Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
“Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?”
She winces.
“Come on,” David calls. “And remember the way. I’m not showing you again.”
Without another word, she leaves, her steps silent on the stairs. And I feel … sick, like I was cruel. Like I’m in the wrong somehow. I lean against the wall, the stone cool on my cheek. Again, I stuff every bit of my feelings down and force my thoughts back to what little I can control. When Valen returns, I’m going to make the same plea to him that I made to Fatima. I need equipment. If I can get—a sound to my left draws my attention.
A shadow moves in the corridor. My hackles rise, and I push myself to a higher stair, then get to my feet.
Valen staggers into view, his chest bare and covered in blood. His head hangs at an odd angle, and he falls in a heap, his breathing ragged and loud.
My stomach drops, my heart kicking up a notch. Déjà vu intrudes, so many memories of me patching him up in DC. I hurry to him, the smell of blood heavy in the air. With a shove, I roll him to his back. I can’t comprehend everything I’m seeing, the wounds that are too many and too deep. A human wouldn’t have withstood a quarter of this.
His skin has been flayed away over his heart, and I see it beating sluggishly beneath his breastbone. Swollen and bloody, the sclera is torn away, and the one lung I can see is punctured, not even inflating halfway. I can’t apply pressure. I can’t do anything. I hover over him, my hands itching to do something, to fix him. But I can’t.
One of his eyes opens, the other swollen shut.
“Are you dying?” I ask. “You need blood. Like when you almost died in your bathroom? I don’t—I can’t—there’s nothing I can do.”
“I didn’t die.” His voice is barely a croak, and leaning closer, I see why. His neck is gashed open so badly that I can see his spinal cord.
“Fuck.” I’m at a total loss. “Here.” I shove my wrist in his face. “Just do it.”
“Worried for me?” He barely gets the words out.
“Glad to be rid of you,” I say instinctively.
His lips feather across my skin. A soft touch despite his dire situation, a slight kiss before dying. When he strikes, I grit my teeth against the wave of sensations that roll through me. The sharp sting of pain, then unexpected pleasure that twists low in my belly mixed with so many memories of him taking from me. And worse, of Whitbine doing the same. My stomach turns.
After a few pulls, he releases me with a groan.
I keep my wrist at his lips. “You need more.”
“No.” He stares up at me. “You’re afraid. I never want you to be afraid.”
I want to deny it, to say I’m tough and strong, that I’ve seen too much to be weak any longer. But it’s not the truth, and I think he knows it. There’s too much darkness beneath my skin now, too much violent history.
“Fuck!” David lands with a whoosh beside us, an IV bag of blood clutched in one hand. “Gregor flayed you?” He kneels and shoves the bag against Valen’s mouth. He bites it, draining it by half in a matter of moments.
I sit back on my heels and stare at Valen’s heart. The sclera heals as I watch, the blood seemingly seeping back to where it belongs. Then his skin begins to knit itself back together, the fibers reaching for each other across his sternum. If only I could get this under a microscope… God, there’s a world of knowledge right in front of me, a million medical explanations and remedies.
“If you keep staring at me like that, we’ll have to take this somewhere more private.” Valen sits up, his swollen eye now barely visible.
I glare at him.
“What happened?” David stands, then offers Valen his hand and pulls him to his feet.
He sways then steadies himself. Blood still covers his torso, his pants shredded down one leg, a deep gouge in his thigh healing slowly.
“Gregor was displeased.” He coughs, blood bubbling on his lips.
“Fucking hell.” David takes one of his arms and drapes it across his broad shoulders. “Let’s go.” He walks him past the green flame room, the library, and all the way to his bedroom with me following behind. Valen’s back is a similar tapestry of gore, the flesh healing but plenty of deeper wounds still remaining. It will take time.
“Here.” David lowers Valen to his bed.
Valen sits heavily and rests his elbows on his thighs, his head hanging, his neck oozing blood but looking better. At least I can’t see his spinal cord, just the side of his windpipe and his vertebrae.