Page 31 of Her Wicked Hero

Nurul then started murmuring to her in the same tone she used when she had tried to calm baby Hana. Marcia moaned as Nurul started to roll up her pant leg. At the top of her ankle, she could see the bite marks of the snake. At least it wasn’t poisonous. Now how in the heck did she know that?

God her head hurt. She lowered herself back down on the ground and rolled her head sideways, so she wasn’t looking up into the sun. Oh yeah, Christie’s report on reptiles. Pythons and Boa Constrictors, not poisonous, just liked to hug you to death. Lucky her.

“Marcia?”

Shit, she’d passed out again. Marcia winced. Her head hurt, her leg hurt, and she was now saying swear words in her head. Life was just getting better and better. Well, at least it was Nurul talking and not Raymond.

Nurul was stroking her face. She was also holding Hana who was crying softly. She was really hot. Really, really hot. It seemed Nurul knew what the problem was because she was holding the straw from Zed’s camelback to Marcia’s lips.

Marcia shook her head and pointed to Hana.

Nurul shoved the straw back at Marcia. The woman was determined, Hana must have had her water Marcia thought, so she drank.

She dropped her head back into the dirt and winced. When she opened her eyes again, Nurul’s face wavered, and for just a second, she thought she was in a sunny kitchen in Virginia.

“Mrs. B?” Marcia asked. “Mrs. B? I thought you were dead.” She tried to reach out and touch the woman she loved like a mother.

“Marcia, what in the hell happened?”

Mrs. B.’s calm blue eyes morphed into fierce black eyes.

“Who are you?” Marcia asked.

Nurul scrabbled away from Marcia and started running off into the jungle. What in the hell? She was leaving him with her baby?

“Nurul?” Zed shouted after the small, young woman.

Well obviously, she was healthy if she could run that well, and he’d already checked out Hana, and except for the screaming, there was no blood on her. Nope, Marcia was the injured person. When Zed had heard the shots, he had raced to get to the women. To find Marcia lying on the jungle floor covered in blood and gore was even scarier.

“Marcia, can you talk to me? Can you tell me what happened?”

“What? What’s going on?” she asked, clearly in a daze.

“Marcia, why did you shoot the rifle?” he pointed to the SCAR lying on the ground a few feet away from her.

“I don’t know.”

Her golden-brown eyes stared up at him, pleading. She swallowed heavily, then gasped. Zed saw her stomach undulate and knew what was coming next. With gentle hands, he put his arm under her back and his hand beneath her head, so he could turn her. She hissed, then Marcia started to heave, the contents of her stomach decorating the floor of the jungle.

Nurul shouted at him. He looked up and saw the remains of a python head in her hands. She knelt down and struggled to pull up the hem of Marcia’s jean leg.

“No, it hurts,” Marcia gasped, then started to gag.

Zed now understood what had happened, except for who had shot the python. He waved Nurul away, and the woman went to pick up her daughter. Marcia started to move in his arms. He tried to keep her calm.

“Shhhh. It’s okay.”

She pushed at him.

“I’ve got you,” he assured her.

“Let me move,” she said clearly. “I want to get my nose away from the aroma of vomit and dirt, otherwise I’ll never stop throwing up.”

“We don’t want that, now do we?” He gently moved her away from the puddle.

“No, we really don’t me upchucking again.” She took some deep breaths. “Look, I’m fine now.”

“Just stay still.” He brushed her sweat-drenched hair from her forehead and watched her drag in more air.