AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cool, cool, cool.That had been the injury I wasleastworried about. I thought if anything was going to take me out, it’d be the head wound.
Then again, I’d been barely conscious after getting myself cleaned up when I arrived at Jack’s place, and he’d basically thrown me a bottle of bourbon and wished me luck. It wasn’t like his place had been a paragon of cleanliness.
“What can I do to help?” Grace asked desperately.
“Pray,Prophêtis,” Marek replied quietly. I watched upside down as Grace blinked at him, the suggestion clearly taking her by surprise. It didn’t sound like a great option to me either—surely if the medical professional was suggestingprayeras a course of treatment, I was in even worse shape than I thought I was.
I wasn’t lying on my deathbed right now, was I?
Maybe that sense of rightness was the light at the end of the tunnel.
“The gods have asked a lot of you,” Marek continued. “Why not ask for something back?”
“You’re right,” Grace agreed, still stroking my hair though her hands were starting to tremble. “Theyhaveasked a lot of me. Of us. And I’m not going to do a single thing more for any of them until Dare is healed.”
Riot returned and Grace laid a cold, wet cloth over my forehead. I sucked in a sharp breath as Marek started cleaning one of the wounds on my arm.Shit, that stung.At what point was the numbness meant to set in? I could do with some numbness right now.
“Not going to lie,” I told them. “I don’t feel great about fucking around with all-powerful deities. Maybe that’s just a me thing.”
“I have no idea what you just said, you sound like you’re talking underwater. Or after downing a bottle of whisky,” Riot replied apologetically. His hand came down on my good arm, pinning me in place when I instinctively tried to pull away from Marek’s painful ministrations. “You gotta stay still, man. Let him work.”
I nodded in agreement, but couldn’t quite suppress the urge to try to escape the thing thatfucking hurt.Bullet appeared over Grace’s shoulder, looking down at me with a surprisingly distraught expression on his face. Had he not seen this coming?
“I can see you tried to clean the debris,” Marek murmured. “But there’s still some in here and the wound is closing. I’m going to need to reopen it to get the rest out.”
Wild moved to the end of the bed, enormous hands clamping down on my shins, while Riot gave me an apologetic look, banding a forearm across my chest.
I wheezed at the pressure, trying in vain to get away while too weak to actually push him off.
“I’m sorry, but you need to stay put so Marek can pull the bits of fuckingaircraftout of your arm.” Riot sounded genuinely sorry, though that wouldn’t stop me from socking him in the face if I’d had the energy.
Grace was mumbling something next to me, her voice low and fervent, and I did my best to look past the fiery pain in my arm to focus on what she was saying.
“…I know you can heal him. We were healed in the underworld, I know it’s possible. Please, Goddess Persephone, Queen of the Underworld—”
Holy fuck balls, Grace was asking for help from the Queen of the Underworld? On my behalf?
I was grateful and horrified in equal measure. Marek sliced my arm open, ripping a chunk of something from the wound, and I decided I was more grateful than horrified. I didn’t care who came to my aid, I just wanted this pain to stop.
“Deep breaths,” Riot encouraged anxiously as my vision wavered.
“Just a couple… more…” Marek muttered. Grace switched tacks, finishing her prayer and starting another, though I wasn’t sure who it was directed at. My blood was rushing in my ears, a blissful dampener that filtered out the worst of the panicked sounds of the room.
There was a sudden chill in the air, like someone had opened a freezer door directly above my entire body. Wild’s hands disappeared from my legs, and everyone startled, shouting words I couldn’t make out. People were moving, and I needed to sit up, to see what was going on. Riot leaned further over me, and Grace shuffled forward on her knees, blocking the doorway from view. She was shaking with nerves but steadied slightly as Bullet stood next to where she was on the mattress, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Who are you?” Grace asked shakily. “How did you get in here?”
“Do you want me to waste time answering questions, or shall I get on with healing your soul bond?” The voice was strange, almost ethereal. I poked Riot in the back, trying to move him, but he wouldn’t budge. “My sisters pooled the feeble remains of their magic to summon me a physical form, and it won’t hold for long. If you were either wise or grateful, you’d visit my sisters’ living tombs yourself.”
Alright, I’m just going to assume I’m having some kind of hallucination.
“Please, just tell uswhoyou are?” Grace rasped, hand shaking where she gripped my own. “Please. We’re trusting you with Dare’s life.”
“And so you should. I am Hygeia, there is no one better equipped to heal him.”
Grace sucked in a startled breath.Hygeia?Was she some kind of goddess?
“Hygeia… the agathos?” Grace confirmed hesitantly. “Like anoriginalagathos? How is that possible?”
