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Jade stirred and her head rolled toward him. She didn’t open her eyes, but she said in a quiet voice, “You told me you didn’t agree with any of this.”
He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “I didn’t. Yet it was my destiny, according to my father, to discover the key to unleashing the demons on the human world in order to conquer it.”
“What was the common ground?”
“You’ll cringe at the irony of this.”
She licked her dry lips, reminding him to dab balm on them, which the doctor had also left. “Tell me.”
When he was done with the balm, he let out a hollow laugh and said, “Freedom.”
That one word had innumerous connotations.
“For the demons,” he continued, “if we usurped human power, the various species wouldn’t have to hide in the woods or attempt to conceal their true identities to avoid being hunted by slayers. They could roam the lands and take advantage of everyday life without always looking over their shoulder. They only had to follow a few simple rules when the wars were over, and I found a vast portion of them in agreement with my laws, because they no longer felt threatened by the human populace.”
She was clearly groggy, but asked, “Why destroy all the cities? Burn the buildings?”
With a sigh, Darien said, “I never advocated that sort of mass destruction, but it went well beyond my control. Demons are simple creatures. We don’t care for modern technology or advancements. Most of my kind hoped to restore the continent to the way it had been even before Columbus arrived. We like nature, not skyscrapers. Fresh air, not smog.”
“Pictures,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of the brown layer along the horizon. It’s kind of disgusting.”
“Doesn’t exist anymore. But then again,” he said, reflective, “neither do a lot of the comforts your kind was used to.”
“Hard to miss what you never had.”
He tried to take solace in that statement, but it didn’t fully register. What about the humans who had experienced those comforts? What about medical equipment that would outfit a hospital capable of taking care of someone like her at a time such as this?
Obviously, he could drive himself mad pondering these things. Instead, he said, “Back to sleep.”
“Okay. But…keep talking. Please. Even if you’re just reading to me. Your voice is soothing.”
After retrieving Alice in Wonderland from the living room, he settled next to her again. She was soundly out, but he did as she asked anyway.
Several days passed, with Sheena helping to serve Jade water and broth when she was awake and him carrying her to a cool bath to help relieve some of the sting of her burns, which she hadn’t yet been able to heal—and they didn’t seem to be improving on their own.
The doctor advised him not to disturb the blisters or peel the dead skin away, reiterating the layer beneath would still be too vulnerable to infection. Unfortunately, it was difficult trying to keep her back cool and the rest of her warm.
Darien was vigilant though. And Sheena was no less supportive. Sometimes, she even sent him away when he was wound too tight with emotion. He went, not because he’d ever taken orders from anyone other than his father, but because he knew it was best for his own sanity. Sheena never wavered in taking his place in the chair next to Jade’s bed, reading to her as he’d done.
A week after the attack, Jade’s pulse was strong and steady, satisfactory to Schaeffer. Her stitches had dissolved into her skin and there wasn’t a trace of the scar. The cuts on her face and arms had also disappeared, and her cracked rib seemed to be only mildly tender. Yet her back was still a mess, because it didn’t heal at the accelerated rate.
In fact
, both the physician and Darien noted the injury seemed barely to heal at all. The doctor eventually cut away the skin from the popped blisters, but the raw layer beneath continued to bleed. He gave Darien a heavy antibiotic cream to slather on her skin, now that Jade was able to lie on her stomach.
Another week went by. Darien stretched alongside her on the bed one afternoon. Sheena always returned to the castle before dawn and then came to the cottage after dusk, usually with a fresh set of sheets and another clean comforter for Jade.
The house was quiet, save for Jade’s breathing and the snap of the fire. He’d finished Alice in Wonderland and three other books Lisette had sent over with one of the slayers, since they’d informed the villagers Jade needed to recover without interruptions.
Darien could only imagine how agitated that made Michael. Were he in the other man’s shoes, he’d be desperate to see her. He could empathize with Jade’s friends, though he didn’t want anyone to become suspicious of her healing powers.
“Your back is finally looking better.” He was able to put aloe on it now, since the threat of infection had lessened.
“What a nightmare,” she said. “I could tell by everyone’s face how horrible the wounds appeared.”
“We were more concerned about how painful they were for you.”
She sighed. “Once I separated the burns from the cut on my chest, I really didn’t want to deal with the scorched skin.”
