Reluctant Berserker: Isaacson Trilogy Book One

Chapter 11

Rocks jabbed into his right cheek, and his head and right shoulder ached. Someone was slapping his left cheek, but he couldn't imagine who it might be. His ears rang, worsening the prickly sensation that coursed up and down his body.

What had happened to him? With a groan, he rolled onto his back and bent his knee, dragging his boot heel across the road. Suddenly, the slapping increased and moved to both cheeks simultaneously.

"Are you dead? Please, don't be dead."

It was Nora. Everything that had occurred up to that point flooded his mind.

Her frantic slapping of his cheeks continued, distorting his groaned words. "I'm not dead."

Each slap made the pain worse until it was unbearable. Pressure steadily built between his eyes, spreading up into his forehead. When he tried breathing through his nose, air became a precious commodity in short supply.

With a tenderness that surprised him, he reached up, gripped her hands, and held them still against his chest. "Nora, I promise you, I'm not dead."

"Are you certain?"

His lips bent in a grudging smile, then quickly curled in a grimace. Every muscle of his face hurt. "I'm positive."

He slowly forced his groggy eyes open and found Nora's worried face looming over him. She knelt beside him, her knees lightly pressing into his waist and lower ribs.

Her curls hung like a dark curtain around her face and shoulders, enveloping him as well. Other than his brothers and parents, no one—let alone a woman he had only met that morning—had ever looked at him with such naked concern.

He swallowed, closing his eyes with a muffled oath. Blood still lingered on his tongue, and when he lifted his hand to his nose, he felt the sticky liquid on the skin above his lip. It would need to be cleaned away, or there stood a chance he would pass out again.

Blindly, he searched his vest pocket for a handkerchief. It was nowhere to be found, probably lost earlier in his fight on the train. With a sharp tug, he ripped a large portion of his shirt free and promptly used it to clean the blood from off his face.

Even the slight pressure from wiping the blood away brought tears to his eyes. There was a strange crackle-popping sensation across the bridge of his nose and brow. His face pulsed with pain, and any attempt to breathe through his nose became impossible due to the ever-increasing swelling.

His skin felt tighter than usual, heightening his misery. Just moments ago, he had wondered how this night could get worse, now he knew. The gods must have thought he was challenging them.

Although her fingers drifted gently across his skin, they left a trail of icy-hot agony in their wake. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear her wince as she said, "I'm terribly sorry."

Catching her hand, he opened his eyes and met her troubled gaze. There appeared to be several scratches on her right cheek, and dirt covered her entire right side, including her hair, which gave the curls an ashen glow in the moonlight. Had he pulled her down with him when he'd fallen off?

Guilt at the possibility he had caused her harm propelled him to say, "It wasn't your fault."

"Your nose would disagree with you. It was the back of my head that caused this."

A corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided grin. He grunted as he rolled to his side and leaned on his left elbow, closing his eyes when the world started spinning. After waiting several minutes for the dizziness to leave, he cautiously opened his eyes and found everything was standing still, just as it should be.