Waking up was a headache.

A literal headache.

The first thing I noted was how my head throbbed and the next was how sore my whole body was. I groaned and tried to move, but mostly jerked a little and ended up lying still again, trying to wrap my head around the fact I was still alive.

Beat to shit. Aching in my every joint. Weirdly itchy and uncomfortable, not to mention drowsy and disoriented.

But alive.

Alive is good.

I hoped. I wanted to determine exactly what state I was in, but that was difficult given the drowsiness and confusion. My body felt heavy and my head packed with cotton. My mouth was dry and every time I rolled my head the world seemed to spin. Despite the fact I hadn't even been able to open my eyes.

Dizzy…

It was more than thought, more than sensation. It just was, and my body seemed to be moving without me. It wanted to get away from where there could still be potential danger and was almost trying to drag itself backward with hands and elbows. But I had no strength and no coordination and only ended laying where I was. Feeling the world spin below me.

How long this went on was impossible for me to measure. There was no time. There was only the slow tick of what went on in my body. And this… this… the whole of this felt like more than just the after effects of being chased through the woods and beat to within an inch of my life. Not to mention choked out.

Drugged?

The question was hardly there, buried under the rest of it, but the answer felt obvious all the same. This was how my body had responded to anesthesia when I'd had to get my wisdom teeth removed. This was how I'd felt the few times I'd been forced to take pain medication. This was my body under the effects of some drug.

A fact which left me shivering unconsciously. Not so much with fear as with knowing and further confusion.

I'd been choked and then given something to ensure I stayed out.

That was not a hopeful sign.

But there was hardly anything I could do about it.

Just gotta wait.

Wait for the residual effects of whatever had been administered to me to wear off. Wait…

Wait…

I drifted in and out of a kind of half sleep for a while. In a way it was peaceful. No dreams. No memories. Just sleep.

I needed sleep.

What I didn't need was a bloody fucking branch digging into my spine.

"Fucker," I muttered, cracking my eyes open. Knowing somewhere that the fact I could open my eyes and experience discomfort meant I was actually coming around at last.

It took a few more moments of concentration and focus to do it, but I was finally able to squint against the light and level myself up on my elbows the way my body had wanted me to before. The leverage finally gave me enough angle to look down the length of my body. Which was a less than promising prospect given my pants and underwear were around my knees.

"The fuck."

My voice was raspy and I had to keep swallowing, looking for saliva that didn't seem to want to come. A lot of things didn't seem to want to come, but somehow I wasn't able to panic. Panic wasn't able to come forward and cloud my already impaired mind. Restfulness was still seated firmly in my bones and I just wanted to keep moving and examining. Cataloging.

A few more shoves at the ground and I got myself up onto my backside where I was at least able to determine the only thing that hurt below my waistline was my hip. And no wonder there.

Tentatively my fingers crept out and traced a shape that'd been carved into my skin.

No… Not carved… Burned.

Like a brand. Whatever else might have happened while I was out the god had seen fit to mark me. And while that should perhaps have been some form of honor, right now it merely stung.

I winced every time my calloused fingertips zigzagged around the outer edges of the brand. The whole thing almost sizzled, and I hissed at it as I examined it, hissed even more when I finally leaned down and cupped my hip with one hand and attempted to rotate myself in an awkward way just so I could see.

Fuck but it was hard to do simple things and I wanted to know what'd been literally etched into me.

The first thing I noted was the lack of blood. Very unlike a tattoo, there was no fluid or blood leakage. Every part of the brand was cauterized neatly, and appeared to have been so practically instantly. There was also no burning or bruising around it. The lines looked like they'd been carefully stenciled on with something especially hot that hadn't affected the rest of my skin.

As for the marking itself, it was one I'd never seen before. The shape and the swirl of it vaguely resembled a Japanese kana or Old Norse rune, but none I recognized. And I knew more than a few. This mark flowed and had elegance in its slashing simplicity of lines and angles.

But the whole of it held no more comfort than it did honor at this moment. Looking at what had been drawn into my skin unease rose in my chest despite the effects of the sedative.

Why…

There were quite a number of whys I wanted answers too, but my mind was too fuzzy and heavy to consider them right now. There were other things to deal with first.

Like the fact my bloody ass was half naked on the ground. Discarded in the woods. After fighting a god.

The hunter could very well have wanted nothing more than to leave its mark on me, could have only pulled both my pants and boxers away simply because they were in his way, and he hadn't struck me as the patient type. But I wanted to be sure of that. Wanted to be sure my notion of him and his intentions were accurate. Wanted to be sure he'd wanted nothing else than this inexplicable branding.

Examining myself was not easy and I did not want to do it too thoroughly because I knew where I should be headed after this and I had to treat myself the way I treated the finding of each of the Ritualist's discarded bodies.

Like a crime scene.

Don't touch too much… Don't disturb…

I moved slowly, drew my legs up, bent forward and back. Noted I wasn't sore where I should have been sore if a male of the predator's size had done something unasked for to me while I was insensate. I pressed a finger that trembled with fatigue and the remains of some drug I didn't understand to my inner leg and carefully ran it upward, but found no trace of fluids that weren't my own between my thighs at least.

More examinations would have to wait if I wanted it done properly.

What I'd found didn't mean much, but it was enough for now.

For now.

Now I needed to be thinking about what came next.

My mind was still hazy and much of me wanted to just sit. To daze out and perhaps go back to sleep, but that would be the stupidest thing ever. I needed to get back, needed…

I brought a hand up to wrack it through my hair, but just found myself staring at it. Because here… here were fluids that weren't mine. Or… what had once been fluid.

The hunter's blood was dried over my hand and up my arm. I flexed my fingers and bits of still vibrantly bright blood flaked away. And I wondered how badly I'd injured the god that'd seemed to so effortlessly subdue me. I remembered ducking under his lunge, slashing upward at his side, aiming my small blade for one of the gaps in his mesh armor. I remembered his blood fresh on my arm and how quickly he'd moved to knock the sense out of me.

Had I hurt him more than I'd thought? Had he put an end to our duel so quickly because I'd somehow surprised him with a deeper cut than expected?

No answers, there was no way to find answers. But glancing down at the ground where my bloody arm had lain there was my knife. The god had forced me to drop it, and where it had gone from there I couldn't have known.

Except he'd picked it up and put it beside me.

He hadn't cared enough to pull my pants back up for me after branding me, but he had put the knife I'd cut him with next to my hand. As if the blood still coating the blade were a trophy. My trophy for having made him bleed.

Gingerly, I picked up the still-open blade and went to put it in a pocket. Only to rediscover my pants were still around my knees.

"Fucker."

Setting aside the knife I yanked my pants back up, groaning when I had to lift my ass off the ground to do it. Then I just flopped down and lay there for a moment, looking at the foliage.

So tired…

It would have been nice to sleep a bit more, to indulge in the fact I didn't think I could dream right now, but…

But I had to get back. Jared's Wash may not have been so very far from Cutter's Bend, really. Only around three and a half miles, give or take. But that distance felt a hell of a lot longer thinking about it in this moment.

I didn't want to have to walk so far. I didn't want to have to do anything, but…

I needed to get back. Needed… well several things, but all of them in Cutter's Bend.

Which left me with nothing, no option but to get up and somehow drag my sorry ass back there.

"Gods, fuck me."

It was only after the words were out of my mouth that I had the decency to think this might not have been the best thing to say at the moment, all things considered.