both going to enjoy it,” Marcel said behind me, so close that if I so much as took a big breath, I’d have pushed my back into his front and I could only imagine what was there. He blew a soft breath against my ear and I swatted backward at him like I would a fly.
“Nope.” I pulled out a jar of red sparkling paste and Marcel grunted. “That’s right, I have my own magic.”
“That’s not really yours,” he pointed out. “There is no way you made that hacka paste.”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? It’ll work, and Balder here and I will be leaving in a matter of minutes.”
“Where did you get it?” Marcel came around to my side to peer at me while I smeared the healing paste onto Balder’s stitched-up wound.
“A friend.” I capped the jar and tucked it into the bag. I wasn’t about to tell him that Ish made it for me. Ish didn’t like other supernaturals knowing she was capable of certain things. Like healing paste.
“You aren’t going to light it on fire?” Marcel leaned on Balder and the horse stepped away so Marcel stumbled. I wiped my hands on my cloak.
“Nope. It’ll work, just slower without the flame.” I walked up to Balder’s head and took his reins.
“Wait, just like that you’re leaving?” Marcel called after me. “Seriously, you’re like the first flounceable woman I’ve seen in ages—”
“You’d flounce a piece of rotten twenty-day-old cheese if given the chance,” I shot back.
“Ahh, you wound me. I would never flounce cheese without consent.” He laughed. “Come on, just ten minutes. Pretty please?”
With my back to him, I let the smile slide over my lips. Satyrs were, if nothing else, funny as hell. As long as there was no flouncing involved, they could be good, light company. Totally untrustworthy, but fun.
Balder bumped me with his nose and gave a low snort.
“Yeah, he’s a fool. But he’s not a bad guy. Just a guy like all the other ones out there.”
Maybe I was bitter. Shit, scratch that, I knew I was. But I was trying not to let it rule my life. Hard when the one person you thought you could trust with everything turned out to be the person you should have trusted the least.
My family hadn’t helped in that department, and even my best friend . . . I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going there. Not today.
From behind us came that awful goat-strangling laughter. “I heard that! And I take offense. I’m worth twice any of the other men you know! I’ve got the manhood to prove it. Twice as big!”
I turned as I walked, a laugh trickling through me, the lightness of the moment a balm to the anger, stealing me away from the dark place my head was going before it got too bad. “Good luck flouncing whatever woman comes through next. Or consenting cheese, as the case may be.” I gave him a floppy salute and he returned the gesture.
“I’ll see you again, Zam! I know it! Just you wait. We will have a great time together!” he shouted after me.
I had a feeling he was right and I’d meet him again, which was strange. I hadn’t gotten that sensation in years. Not since I met Ish, I suppose, and she’d taken us from the Oasis, broken, injured, and without anyone to look after what was left of our family.
I walked beside Balder, heading northwest toward home. I tried not to think about what Ish would say when Steve got there alone. Would she care that I was dead? He’d spin his story in such a way that would make him look a hero who tried to save me, and then be overjoyed to see me survive, as though he couldn’t believe that I’d made it out alive without him.
I couldn’t help the anger that built with each step that took me closer to home.
And what would it do to my brother? He was there waiting to see if I survived too . . . Would he care? Something like heartbreak, an emotion I didn’t want again, twisted through me and tried to set my eyes to flooding.
“No, no crying behind the wall,” I whispered to myself. I refused to think that perhaps my brother would be relieved if I was dead, that he would no longer have to bear the shame of a sister who’d strayed so far from the way we were raised. I had to fight not to hunch my shoulders under the weight of those thoughts. Under the guilt of what I should have been but wasn’t.