The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (31 page)

Jorgen froze. Something was wrong. This poacher sounded like . . . a woman.

His face began to tingle and his stomach sank to his toes.
O God. It couldn’t be
. But the poacher’s hair was spilling out of her hood, blond curls covering her shoulders, and Jorgen could see half of her face.

He sank to his knees, his hands shaking. “Odette. What have I done?”

She turned her face toward the ground, but her hood had fallen back to reveal her unmistakable profile.

She groaned. Her features were twisted in pain, her eyes clenched shut.

Odette was bleeding, with two arrows sticking out of her body. Jorgen’s arrows.

He pushed her good shoulder back so he could see her left arm. His arrow was sticking out, but it had not gone all the way through her arm. Then he checked her thigh where another arrow protruded, dark blood oozing out and wetting her brown hose.

Jorgen unclasped her cloak and left it lying on the ground. He scooped her up in his arms and started walking toward the gamekeeper’s cottage.

Odette pressed her face against his shoulder, her hand limp against his chest.

Odette saw the arrows sticking out of her, but she somehow didn’t feel the pain until she fell to the ground and saw Jorgen coming toward her.

Jorgen had shot her.

It hardly seemed real, even though the pain was real enough.

He had gazed down at her, his hands limp at his sides, his eyes wide and mouth open.

She tried not to writhe or cry out when he slid his arms underneath her and lifted her off the ground. He carried her so her left arm and leg were not touching his body, but the jostling of his footsteps sent sharp, aching pains shooting through her arm and leg.

What would Jorgen do to her? Her dream would come true now. He would lock her in the dungeon and hate her.

How hurt Jorgen must feel at how she had fooled him. How sickened he must be that the girl he had claimed to love had betrayed him. She had gotten him in trouble with the margrave by poaching so many deer. She had broken the law it was his duty to uphold. And now his expression was pained, crushed, shocked.
O God, I am sorry for hurting him. Please do not let him hate me
.

She tried to muffle the sounds of her groaning against the soft leather of his shoulder cape, but she could no more control her gasps and moans than she could control the pains shooting through her body.

Jorgen had really shot her.

He walked quickly, carrying her as if she weighed little. She wished he would say something, anything. He should rebuke her, demand to know why she was poaching, express his anger at her betrayal. The silence was like a wall of pain separating them.

After many minutes, he began to slow his pace and his breathing became more labored. She was not small, being rather taller and broader than most women. But Jorgen was obviously very strong. Still, even he would have a hard time carrying her so far.

To distract herself from the pain, and from worrying about Jorgen’s suffering, her mind conjured up his broad shoulders and rock-hard arms, his muscled back and leather-encased thighs. He
would not like her to think him incapable, but she couldn’t help wanting to save him from carrying her the whole way.

Odette made an effort to choke back her tears. “You do not have to carry me. I think I can walk.”

He kept up his pace and did not answer her.

Somehow his refusal to answer, which she assumed meant resentment, helped her dry up her tears. She bit her lip to stop herself from moaning and let her head lie against his shoulder.

After what was probably only a few more minutes, they reached the gamekeeper’s cottage. He pushed open the door with his foot and carried her inside.

It was dark and Odette was feeling light-headed. She closed her eyes and didn’t try to see where they were going.

Jorgen moved carefully through the house before lowering her to a soft surface. When he did, he brushed against the arrow protruding from her arm, and she gasped in pain.

“I am sorry.”

“Jorgen?” His mother’s voice came from deeper in the cottage. “Is that you?”

“Mother, can you bring a lantern and some candles?” he called, his voice strained.

Odette felt his breath on her cheek as he leaned close.

“Odette?”

“Yes?”

A sound like a choked sob escaped him. She couldn’t see him, but she felt his hand on her hair. “I am sorry,” he whispered.

“Please forgive me,” Odette whispered back. “I want to explain.” Her own voice sounded strained, too, as she failed to bite back another gasp of pain.

“Do not talk.”

Did she detect a note of bitterness in his voice? She didn’t have
a chance to say more because his mother shuffled into the room carrying a lantern.

“Oh, saints among us!” she cried as she held the lantern over Odette’s bloody arm and leg.

“Mother, I need to go fetch the healer at the edge of the forest. Can you stay with Odette until I get back?”

“Of course. Oh, my dear, you poor thing. What happened?”

Jorgen’s face was a hard mask as he turned away. “I will return as fast as I can.” And he was gone.

Jorgen ran all the way to the healer’s cottage. Thankfully, she did not object to leaving her bed in the middle of the night and going with him to tend a wounded person. She pulled on a cloak, picked up her bag of supplies and her own lantern, and followed him back to the gamekeeper’s cottage.

When he returned, Odette lay on his bed, shaking from head to toe. Jorgen’s mother stood from where she was sitting beside Odette.

The healer, a woman nearly as old as Jorgen’s mother, stepped forward. “Hester,” she said, addressing his mother, “bring me some hot water for her to drink.”

His mother hurried away.

The healer set her bag on the table next to the bed and drew out some shears and started cutting away Odette’s sleeve. The arrow protruded from her snow-white skin, with blood oozing out around the wound.

She moved to Odette’s leg and started cutting a circle around the place where the arrow pierced her thigh.

Jorgen’s stomach flipped queasily, and he looked away from the bare skin.

His mother came back in the room with a steaming mug. The healer took a small pouch out of her bag and dumped it into the mug. She stirred it with a small stick, then carried it to Odette.

“Drink this.” She helped Odette sit up, causing her to wince and turn pale. After several sips, the healer said, “That’s enough,” and let her lie back. She set down the cup.

“Come here.” The healer beckoned to him with a claw-like hand. “I need you to pull out the arrows.”

Odette made a strangled sound.

Of course the arrows had to come out. Jorgen braced himself.

“The quicker, the better. Just pull straight out, as straight as possible,” the hardened old woman said.

Jorgen stood over Odette, staring down at his arrow protruding from her soft, pale arm.
God, can I truly do this?
He had to.

Ignoring his sick stomach, he bent and took hold of the arrow while the healer held her arm down on the bed, and Jorgen yanked it straight out.

Odette screamed, panting and writhing while the healer pressed clean cloths against her bleeding arm. Then she became still, apparently losing consciousness.

He grabbed the arrow in her thigh and yanked it out too. He dropped it on the floor and left the room without looking back.

Once outside, Jorgen heaved the contents of his stomach on the ground. He threw up until he forced himself to stop thinking of what he had done to Odette. Then he walked a little farther on and sank to his knees. He leaned forward until his forehead was touching the cool grass.

Questions and truths swirled through his head, but none of them were comforting. Tears squeezed from his tightly clenched eyes. Odette was the poacher.
Odette
.

He should go back inside and see if they needed his help. Now
that the arrows were removed, she would be bleeding profusely, but the thought of her blood flowing from her body made his stomach threaten to heave again.

He pushed himself up from the ground, breathing deeply through his nose. His mother’s geese were honking nearby. He had come too close to their nesting area. He concentrated on the noise they were making while he took more deep breaths. He could do this.

He must face the truth—Odette had betrayed him, had pushed him to tell her what he knew, had pretended to know nothing about the poacher threatening his position, his livelihood, his relationship with the margrave, and even his home and all hope for the future.

Odette was the poacher, and he had shot her. Twice.

He had to do whatever he could to help make sure Odette didn’t die. His stomach clenched again.
O Father God, please do not let her die
.

25

O
DETTE WAS AWAKENED
by a groan, and then she realized the sound had come from her own throat.

Two intense centers of pain commanded her attention as she tried not to move—one in her thigh and the other in her upper arm. The night was hazy after Jorgen had carried her to his home. There was the nightmarish pain of him pulling the arrow out of her arm. She had blacked out, and when she opened her eyes again, the arrow was out of her leg, too, and Jorgen, his mother, and the other woman were pressing cloths against her arm and leg to stop the blood.

The pain was so bad, and the smell of blood so strong, she had floated away again, unable to stay conscious. Then, for what seemed like days, but was probably only a few hours, she kept waking up to horrendous pain and the strange woman giving orders to Jorgen and his mother as they tried to get her to drink something or changed her bandages.

Now she was almost afraid to open her eyes. Even though the pain was still there, at least no one was pressing on her wounds, making them hurt worse. Perhaps she was still asleep and could go on sleeping. But finally, she had to open her eyes.

Jorgen’s head was near hers, his face buried in his arms resting
on the bed beside her. He appeared to be the only other person in the room.

Her arm was wrapped tight with some white bandages. Her leg was covered with a sheet, but it also felt tightly wrapped. Was Jorgen asleep? If he was, she didn’t want to wake him. His hair looked soft and boyish the way it curled in disarray on his head and by his ears. How long had he been sitting there, his head on his arms?

The sun was streaming through the window, and it appeared to be late morning. The healer had probably given her something to make her sleep since it was difficult to imagine sleeping through all the pain.

Jorgen suddenly lifted his head, and his blue-green eyes locked on hers. His eyes were bloodshot and his lashes were wet.

Her stomach clenched at the hurt in his eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” His gaze flicked from her face to the bed, as if he didn’t want to look her in the eye.

“No, I thank you.”

“The healer wants you to eat something as soon as you awaken. I’ll go get—”

“Wait. Please.” Odette touched his hand. She wasn’t sure what to say to him, but she couldn’t bear for him to leave. “Stay with me.”