Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 by Chris Anne Wolfe Page A

away the dirty, damaged cloak and cutting away the back of her shirt. “She’s hurt.” Jacquin’s voice was heavy with grief and desperation. Every moment of peace she’d felt because of her protector’s presence, every deadly vision her protector had guided her out of ran through her mind. The woman was no stranger. She was Jacquin’s dearest friend.
    Khalisa grabbed a wet rag and began cleaning the woman’s wounds. The woman drifted in and out of unconsciousness, waking just long enough to panic and try to escape before passing out again from the wild movements. The scent of her blood filled the wagon, sharp and metallic as it ran down her back every time she tried to stand.
    Jacquin crouched over the bedmat, angling herself to be at eye level with her guardian as she woke again and fought to stand.
    Jacquin grabbed her shoulders, her face twisted with concern and fear. “You need to stop fighting. You’ll bleed to death.”
    The woman paused as she saw Jacquin, looking deep into Jacquin’s eyes. Once again Jacquin felt the woman recognized her. “Who are you?” The woman’s voice was rich and deep, husky with pain. Jacquin’s heart jumped. Her guardian had never spoken before.
    “Jacquin n’Huitaca of the Dey Sorormin Tribe. Who are you?”
    Khalisa paused her cleaning in surprise. “You don’t know her?”
    The woman fought to stand again and failed. Jacquin’s face fell, her lips falling into a hard, straight line. “I saved your life. At least tell me your name.”
    The woman hesitated. “Adrian,” she finally admitted.
    Khalisa glanced over Adrian at her sister. Jacquin reached out and took Adrian’s shoulders as she nodded and Khalisa poured a bottle of brandy over Adrian’s back. Adrian screamed in pain as the alcohol worked to disinfect her wounds. Jacquin leapt up and held Adrian’s shoulders down as Khalisa pinned her hips. Adrian arched, too strong for Jacquin to pin, grabbed Jacquin around the waist and tackled her to the floor. The motion pulled at Adrian’s wound and she shouted in pain, tears streaming down her face as she passed out, her head falling on Jacquin’s waist.
    Jacquin felt every muscle in her body spasm and tremble. She was hypersensitive to the weight of Adrian’s limp form draped across her waist. The places where Adrian’s face and shoulders, bare from struggling in a destroyed shirt, pressed against Jacquin’s stomach burned. Jacquin clenched and unclenched her fists, her arms aching and stinging.
    Khalisa eased Adrian off her sister and back to the floor. “Did she hurt you?“
    “No,” Jacquin assured her, her voice soft and breathless.
    “Then here.” Khalisa handed Jacquin her wet rag, now stained with Adrian’s blood. She rushed to her desk, pulling out a sewing needle and holding it over a candle.
    Jacquin turned her attention to Adrian, mopping up the fresh blood that had welled from her wound. She ran her fingers lightly over Adrian’s bare skin, soft and warm despite her injury. The lines of her shoulder blades rose sharply from her back, the lines of muscle and bone betraying a hard life of constant travel. Jacquin’s hands found Adrian’s hair and she marveled at how soft it was despite its metallic appearance. Jacquin had never seen hair so strikingly silver on someone so young. She wondered if it was magic or more common in people from the north.
    “Hold her down. She might wake,” Khalisa ordered as she knelt beside Adrian, sterilized needle in hand.
    Jacquin looked down at Adrian and couldn’t find the desire to pin her. Instead, she moved out of Khalisa’s way and positioned Adrian’s head comfortably on her lap. She soothed the woman with gentle strokes through her hair and over her shoulders as Khalisa stitched her wound closed, the white thread quickly turning scarlet with blood.
    Adrian began to stir against Jacquin and she instinctually bent and kissed the top of Adrian’s head. Khalisa paused, looking up at her sister in