Remedy Maker (12 page)

Weak and bigoted, that’s what he was. Unlike Patience. Her reaction to his weakness wasn’t one of revulsion.

Nothing like
his
first reaction to
her
.

Gods, at times he truly hated himself.

His fork clattered to the empty plate and he let out a loud belch. Poor Patience must have gotten stuck listening to Alek’s ramblings. Rhy had wanted to enjoy his meal with her, not sit by himself, alone with his thoughts.

He smiled. Thoughts of feeding her while she reclined on the trapeze bed foremost on his mind.

Rhycious stepped into the neat galley, complete with hanging kitchen witch, and set his used dish in the sink. A rough bark finish covered the exterior of the cupboards with black iron knobs dotting each door. A pint-sized island held the remnants of her earlier vegetable chopping.

He picked up a piece of carrot and crunched while he waited.

And waited.

He glanced at his watch again.

Sweat broke out on his brow and his palms grew damp. Thirty-five minutes had passed since she’d delivered Alek his food. His full stomach swirled, then dropped to hell as realization hit.

If Patience were in trouble outside, he was stuck inside her goddamn tree.

Nine

“Alek?”

Patience held the savory plate of stir-fry away from the designer shirt she’d pilfered from Rhy’s closet. Spicy seasoning wafted up to tease her over-productive salivary glands. She’d only eaten an apple that morning, so if she didn’t strap on the feedbag soon, her stomach would be tap-dancing against her spine.

Her arm ached from holding the heavy platter, so she shifted it to the other hand. After delivering Alek’s food, she could relax and enjoy a shared meal inside the tree with Rhycious—and maybe a little something more.

She pressed a palm to her over-heated cheek, and chewed her lower lip. What was it about that man? He should be off-limits to her. Wood Nymphs and Centaurs never mingled. Warmth spread in a rush entertaining the notion of the two of them getting horizontal on her living room couch.

Reaching up, she removed the chopsticks and let her hair tumble down her back and around her shoulders. She took a few steps from the tree and glanced around for Rhy’s friend.

Aleksander must have wandered off, so she waited, giving him time to return from wherever he’d drifted off. She gazed at the twinkling stars and inhaled deep of the fresh night air.

Bad B.O.—a whiff of unclean bodies crashed into her consciousness. It hung in the air like a polluted fog and cut through the garlic in the food. Patience stood motionless, reaching with her senses to examine the surrounding woods.

Crickets quieted their melodic chirps. Ruminant night sounds were eerily absent.

“Alek?” She broke the silence with her whisper.

Behind her, a twig snapped and she spun in surprise. Before she could make eye contact with the Centaur, a rough sack jerked over her head. The ceramic platter flew out of her hand and shattered on the ground.

Patience screamed. She struck out blindly with fingers curled into lethal claws. Fear ripped through her, poignant and tidal wave strong. No matter how she scrabbled at the blindfold, it stayed firmly in place. She let out another throat-scraping shriek.

“Shut her up!” A malevolent southern drawl barked his order.

Hands caught her flailing arms and yanked them behind her back. The attacker pushed her wrists high on her back, pain tore into her shoulders.

Oh gods! What’s happening?
Patience screamed again.

 Off balance without her sight, Patience tripped over her own feet. She crashed face first to the forest floor. Agony pierced her skull with the force of a thousand needles. The metallic taste of blood swept across her tongue where her teeth cut into her lip. The sparkling stars now floated behind her closed eyes.

“Get the rope, quick.” Pubescent change cracked in another human’s voice.

 Hands pushed her covered head to the ground and held her there. Pebbles beneath the hood dug into her cheek, her loose hair filled her mouth and covered her eyes. A heavy body slammed over her back, crushing her arms between them.

The breath left her lungs in a big whoosh, like the time she’d been a sapling and was jokingly tackled from behind by a mean Minotaur boy.
Gods! I can’t . . . breath . . . .
Her muscles cramped from the awkward position of her arms.

Aleksander!
Had the humans killed him?

The ludicrous thought of the queen’s guard falling to these men fled her mind as quickly as it had entered. He was out there—somewhere. He had to be. Just waiting for the right moment to move in and kick some human ass.

She lashed out with her legs and managed to drag musty air into her oxygen-starved lungs.

“Get off me. Help!” Patience screamed, hoping Alek or some other woodland species would hear her.
Where are the Wood Nymph patrols?

The weight on top of her lifted, but forceful hands held her to the ground. Childhood horror stories crowded her mind, tears clogging the back of her throat. Terrified out of her mind, her body reacted with anaphylactic-like shock. Shallow gasps squeezed past her closing throat. Drawing her next breath became a labor for her over-taxed body.

She opened her mouth to scream, but only a thin wisp of sound emerged. At night, the forest came alive with human predators, and those being hunted.
Oh gods, I’m one of them!

Deprived of oxygen, her mind felt stuffed with pine needles. The sharp bite of the rocks no longer hurt her face. She barely felt the burn of the rope that wrapped her bare ankles and knees. Numbness set in. Her limbs heavy, she thrashed clumsily. Her hair didn’t even bug her anymore.

Rhycious—Holy Bacchus.
As non-Nymph shimmered in a tree, he’d have no idea of what happened to her. How would he get out? Who would know Rhycious was trapped if something happened to her or Aleksander? If the two of them died, Rhy would suffer an agonizing death, swathed in madness.

Dread overshadowed a terrifying reality. As though she held no meaning, someone lifted her body and slung her belly down over a hard shoulder. Blood rushed to her head. There were a dozen other assorted pains that flared to life, pounding like two bull elk to split her skull.

But at least she was alive.

“Help.” Discombobulated and weak, her voice floated to her from a distance. No one would hear her through the fabric.

She bent her knees and kicked once more, satisfied when her heel connected with a solid object. Her kidnapper’s responding four letter words were symphonic music to her ears.

With her hands tied behind her, Patience lay helpless in preventing the jarring her head took from each hard bounce against the man’s back.

The hunters trekked onward, and Patience had no idea which direction they traveled. Water splashed crossing a creek, suggesting a southern direction, away from the heart of the Boronda Forest. But she couldn’t be sure.

 It seemed hours had passed. Upside down, she drifted in and out of a nightmarish state, hanging limp and impervious.

Her mind roamed. An assortment of topics dropped into her jumbled thoughts and slid from one to another, then settled on humans. Though these men frightened her, she liked the human species as a whole. There were only certain groups of
man
who hunted the mythological creatures of Boronda. 

For ages, the fables surrounding her people’s existence became a
blizzaster
. The supposed magic her people performed drove the faked-out humans’ hunger for Nymphs. Wood and Water Nymphs in constant harassment, Satyrs and Trolls, too. Not even the fearsome Centaurs were left alone. Their legends told of countless skirmishes against the terrorist hunters.

Awareness slammed into her when she was shoved none too gently on a half-reclined platform. Little padding, if any, offered comfort. The cold surface chilled her exposed thighs. Sitting upright, her crown of hair wrapped a messy heap around her shrouded head. Habit to push it all back ate at her like an itchy nose.

How much time had passed? Diffused lights through her hood lacked warmth. Then, another spot of brightness lit up.

Indoor lighting?

Rhycious!

 
For the love of the gods—she’d left him in her sycamore tree. If she ended up dead, who would find him before he starved to death? She imagined his panic—she was experiencing the same for herself. 

Heavy footsteps moved across a wooden floor, planks creaking in protest. Blind inside the head sack, auditory information filtered to her in trickles, and Patience latched on to each tidbit given away. Flooring meant a room, which meant she might be inside a building. That’d explain the feel of the lighting.

“Tie her in good. I don’t know if this creature has super powers that can break through nylon rope.” The squeaky voice spoke from somewhere off to her left.

Super powers?
Are these humans fucking demented?
Would I be here if I had any?

Her tied legs dangled over the seat’s edge in free space.

“Watch out, Evan!”

 Patience lashed out with a wild mermaid kick, unable to direct her blind aim. Her efforts proved fruitless and drained her evaporating strength.

 When the
testepop’s
voice cracked again, he stood closer than before. “Wrap more rope around her and pull it tight. Be sure she ain’t gonna be movin’ on us.”

The nylon strands drew tighter and bit into her wrists until she cried out. Her shoulders screamed. Pressures of coil after coil wrapped to hold her fast. Who were these humans? What the hell did they want with her?

What would they do
to
her?

Panic unbidden erupted into a full-blown storm. Adrenaline surged through her veins faster than ten cups of espresso and gave an energy boost to her depleted supply.

She heaved against the restraining rope, allowed it cut into her, and let out a scream that would make a banshee proud. Crazed with fear, she struggled in a basket case attempt to escape.

“Shut her up, Tom!” Less sure of himself, a third man spoke up from off to the side. Mobility limited, Patience kicked her legs in the voice’s direction and once again met empty air.

 The air inside her head covering decreased the airflow; fire burned in her lungs. Her breathing and the thunderous beating of her heart filled her ears. She sucked material into her mouth with each inhale, causing her to cough. Like a corset made of rope, the restricted rib expansion prevented her from taking sweet lungfuls of air.

Completely disoriented, and hanging somewhere between delirium and hysteria, she panted short, hard breaths. A strange numbing sensation drifted over her face. She bit her lip and confirmed the deadened feeling. She knew about hyperventilating, but wasn’t able to tuck her head between her knees to prevent the light-headedness.

Patience gasped for air. Lack of oxygen compounded everything and she choked panic-stricken. A spotted gray haze exchanged places with the russet colored cloth swathing her head. Bewildered, she fought unconsciousness before it rushed over and pooled in her mind. Her weighted limbs tingled, but she couldn’t shake them out.

She’d dealt with the mentally unbalanced before and always afforded them empathy and aid, whether she’d wanted to or not. So why was she so opposed to offering the same for these men—the ones who clearly wanted to assault her?

This time, when blackness crouched near the edge of her vision, Patience welcomed the dark relief.

*    *    *

Fanatical voices argued and disturbed the erotic scene Patience’s dream painted. A heart-warming vision of Rhycious’s lust-filled eyes faded away and she moaned his departure.

“Rhy . . . .”

“Hey, Tom, it’s waking up.”

“Keep the gun close, jus’ in case.”

Patience awakened in a groggy haze, and took a deep breath. The stench of human hunters burned up her nose as though their bodies were made of smelling salts.

Her eyes flew open and she immediately filled with dread. The humans had removed her hood and the terrifying memories washed over. Viewing her captors for the first time, her heart sped from zero to sixty in two seconds flat.

A blond man with a hanging overbite stood the farthest away, near a cheap pressed-wood credenza. He picked up objects strewn over the surface and dropped them down again. In constant motion, the young man’s slight build fidgeted and fiddled. His bangs fell into his eyes and he constantly flicked his head to the side like a bad habit.

Her mind processed the visual information as though she were advising a client in a counseling session. Instead of categorizing the auditory feedback into workable guidance, Patience compartmentalized each human into levels of threat.

And there were three: bad, worse, and
oh my gods!

The youngest human appeared the least threatening. He refused to make eye contact with her and his restless actions signaled discomfort and lack of confidence.

“I don’t like the way she’s looking at you, Tom.”

The fat man named Tom, with a balding head and foul body odor, leered closer. She assessed him to be the hunter in charge. His greasy lips stretched in a crooked, missing toothed smile. Pig-eyed and close set, his gaze roamed over her, stopping to stare openly at her breasts and crotch.

“Welcome to my humble abode. You comfortable?” Tom’s thick southern drawl cracked in fake solicitousness. His stagnate breath stained the air and blasted her with the reek of him. He licked his thick lips and smacked them together.

Revulsion tripped down her spine, jacking her fear up higher. He held a short blue stick and moved toward her with unholy confidence.

“If I answer no, will you let me go?” Nerves stretched to the breaking point, Patience became aware of the tension blasting through the room.

“Hell no.” His grip on the stick went white knuckled.

Terror rose in her throat. She swallowed it down, keeping the two other men in her sights. She shifted in her uncomfortable seat, which was more of a shelf attached to the wall. It leaned her back at an odd angle; neither sitting up, nor lying down.