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“Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to rejoin my mate alongside any healers you can lend me.”
“Of course. Let me connect you with them right now.”
Chapter 14
Ayla
I floated up to consciousness far quicker than I expected, and I was prepared for a wall of pain to slam into me with the force of a wrecking ball or two. Instead, it felt like I was waking up from a weekend spent doing a lot of manual work rather than from a silver weapon penetrating my body.
I opened my eyes and wasn’t able to stop the groan that grounded its way out of my throat. As my vision returned to me, so did the pain, and I was much more cognizant of the fact that not only had a crossbow bolt shot me, but I’d had it shoved through, then had my mate treat my wound off my half-conscious instructions.
What a wild ride.
Then I realized I wasn’t alone, my vision clearing enough for me to see Kai asleep in the chair next to my small, narrow bed. He was dozing ever so slightly, and I just allowed myself a moment to drink him in.
I knew helping me had taken a toll on him, yet he hadn’t complained even once. He’d been assuring and strong, and anything anyone could ask for in a mate. I really was lucky.
But there was something strange about him lingering around the edges of his form in a way that seemed wrong. Had he been… bespelled?
I went to sit up, but my body completely rejected the idea. Yup, I definitely still had a hole in my side. But when I looked down, I saw that my wound was significantly smaller than the last time I’d seen it, and that it was stuffed with clean medical gauze rather than the boiled rags we’d had to use from Tove’s cottage.
Ah, an actual healer had seen me. Did they heal Kai, too? I hoped he hadn’t gotten too hurt defending me.
“Ah, good to see you’re awake! Can I get you something to drink?”
I blinked and lazily turned my head to the doorway, although there was a delay in the time it took for my body to actually listen. There was an older woman standing there, with a pleasant expression on her face.
“Don’t worry if you’re feeling a little sluggish. Silver poisoning does a number on your kind. I can wait until you’re ready to talk.” She settled in the chair across from Kai, and I watched her idly. She definitely held herself like some accomplished magic user, so I had to guess she was the healer I had to thank for how relatively good I was feeling. “I took a look at your beau there as well. His silver wound had been treated well, but it definitely needed a little bit of extra attention. He refused to sleep, though. He was so dedicated to being at your side. But it’s been two days, and his body really needed him to let go for a while.”
I’d been asleep for two days? It didn’t feel like that. My mouth was dry, but my eyes weren’t as scummy as I’d have expected for being unconscious for more than twenty-four hours. Whoever the healer woman was, she knew what she was doing.
“Thank you,” I managed to ground out, trying to catch up with the fact that I’d been asleep for so long.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s been a while since I could stretch my magical muscle. Sorry I couldn’t help you with that nasty curse. It just might be the most powerful one I’ve ever encountered, which is saying something considering all I’ve been through.”
“You can sense my curse?” That wasn’t the most uncommon thing amongst magic users, but I wasn’t used to other healers picking up on it right away.
“I most certainly can. Nasty thing, that.”
“It is. I’ve, uh… I’ve been trying to break it for a long while.” Was this woman the powerful fae magic user I was looking for who could teach me what I needed to know? Who could give me those final pieces of information I needed to really make my own personal trifecta blood curse work? “What did you say your name was?”
“I suppose I didn’t say that at all, did I? ” She laughed, her round face splitting into a lovely smile. She was much more overweight than the other fae I’d seen, but her features still had the classic aquiline nature to them, and her ears were quite pointed. “I am Luci. I’ve been a healer here for a hundred and thirty years.”
A hundred and thirty years! I knew that if I managed to survive my curse and live a naturally long life, I was just as likely to reach that age, but at that moment, it seemed impossibly far away.
“That’s quite impressive.”
“I just hate moving. Besides, it’s been nice to welcome an entirely new generation of my kin. But that’s not what you really want to talk about, is it? I can see something going on behind those eyes of yours.”
“Well, it just seems that you’re powerful and accomplished. Do you think I could ask you for some advice?”
“Of course, my dear. Ask away. My brain is hungry for a challenge after treating your wounds. Reminded me of my glory days, in a way.”
“Okay, so it’s hard to explain quickly, but it acts like it’s feeding off what happens around me. So, I thought, since it’s like a living entity, what if I…cursed it.” It was hard not to lose momentum by the end. As I feared, it sounded stupid whenever I said it out loud.
But the woman’s laughter wasn’t cruel. Mostly, it just sounded genuinely amused at the idea. “Wouldn’t that be something. I haven’t heard of a tactic like that before, but there’s some legs to it.”
“You think so?”
