Devil's Branch by Celia Roman

Author:Celia Roman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: greek mythology, urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy, witch, furies, demons, cherokee mythology, medusa, private detective, paranormal investigator
Publisher: Bone Diggers Press
Published: 2020-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

I woke to the feel of Riley wrapped around me and the scent of rosemary sharp in my nose. My skin was clammy under the stiffness of Mary Alice’s mud plaster and I was sore in places a body ain’t got no business being sore.

Shower. I needed to be clean.

I eased away from Riley, pausing when his breathing hitched or he stirred in his sleep. Weren’t gonna wake him, if I could help it. It was still dark outside. Leastwise, there weren’t no light filtering through the curtains covering my bedroom window. Thus it was that I dragged myself out of bed to the bathroom in the dark, stumbling into the dresser along the way.

Once inside, I shut the door and flipped the light on, and winced as it pierced my eyes. I was nekkid as the day I was born. Hadn’t realized it until I looked in the mirror. When I did, I hissed in a breath. Dark bruises dotted my upper arms where Teus’s cyclops brothers had manhandled me.

Or was that cyclops-handled me?

I shook the thought away. What did it matter, seeing as how they wasn’t the only bruises on my body? I raised my arms, winced again at the stiffness (what had I done to earn that?), and turned this way and that, eyeing the bruises around my midsection in the mirror. The kraken must’ve held on a tad tighter than I recalled. Hadn’t hurt at the time, but now? Whew. Now it hurt like the dickens.

I touched a sucker-shaped bruise over my ribs. Dull pain throbbed through my skin into muscle and bone, and I winced again. Right. No more prodding the wounds.

I dropped my arms and shuffled to the toilet, did my business as quick as I could squat and rise, which weren’t quick a’tall. Flipped on the shower and let the water get good and warm, then I stepped into the heated spray and turned my face into it. Clean water. It smelled of nothing in particular, a nice change from the lake stench still fuming outta my matted hair.

If Riley was so concerned about my wellbeing, why’d he put me to bed dirty from the lake? I was gonna have to change the sheets, dadgummit, and...

A dry laugh sputtered outta me. I’d just been half-drowned by two cyclops and I was worried about doing laundry? Weren’t that just a hoot and a half.

Slowly, I scrubbed my skin, washing away the last remnants of my latest adventure. Scrubbed my hair, too. Scrubbed so long, as a matter of fact, that my limbs started trembling. Used up all my energy just getting clean. That struck me as funny somehow, but I weren’t strong enough to laugh no more. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me, and sat down on the closed toilet lid, hunching into myself while I rested.

A tear rolled down my cheek and I sniffed. Riley was right. I had to find a way to stop running into trouble, though I’d hardly run into it this time.

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