Disclaimers: Same thing that everyone else says applies here. Language, Violence, Naughty Bits, blah blah blah.

Chapter 37

I was floating somewhere, somewhere soft and grey. I could feel a cold breeze flow over my skin, lifting the tiny hairs on my flesh. My mouth twisted into a frown as I shivered. Why was I so cold?

The soft grey began to lighten and the shivering got worse. Something hard and heavy pressed against my breastbone, stopping the fine tremors. The weight was crushing me, compressing my lungs. No longer was I floating the in the soft grey. Suddenly I was pinned between the heavy weight and the unyielding ground. My eyes flew open to see the leather clad knee resting on my chest.

Pain. Pain was the first sensation, sharp and instantaneous. My entire body ached and my veins burned dryly. The second sensation was that of a needle being pulled through my flesh. A hiss came through clenched teeth and I jerked away from the stinging.

"Stay still," came the growled order.

"Can't breathe," I gasped, weakly trying to wriggle out from under his knee.

If anything, the pressure on my chest increased as Bishop continued his stitching on my inner forearm. I laid as still as possible, the weight on my chest actually helping the tiny tremors abate as he braced my arm against his other thigh. When he finally finished and backed off, I focused on getting air into my lungs. Another wave of pain hit and I had to close my eyes against it. When I could speak again, I asked the first thing on my mind. "Are they dead?" I whispered.

"Yes."

I rested my head more comfortably against the cold ground and felt a small satisfied smile quirk my lips. "I'm glad." Another cold breeze blew over my body and started the shivering again. I tried to raise my head slightly and look down my front. All I could see were my bare breasts covered in dried blood. "Bishop, where's my shirt?"

I rolled my head to look at him standing a few feet away looking down at me. "Don't worry," he said coolly. "You don't have anything I haven't seen before."

I tried to snort, but it didn't quite come out right. "I bet," I muttered. I lifted my head again to look. Exhausted by the effort, my skull thumped down into the dirt, but not before I saw the leather pants I wore as armor had been unlaced and opened slightly. The part that concerned me though was the line of black stitches that curved in from my side to trail just above my hip bone and to play across my lower abdomen.

"Well…" I murmured weakly. "You certainly know how to show a girl a good time."

This time, it was Bishop that snorted. I waited a few minutes, more tired than I have ever been before. "So," I said finally. "Think I could get some clothes?"

Wordlessly, I heard him rummaging through a pack. Shortly after, he came back to me with a shirt tossed over his shoulder. I glanced at it and noticed immediately that it was unfamiliar. "This isn't mine," I commented inanely.

He jerked his head and glanced pointedly at something near my head. I took a look and saw a large pile of shredded brown cloths. On closer inspection I noticed that some of the brown wasn't brown at all, but was wet with a deep dark red. "Ah." That was a lot of blood. Too much in fact. "That all mine?"

"Yeah."

"Ah," I said again. I tried to tighten the laces at my waist, but my muscles just didn't want to cooperate. I glanced at Bishop and his unreadable expression. "Help please?" A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he came forward. His eyes held mine as he pulled the laces tight, his fingers brushing my bloodied skin. Even as pained as I was, each touch still sent a shock of awareness through me.

Leaning forward and sliding a hand under my shoulders, he lifted me to a sitting position. Every inch I moved was agony, bringing my focus away from the warmth of his hands. A hiss escaped my lips, but finally I was sitting upright. I was able to get a better view of the black stitches in that position. There were more than I originally thought. Almost the entire length of my side was decorated with a surprisingly neat line of thread. The cleaned stitched area stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of my skin where blood had dried in large flaky patches.

I cleared my throat trying to rid it of the lingering raspyness. "I thought I brought healing potions."

"You did."

"Why didn't you use them?" I asked, my voice muffled by the shirt that he was trying to get over my head.

"I did," he said.

"Ah."

Well, listen to me. I'm just full of insightful commentary today. I looked around and finally saw the pile of small empty potion bottles. Huh… There certainly are a lot of those.

Shirt finally on and situated, I looked closer at the man kneeling next to me. "I nearly died, didn't I?"

He scowled. "No. "

I raised an eyebrow, or at least tried to. My body parts weren't responding like they should. "You did die," he said brusquely. "You stopped breathing and your heart stopped. Lucky for you though, seems like you're as unpopular in the planes as you are here. The gods threw you back. They didn't want you." His voice was cruel but his eyes didn't match his tone. There odd wariness under the perpetual glare.

"Yeah. Lucky me," I said softly. I was alive, even though it seemed that is was just barely. Vengeance had been taken. In fact, proof of retribution still lay in bloody heaps all around the edges of the camp. The whispers of my village no longer seemed so loud in my ears. Why then did I still feel so… numb?

I moved my limbs experimentally, fighting the deep lethargy in them. Trying to get up seemed to be out of the question. A wave of dizziness came over me. I closed my eyes and waited for it to pass. The pain was still there, but it had toned down to a dull roar instead of the incessant screaming that it had been when I first awoke.

"If you fall over, I'm not patching you up again."

I opened my eyes to see Bishop still scowling at me. "Why did you?"

"Why did I what?"

"Patch me up, save my life… Again."

His scowl deepened. "Your damned uncle called his debt due," he snapped.

"That's a load of shit and you know it," I said quietly.

He pinned me with a hateful glare and for a moment I felt a trickle of unease. Weak as I was, perhaps now was not the best time to bait him. Bishop started walking the direction that we originally came, his back stiff with anger. Just before disappearing out of site, he made a low whistle and jerked his head back in my direction. I saw Karnwyr come out of the underbrush to pad over to where I sat. At least with his wolf here, I had some certainty that he would be coming back. I hoped…

*****

Bishop stalked off through the forest, coldly furious. How dare she assume she knew him, what motivated him? It would serve her right if he left her there. As weak as she was, there was no way she could make it back to the keep on her own. Although, leaving her there to the mercy of the wild wasn't in his original plans. If anyone was going to kill her, it would be him, and in a way that he could profit from.

He snarled quietly to himself. The girl was getting dangerous. He found himself making more and more excuses on why he was still around. It was past time to leave. The fact that he had felt a brief moment where his own heart stopped when she fell was proof enough. He tried to push that moment of fear out of his mind.

His sword had impaled the last Luskan with satisfying ease. The highly polished metal slipping in without much resistance, the slight delay of the ribcage, the strangled gurgle as the man's weight dragged the blade up and into his lungs. It had given Bishop a sort of perverse pleasure to take his life. The body had crumpled to the ground clearing his field of vision in time to see Kat's two blades slice across another throat, nearly severing the Luskan's head.

As he worked on getting his blade out of his kill, he had watched her as she spat out the mouth full of blood and blink slowly to clear her vision. The deadly calm on her face was chased away by a look of confusion and then she fell hard and heavy to the blood soaked grass. Yanking the sword the rest of the way out of the body he crossed over to where she lay in a few long strides. Blood covered her from head to foot making it nearly impossible to tell what was hers and what wasn't.

He had grabbed at the healing potions he knew she kept in her belt. Pouring one in her mouth he waited for her to drink it down. When there was no movement of her throat he had pinched her nose hard. Seconds dragged like years until with a loud glurk she swallowed. With his knife he had cut her from her armor, briefly amused by the irony that he was skinning her with the very knife she had given him. It had cut through the soft thick leather easily. He followed suit with her shirt, the linen clinging wetly to her flesh, sticking in the blood.

The wounds had bled freely, a hundred different cuts and a few deadly deep gashes. More and more potions went down her throat but they could only heal so much damage. She was bleeding out before they had a chance to close. Her ragged breath caught in her throat and he watched as the rapidly jumping pulse at her neck stuttered and… stopped.

His own heart stopped at that moment, and for the first time he felt an uncomfortable trickle of fear. Looking around quickly for more potions, all he could find was empty bottles. A wave of anger had come over him. The idiot girl. Why did she thing that she could take on an entire Luskan assassination squad and live? Being stupid like that just lead to being dead. He sat back on his heels and looked down on the bloody body that lay lifeless. "Stupid little thief," he had muttered, glad that no one had been around to hear how rough his voice sounded. Before he had a chance to stand though, a strangled gasp was torn from her throat and before his very eyes, the puddle of blood that had pooled in the hollow of Kathrynn's throat began to jump erratically.

Unfortunately, with the beating heart came the blood once more from the two deepest cuts that the potions couldn't heal. After that had been the matter of finding bandages to staunch the flow until his could find the kit he had used more than once before to stitch himself up when no other healing was to be had.

Saving a life instead of taking one grated, but had he left her there he would have to deal with the others coming after him. They wouldn't believe that he had nothing to do with her death. The paladin he could deal with, in fact, killing him would be enjoyable. Same with the dwarf and tiefling. The only one that concerned him was the elf. The wizard was Luskan and patient. That alone made him devious. There was also the thought of her being dead that for some reason sat uncomfortably with him.

Bishop's scowl grew deeper as he made his way toward his destination. The girl was getting to him. That was something he would have to change, and soon.