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“Do you know what ails him?” he asked in a scratchy, barely-there voice.
He was still out of breath from the sound-barrier-breaking flight. His heart was still thrashing madly in his chest. His throat was dry, but he barely noticed. Just like he ignored the persistent hunger pangs that gnawed at his belly.
Sorin came first.
Sorin was all that mattered.
If anything…permanent…happened to him, nothing else would ever matter again.
“His affliction is not physical,” Rain said. “His body is whole. It is his soul that suffers.”
“How?” Ere bit out.
She worried her lower lip as the needle-like ends of herzhenskimmed lightly across Sorin’s body, naked but for a towel draped over his lap. In strategic areas, thezheninserted into his pores, vibrating with an almost visible energy.
“His soul is trying to depart his physical shell,” she murmured.
“And Sorin is fighting to keep it there. Without his soul, the spark of life, his body would quickly deteriorate. He is struggling mightily within himself. There is nothing anyone else can do.”
“Bullshit,” Ere spat, taking an aggressive step toward the tiny, white-haired healer.
Rain’s eyes widened, but she stood her ground. Even as her Mate, the leader of the Elite warriors, Valerius, took a threatening step of his own toward Ere.
“There is always something,” Ere said, his eyes desperate and wild.
“You don’t know everything. Sorin is a phoenix.Thephoenix. Have you ever treated a creature like me or him? You only know about Pure Ones and humans. Maybe to a certain extent Dark Ones as well. But what do you know about dragons and phoenixes? Animal Spirits and Elementals? We are an amalgamation of all of the magic in this world. You know nothing!”
None of the friends and family gathered in the healing chamber of the Pure Ones’ base, the Shield, commented that Ere was the one who brought Sorin here. Because he thought Rain might work a miracle, as she had done many times before in her millennia of existence.
And also because he didn’t know what else to do.
Rain calmly took his outburst in stride.
“You are correct, Erebu. I do not know everything. Even now, Jade Cicada is on her way from her own Hive to assist us. I have called for Ava and Eveline as well. Ava, from a scientific point of view, and Eveline might be able to find some lost spells that could undo this.”
She released a long-held breath, surveying the unconscious warrior on the stainless-steel table cushioned by a utilitarian thin mattress.
“Whateverthisis.”
Someone pulled a chair close to the table and nudged Ere into it. He barely noticed when his exhausted ass hit the seat.
Immediately, he reached for Sorin’s hand, holding it in both his own.
Such a large, capable hand, he thought. Broad-palmed and long-fingered. Roped with veins.
Ere could almost see his lifeblood traveling through those zig-zagging veins, so that Sorin’s heart kept beating. And he kept breathing.
In and out.
In and out.
Except for the ashen hue of his skin, he looked so peaceful lying there. Just taking a nap. His chest inflating and depressing in a reliable rhythm. So hypnotic, Ere could almost be lulled to sleep.
But he might never rest again if Sorin didn’t wake up.
Wake up, he communicated through the telepathic link they shared as Mates.
Why won’t you open your eyes and look at me? Tell me what’s wrong. We’ll fix it together like we always do.
