Page 12 of Blood & Roses

“How do you plan to break the curse or spell or whatever?” she hissed, a twig crunching making the stag behind the trees lift his head. I prayed that Orson and Rowan were almost in position.

“Not sure,” I replied, voice barely audible. “I’m hoping Sera and Mora can help.”

Lis raised a brow at me but didn’t respond as a braying roar rent the quiet of the forest. The stag reared as Rowan and Orson barreled toward him, and then he was heading straight for us.

Chapter 6

“Now, Lis!” I shouted, running toward the stag and hoping Lis bound him by the time I arrived. I readied my magic, that unsettling wrongness hitting me as I cast my awareness over the stag’s body.

Shadows burst from behind me, Lis cursing as she ran forward and began weaving bands of blackness around the stag. He bucked, tossing his head angrily as shadows caught his antlers and legs, taking himdown to the snow.

“Easy,” came Rowan’s voice, a male once more as he ran to his brother’s side, arriving at the same moment as I did. “Easy, brother. It’s me.”

I couldn’t give the stag anything to make him sleep while he was thrashing so violently, or it would all end up in the snow. Instead, I pulled off a glove and pressed my hand to the stag’s neck, closing my eyes and focusing on his blood. His heart was beating frantically, a hundred different injuries and hurts making him wild and terrified, and I willed the blood to slow and calm as I poured my magic into him. Slowing Rowan’s bleeding had been far easier. He hadn’t been thrashing and angry and out of his mind.

“Godsdamn it, stop being stubborn and let us help you!” Rowan snarled, trying to hold his brother down.

“It’s not working,” Orson growled, coming to stand beside Lis as she focused on keeping her shadows in place.

“Give her a minute,” Lis gritted out. I could feel her heart beating rapidly too in the corner of my awareness, and I knew she was expending a great deal of magic to hold the stag down for me.

I tried to block them out, to focus on the pounding heart and blood of the stag and soothe him into a stupor. It was agonizing, and I felt beads of sweat break out on my brow as I exerted my will to subdue him while he continued to struggle and snort beneath my palm.

“Isolde?” Rowan asked, putting a hand over mine. My attention slipped, and it was Rowan’s blood I felt coursing through his veins,his steady heartbeat oddly calming as I tore my focus away and back to his brother.

“Almost there,” I breathed, stroking my other hand down the animal’s neck to calm him. “Feed him the potion now. It’s in my pocket.”

Rowan reached clumsily for me, fumbling for a second before pulling the stoppered vial from my pocket and removing the cork with his teeth. I tilted the stag’s head, and Rowan poured the mixture, a concoction of my blood mixed with valerian and chamomile, into his muzzle. The stag shuddered and twitched, and then his head dropped into the snow.

I looked up to see Rowan crouching next to me, his hand still over mine and his face ashen. “You did it,” he said, eyes flicking to his brother, then back to me. “You look terrible.”

“Just what every girl wants to hear,” I ground out between breaths as I worked to push down the nausea that always came with expending so much of my magic. The toll of bloodweaving was one of the reasons I preferred poisons, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.

I pulled my hands away, dropping my magic as I signaled to Lis that it was safe to drop her shadows. She leaned heavily against Orson looking pale and wan, and I supposed I must not look much better.

“Are you alright, Iz?” she asked, her voice sounding far away as the edges of my vision began to darken.

“Totally fine,” I replied, my speech slurring oddly. “But the stag needs medical attention.” These last words came out thickly as I toppled sideways into the snow.

I woke in my own bed, a candle flickering gently and the windows dark. The sounds of voices arguing downstairs told me something was happening, but I felt another wave of nausea hit me when I tried to sit up.

“Easy,” came a male voice, a hand shooting out to steady me as I sat. “You’ve been out the whole afternoon.”

“Have I?” I asked stupidly, my throat parched and head foggy. “Too much magic.”

“I gathered as much,” Rowan said, offering me a glass of water, a steadying hand keeping me upright. “Lena has not left your side since I got you back here. I finally convinced her to go eat.”

“Lis?” I asked, sipping gingerly in case another bout of nausea forced the water all back up.

“Orson took her home after they were sure you were safe,” he said, watching me carefully in the flickering light. “She was tired, but not like you. If I’d known how much it would cost, I wouldn’t have asked you to do this.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, embarrassed that my passing out had undermined his perception of me as a fearsome assassin yet again. “Where is your brother?”

“Asleep in your living room,” Rowan said, the quaver in his voice betraying his anxiety. “Mora and Sera were able to break the hold on his shifting.”

“They broke the curse?” I asked, surprise making me launch forward and nearly topple out of the bed.

Rowan cursed, catching me and forcing me back. “Turns out it wasn’t a curse,” he said, holding me still as I waited for the room to stop tilting around me. “Mora looked into his memories and found the cause. Some kind of illusion cast by the queen that had him convinced he was a stag. Sera was able to break it.”