Page 143 of Blood Curse

Lenora left before either of us could answer.

I could have changed alone. It would have taken twenty minutes and probably ended with me sitting on the bathroom floor. I turned my back to Stellan and lifted my arms.

He peeled the soaked jumper over my head without catching the Crown. His fingers moved over my cold skin as he unfastened my bra, careful and warm. Desire stirred low in my stomach, inconvenient but entirely human.

Stellan felt the change in my pulse.

“Don’t look pleased with yourself.”

“I’m relieved your heart can still accelerate.”

I turned and pushed his wet coat from his shoulders. “Dry shirt. If I have to be sensible, so do you.”

He helped me into a dry shirt, then changed while I sat on the bed and tried not to stare. He was tall, pale and leanly muscled, with rain shining along the ends of his silver hair. The view improved my circulation more than the heating bricks.

Elias knocked once and entered carrying a leather case.

I sighed as he opened the case.

“Sit in the chair, Bryony.”

The treatment was less dramatic than the Crown deserved and more painful than I deserved.

Elias cleaned around every point where the metal entered my scalp. Most of the wounds had formed thin, angry rings. Two had split open in the rain. The cloth came away pink, then red.

“Shit.” I gripped the chair arms. “Could you be gentler?”

“Not without leaving the wounds unclean.”

Stellan stood in front of me, within reach but waiting.

I held one out.

He took my hand.

Elias worked a salve into the torn skin. The Crown cooled as if pleased that the flesh around it was being protected.

That frightened me more than the pain.

Fuck.

It wasn’t trying to keep me healthy. It was making sure my body didn’t reject the metal before it had finished using me.

“It likes this,” I said.

Elias stopped. “The treatment?”

“My scalp healing around it.”

Stellan’s grip tightened.

Elias touched two fingers to my wrist and watched the small clock on the mantel. “The Crown is preserving its hold. Your pulse has slowed again, and your temperature is too low for a human who has been inside this long.”

“So it’s keeping the wounds alive and forgetting the rest of me.”

“Not forgetting. Choosing.”

“Choosing what?” Stellan asked.