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And shewascertain that all of them were back in the room.
None of the males were attempting to be quiet. In fact, she was fairly certain that they were doing their darndest to be loud.
She found herself staring at Isaiah’s profile. She studiously appreciated the powerful beauty of the man she’d found herself inextricably attached to in recent days, a soft smile fitting over her lips.
And then she frowned.
She shot straight up next to him, worry abounding in her gut. “He’s bleeding.”
Jaeda was instantly by her side. “Where?”
“His ear.” Rukia’s voice hitched. Her hand unconsciously gripped Isaiah’s bicep, needing the physical anchor to reality when she had no earthly idea how to help him.
Jaeda delicately lifted Isaiah’s head to reveal the spreading stain of crimson that’d been pooling there. “Derikles.”
But the other Raeth was already gripping Isaiah’s shoulders, his expression equal parts concern and guilt. “Forgive me, sovereign.”
Delicately placing her fingertips on Isaiah’s temples, Jaeda closed her eyes and concentrated. The pulse of power that slapped against Rukia’s frame was heavy, an invisible weight that made her suck in a breath to bar herself against the onslaught. But it wasn’t just coming from Jaeda—the majority of the impulse centered from Derikles.
Three minutes into the exercise and Isaiah’s body visibly relaxed, his breathing coming easier. Derikles finally let go of his grip on Isaiah’s shoulders, straightening to his full height.
“He warned us about Zanza’s movements in Europe. That it would require more energy to sustain the network,” he recalled, a tick starting in his jaw.
“She can’t have been in Munich that long,” Xedrix bellowed from behind Rukia. “We just checked the network a half hour ago.”
Jaeda finally lowered her hands from Isaiah’s temples. “He’ll be fine. We’re lucky Rukia caught it early.”
Emerald eyes pinned Rukia’s in the half second that followed, Derikles giving her the faintest nod of acknowledgement. Then, his attention was quickly back on Jaeda. “Are you rested enough to resume healing him?”
“What do you take me for?” Jaeda quipped, throwing him a comical grimace. “A youngling?”
The healer repositioned her hands over the sizable gash still visible in the flesh between his neck and his shoulder. Rukia continued to sit by his side, somehow her hand still coiled possessively around his bicep.
She watched Jaeda work, the layers of flesh sealing together now that the majority of the deep work had already been done. It was an art. Her long fingers hovering diligently over Isaiah’s body, intricately weaving at times, but maintaining absolute stillness at others.
And then Rukia looked at her face.
The healer stared maliciously at another point on Isaiah’s chest, eyes slitted with barely concealed fury. Following her gaze, Rukia caught sight of an inch-long silvery line near the middle of his pectoral muscle.
Her gut churned at the significance of it. “You glare at that scar any harder and it’s going to peel a layer of skin off his chest.”
Jaeda flinched, averting her gaze back to the wound that was yet healing. “Sorry.”
“I thought that Raeths didn’t scar?”
Rukia ran her fingertips over the barely visible silver line that marred the otherwise immaculate skin of his muscle-bound chest, her features pinching.
Jaeda pursed her lips in hesitation but answered, nonetheless. “We don’t generally. But that scar was caused by amerjha.”
She recognized the word from discussions they’d had during the original peace accords. Amerjhawas an object, typically a weapon of some kind, that imparted wounds designed to kill immortals. Any injury sustained from amerjhawhich could kill a human, would kill an immortal.
The weapons were exceptionally dangerous. Fortunately, they were also exceptionally rare.
“We almost lost him that day.” The energy of the room suddenly changed, an indescribable tension echoing through the air as Jaeda continued speaking. “Fortunately, he pulled through. Taught us that even though we would’ve liked to believe him invincible, there were still very real threats in the world that could take him from us. It drew us closer to him, and him closer to us.”
Squaring her shoulders, Jaeda caught Rukia’s gaze, the woman suddenly somber. “What the world sees when they look at him is a man with no compassion, no empathy. Why? Because that’s what he wants you to see.
“But for us, for those of his clan, it’s very much the opposite. There isn’t a single person here that he wouldn’t die for, no one he wouldn’t literally walk through fire to rescue. Butnoneof you know him like we do. Isaiah loves deeper, more strongly, than any person I’ve ever known.”
