Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 14: brought to you by caffeine

Previously on Yugioh: Snakeman in defense mode? That's impossible! And how will our hero escape from the Crappy Hide Clothes trap card? And what do raunchy 80's songs have to do with this?

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It wasn't long before Shay started to grow numb from cold.

Thankfully, Curtis seemed to be more aware of her state this time and brought them out of the river to a wide bank sheltered by the roots of an old willow.

His tongue tasted the air about her, but she didn't react. The apathy of the morning had returned to her.

"You're cold, I'm sorry," he said. Then his arms scoured all over her and his entire face crumpled. "You're wounded all over...I'm so sorry I failed you."

Since that was the least of what he had to apologize for, and they were just scratches, she said nothing. She didn't even care that she was naked anymore. Well, she cared, but she had lost the fight to preserve her dignity and she knew it. She could still feel the immense strength he had used to spread her out beneath him.

Fingers brushed against her wet hair, feather light.

"Shay, because I failed to protect you, is that why you love him?"

A spark of heat flickered in her gut.

"He saved me from being raped, that's enough to like anyone," she snapped. "Love is a stretch, though, so don't go killing anyone."

His hands drew back. "Shay..."

She turned her face away. It hurt her stomach to look at him. "What's going to happen to him?"

"I poisoned him with my venom. Even with three beastmarks, he'll survive a day, at most."

Her heart died a little at that. So her attempt to save him meant nothing. She really must have looked the idiot.

It would probably be too much to ask him to go back and cure him. He wouldn't even leave her alone to change, and those beastmen could have followed the river.

She thought of how close those fangs came to grazing her and shivered. "Is there an antidote?"

"No."

She rolled her eyes. "So if I so much as get grazed the wrong way by your teeth, say, if I'm especially tired of being alive, there's nothing you can do?"

There was a stunned silence. "I'd stop you--"

"Please," she flopped her head to the side to give him a droll stare. "I'm not stupid. Accidents happen. You know an antidote, and I know they exist."

His eyes shivered as they met hers, then looked down, almost shamefully.

"It's a scale from the tip of my tail," he said. Then, wrapping his long body about hers, though keeping a paper thin space between his scales and her skin, he offered up the tip of his tail. "If it will help you trust me even a little, you may have one."

She considered it before digging her thumbnail between one's razor-edge and yanking, like one would pull a hair.

He hissed and the tail jerked back.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," she said quickly, thoughts of a fury-induced death flashing across her mind.

But his expression was still soft and sad. "It's okay." He touched one of the worst of her scratches. "It's nothing."

The scale in her fingers was different than the one he had given her to cut with, through which he had laced one of his surprisingly strong hairs and made into a necklace while the rice had been cooking. It had more black than red. She considered asking him to poke a hole through this one as well so it could join the other around her neck, but then a desperate idea occurred to her. She looked around her for a large leaf.