Under His Skin (16 page)

“Do you have any petroleum jelly?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his face.

Ana frowned, but nodded.
She disappeared from the kitchen and returned a few moments later with a small tub. “Here. Now tell me what a
toos
is.”

“He’s one of the shark people,” Brec growled.
“Barbarians who eat my people for sport.”

“Shark people?”
Ana repeated.

Brec didn’t bother looking up. He didn’t want to talk about the
toos
, he didn’t want to be looking at a
toos
, and he sure as fuck didn’t want to be
healing
a
toos
. There was no greater reminder that he wasn’t a warrior—that he could never be a warrior—than what he was doing right now.

His hands shook as he grabbed a handful of lemon balm leaves and shoved them into the mortar. Moving almost entirely on instinct, he added a bit of chamomile and a leaf of aloe, viciously working the mixture into a paste as if he could force his anger into the concoction as well. Inspired, he turned to the kitchen cabinets and rifled through them until he found cayenne pepper. He sprinkled some of it into the mortar.

If Micah were here, he wouldn’t be nursing this creature back to health. He’d throw him into the sea to be eaten by his own people—a fitting end to a cannibal.

Lost in the viciousness of his own thoughts, it took Brec several minutes to realize Ana wasn’t asking him any more questions. Curious, he glanced up from the mortar to find Ana examining the wound on top of the
toos
’
head. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“What are you doing?”

“You just scrubbed this wound clean,” Ana murmured. “A wound this deep should be oozing fresh blood, especially after stimulation like that. The blood flow has nearly stopped. His heart is still beating, slow, but strong so he’s not dead.” She looked up at him. “What did you do?”

A minor twinge of something suspiciously like pride took hold of Brec as Ana stared at him with amazement. “I told you,” he mumbled. “I’m a born healer. Alaunus himself gave me this gift.” He began to smear petroleum jelly onto the strip of gauze.

“You can heal people just by touching them?”

“Sort of,” Brec hedged. “I can speed up a natural healing process just by touching a wound, but to heal damage like this I need the same herbs any other healer would need. They just work a little
faster,
and a little better for me because I carry Alaunus’ gift inside me. And I study a lot,” he added with a sigh.

The scent of the herbs calmed him slightly as he sprinkled them over the gauze. He smeared his finger though the gooey mixture, trying not to think about the lavender he’d left out. It would only have eased the pain, it wasn’t necessary for the healing.
No comfort to the enemy,
his brain whispered.

His peace shattered as he pressed the gauze to the
toos
’
wound. Micah would shove his fingers into the wound and rip it open farther, spilling the
toos
’
brains all over the floor in the gruesome ending it deserved. The selkies would be one
toos
safer if it were Micah the warrior standing here instead of Brec the healer. Thanks to him, who knew what damage this
toos
would cause when he returned to the sea? Who knew how many selkies he would kill?

Alaunus, why have you cursed me this way? Why must you insist that I use this power to help all creatures, whether or not they deserve it? Surely the world would be a better place without this
toos
.

“I’ve never heard of that kind of gift before.”

Something in Ana’s voice made Brec look up at her. She seemed to be analyzing him again, but unlike the previous times she’d fixed him with that kind of concentration, this time she seemed . . . hopeful?

For some reason, the expression on her face unnerved him more than all of her glowering and snarled threats. She looked like she wanted to ask him for something. And some irrational part of his brain was certain that whatever it was, he’d say yes.

She’d stepped closer to him, though she didn’t really seem aware of it. Her eyes didn’t move as she stared at his face. Every second ratcheted the tension in the room up another notch until Brec’s skin fairly crawled with it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded finally, desperate for her to say something, anything to give him a clue to what she was thinking.

Ana stepped closer, her eyes still unfocused, her gaze locked on his face. “You have a god’s gift of healing.” Suddenly she turned to the
toos
, staring at the bandage over his wound. “And you used it to heal a creature
who
eats your people for sport.”

“Brec, how could you?”

“Katie, I had no choice. Alaunus won’t allow me to withhold his gift from anyone. If I’d refused, I could have lost this power.”

Katie’s glistening black eyes flashed as she glared at Brec. “He is a
toos
! His kind ate my cousin—you knew that!”

Misery clutched Brec’s chest, squeezing his heart till he swore it was bleeding. “Katie, I had no choice,” he said again.

“Micah would never have done such a thing,” Katie hissed. “Micah would have finished that
toos
off! He would have protected us.”

The memory sank its teeth into Brec’s soul, tormenting him just as much today as it had two years ago. It had been the first time a
toos
had come to him for healing—and he’d prayed to Alaunus himself that it would be the last. He stared down at the unconscious man on Ana’s table. As his eyes traveled over the bandage that he himself had applied, he imagined he could actually see the
toos
’
flesh knitting back together,
it’s
dorsal fin rising out of the human skull.

Fury spiked inside him, sharp and painful. He clenched his teeth together so hard his jaw ached, fisting his hands at his sides as he struggled with the urge rip the bandage from the
toos
’
head and heave him out the door and down to the sea where his brethren could find his carcass.

“You think I like using this gift on him?” Brec snapped. He whirled around, unable to even look at his handiwork anymore. “That
 
. . .
thing
brings nothing but pain to this world. He doesn’t just kill my people, he kills his own. The
toos
are a bunch of barbaric cannibals who feel nothing but hunger. They want food and power and the only way they get either is through violence. If any creature deserved to die—no, not just die, to
suffer
, than it’s that thing on your table.”

Suddenly, something hit him in the back of the head. A tiny spot erupted in pain as the force of whatever had hit him rocked his head forward. Yelling out in pain, Brec grabbed the back of his skull and whipped around. His gaze immediately went to the
toos
, but the injured
barbarian still lie
there unconscious.

“What the fuck was that?” he muttered, rubbing the sore spot blossoming on the back of his head. He frowned. “Where’s that pixie?”

He glanced around the room, searching for the tiny fey. He didn’t know what might have motivated Nu to throw something at him, but he was pretty certain he had. After all, Ana hadn’t moved. He raised his gaze to Ana and froze.

The intensity in her gaze was still there, but the hint of awe and the open hope were gone. Now she stared at him as if he’d just clubbed a baby seal.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she whispered.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

Ana fought to suppress the trembling in her body, an unfortunate result of the frustration howling through her blood.
How could life be so cruel? How could they put a healer with such a gift in front of her—a beacon of hope for her skin that couldn’t be healed by ordinary means—only to blacken that hope with the righteous venom spewing from the selkie’s mouth?

“You think I like using this gift on him . . . . If any creature deserved to die—no, not just die, to suffer, than it’s that thing on your table.”

“Excuse me?” Brec stared at her, a look of stupefied shock on his face.

Ana didn’t answer. She couldn’t concentrate enough to answer, not with the horrible scene playing on in her tortured imagination.

“I didn’t want to show you these skins before because I was afraid you’d find my skin and you would destroy it to punish me.” Ana clasped her skin to her chest before forcing herself to hold it out to Brec. “Now, I’m asking you for help. Will you use Alaunus’ gift to heal my skin?”

Brec’s face contorted with disdain.
Ana cried out as he snatched her skin away.

“You don’t deserve Alaunus’ gift! You deserve to suffer for what you’ve done.”

A scream echoed through the earthen room beneath her basement as Brec touched the match to her skin . . .

“Ana!”

Tears burned her eyes as her body pitched forward. The whole room swung wildly around her as her brain scrambled back and forth from fantasy to reality. She’d been so close to asking him. He had such a
gift,
she hadn’t realized he had such a gift. She’d been about to ask him. Stupid, stupid girl, she’d almost surrendered her skin to a man who brandished morality like a weapon.

Strong arms closed around her waist and legs as Brec swept her up into his arms. She wanted to fight him, but the air around her seemed to have turned to sludge. Every breath, every movement, required so much effort. It had been so long since she’d felt hope that strong, so long since she’d really and truly believed that she might get her skin back. To have it ripped away so suddenly and replaced by an even stronger fear of losing it forever, was almost more than she could bear.

“The tides take it, what’s wrong with you?” Brec
sputtered,
panic vibrating the air around him. “Ana?”

“Why do you even bother to heal him?” she mumbled miserably. “If he deserves to die,
then
why not just let him die?’

“I don’t have a choice.” Brec’s hands
tightened,
his voice thick with frustration. “Alaunus’ gift has to be used as he sees fit. That means I’m required to help anyone who comes to me for healing—whether I want to or not. If there’s even the slightest possibility that I can help them, I have to do it. If I refuse, Alaunus could take my gift away and my people would lose the benefit of the fastest and strongest healing magic we have.” He looked down at Ana’s face, pain in his eyes. “Believe
me,
I don’t want to help him. I hate giving comfort to someone who’s brought so much pain and death to my people. If I could make him suffer without risking losing Alaunus’ gift, I would do it.”

“Shut up!”

Ana shoved against his chest and then screamed as Brec almost dropped her onto the floor. His large frame pitched forward as he scrambled to stay upright without dropping her. He sputtered as he regained his feet.

“Are you insane?” he gasped, setting her down on her feet.

She growled in frustration as she fought to get away from him without falling on her ass. Anger made her movements clumsy and she ended up stumbling away from him and almost falling on top of the
toos
’
body. She steadied herself with a hand on the table.

“What is wrong with you?”
Brec half-shouted.
“You think I like using my gift this way? I—”

“You are a
healer
. It’s your job to help people who need it, not to judge them for their crimes!”

Brec froze, confusion furrowing his eyebrows. Ana straightened her spine, glaring at him with all the rage she could muster. She didn’t understand this selkie. She didn’t understand how a man could seem so naïve, so sweet, and then act like such a sanctimonious bastard. How could anyone with a gift for healing like he had
have
such a strong desire to cause people pain? Why did he have such an urge to judge? What on earth had Alaunus been thinking when he gave this selkie such wonderful healing powers?