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.
“He almost killed you.” David drops to his haunches in front of him.
“Almost.”
I move around to Valen’s back and watch him heal, studying the process. It’s more magic than science. More witchcraft than medicine. I don’t understand any of it, but his body is its own surgeon. A deft healer, repairing and regrowing. To see this at the cellular level might fry my brain.
“Taking notes, Doctor?” Valen’s voice is almost back to normal.
“Just observing.” I lean forward and press a small flap of skin back into place. It quickly meshes with the flesh beneath it, becoming whole as I watch.
“Always looking for something to learn. Observant. You’re quite astute for a dead woman.”
A dead woman? I freeze. “Gregor bought it?”
“For now.” Valen grunts. “But he’s far from pacified.”
“He punished you.”
“He laid blame where he felt it was due.” He shrugs, but groans and stills again. “My negligence allowed Carlotta to gain enough support to move against Blood Dragonis. To attack his Specter and kill you.”
Somewhere inside, my ADHD squawks about the injustice of it, of blaming Valen for the actions of others. A useless bird in a cage. There is no fairness in this world, and that was true even before the vampires emerged. “Is nothing ever Gregor’s own fault?”
David scoffs. “Never. I’m surprised he believed her dead. Lately, he’s wanted …” He runs a hand over his curls. “He’s wantedbodies.”
Valen’s breathing is still ragged. “Oh, he wanted more. Threatened to compel me to get it. Changed his mind when I offered him proof.”
My skin crawls. “What proof?”
“He demanded your body. I gave him one.”
“You—”
“There are plenty of victims—humans who were out after dark while knowing full well it’s a death sentence. I found one and took the corpse to him as proof.”
