The Heir's Bargain (Of Fire and Lies)

Chapter 39

My knees hitthe ground as the tears rolled down my cheek and spilled onto the quilt. With a shaking hand, I reached out and grabbed Dani”s hand as she lay in her bed, unconscious.

She was here. She was severely injured, but she was here. She was home. And that was all that mattered.

Her curls were flattened and spread across her pillow. Her brown skin was tinted with a sickly hue. Her lips were chapped, and old bruises peppered her skin. A thin blanket lay atop her, covering her legs and stomach. Above it, though, a long cotton bandage wrapped around her entire torso from the stab wound she had suffered. And although I could not see it, there must have been a ghastly scar beneath the wrapping.

I kissed the top of her scarred knuckles. Scooting my stool closer, I leaned over the bed, resting my head upon my other arm.

The Bull King would pay. He would pay for all the pain, suffering, and anguish he caused.

But right now, Dani needed me.

Hours went by as I sat beside her bed. The afternoon turned to dusk, yet I did not move.

At some point, someone called out to me. Someone tried to pull me away.

Someone tried to tell me to leave.

But I wouldn”t leave. I couldn’t.

I would never choose to leave Dani again. Not while I lived and breathed.

Never again.

”He”ll be mad,”someone whispered.

The voice was familiar, yet I couldn’t identify it. My mind was too groggy from the exhaustion that plagued my body. I tried to push through the fog, but it was too thick, too heavy.

”It does not matter,” another muddled voice said. ”The healers need to attend to her.”

”But—”

”Do it, Terin.”

My eyes sprung open, my hand tightening around Dani”s.

But it was too late. My brother already had his claws in me.

Sleep wrapped its shadowed tendrils around my mind and pulled. I tried to fight it—tried to fight the sweet pull of Terin”s gift blanketing me. But the more I fought it, the tighter it wrapped around me.

I promised myself I wouldn”t leave.

I promised.

Yet I fell anyway.

Sleep embraced me, forcing me underneath its heavy pull. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.