AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eight
Finton
I thought she was going to throw us both out in the snow. Probably the only thing that kept her from doing it was being a healer. Her eyes went so wide, I expected them to bulge before they narrowed again. “I do not belong to anyone,” she asserted. “You and your husband belong to one another, and I am merely here to help you feel better.”
“My wolf is very sure of this,” I told her, “but perhaps we can discuss it later.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” she assured me, easing my arms from the coat. “Except how to get both of you well.”
“Your wolf hasn’t said anything?” My head was pounding and my stomach starting to churn again. Reminding me in no uncertain terms that we were endangering this woman’s life by even being here. I took a step back from her.
“Why don’t you take a seat at the table and rest?” She took my arm and guided me to the spot she’d indicated. “And, while I get the fire going, you can tell me what’s wrong with you both.”
I didn’t have the strength to fight her, having used what little I had in getting Trace and I here. So, while Cerine stirred up the fire in the fireplace and got one going in the woodstove—a double whammy of heat sources for such a small house—I told her about what happened to our pack. “I don’t know what killed our people. If it was a disease or a toxin or maybe something else. But I must have been still delusional not to insist you go away the moment you found us.”
“You weren’t delusional.” She set a cup of tea in front of me. “Drink this. It will warm you from the inside out and ease your stomach pains.”
“If not delusional, I have no excuse not to have tried harder to convince you. We buried nearly everyone we’ve ever cared about, and they died in the most miserable of ways. If you, our mate, suffers harm…”
“Finton, your mate is lying there in that bed, and while you are also affected, he is much sicker. Now, do you want to spend this time arguing about whether I belong to the two of you or keeping him in this world?”
“It’s that bad?” Even as I said the words, I knew how foolish they sounded. So many dead, none survived so far as I knew, and I thought we’d be exempt. “Is there any hope?”
“There’s always hope. And as a healer, it’s my job to be with the ill, so I’m exposed to everything. You said nobody was alive when you got there? So you weren’t able to ask any of them what they went through.”
“Not one, no. But they all seemed to have died in the same way.”
She filled another cup with the herbal tea and added a spoon. “Drink your tea. I’m going to see if your husband…Trace is his name?”
I nodded.
“I’m going to see if I can get a little of this into him. With stomach ailments or poisoning, which is what I think this is so far, by the way, dehydration can kill quickly. Has he been drinking water or anything since you were stricken?”
“Yes, a little I think. Probably not enough.” I lifted the mug she’d given me and took a deep drink, nearly choking at the strong herbal flavor. “Are you sure this is good for the stomach?”
“In a way. It’s going to help get the toxins out, but not in a brutal way like your body was probably already trying. This is gentler.”
“What if it’s not poisoning but an actual disease of some kind?”
Cerine set the mug down and leaned close to me. She felt my forehead and looked into my eyes then lifted my lip and studied my gums. “No, it’s not disease. Your eyes are clouded and your gums pale. I don’t know precisely the source, but I have some theories.” Leaving me sipping the tea, tummy rumbling as it reached my sore and unhappy gut, she moved toward Trace with her brew.
“Cerine, please save him. We’ve only been married a few weeks, but we’ve known each other always.”
“I don’t believe the Goddess would have brought you here just to lose him, and I’m from an ancient line of healers. But I can’t save everyone. I promise I will try my hardest for you both. Tell me more about what you found?”
“Can you guide me? What did I leave out that would be helpful?”
