Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
KAIROTH
I carried Bellamy into her room, gently placing her on her bed as Leoni and Goji shoved past me. I looked away while they stripped her of her clothes and got her tucked into the warm bed. Jagged blue lines stretched from her hands all the way up her arms and across the top of her chest. It was the poison.
The poison was killing her. Trying to save her brothers was killing her.
The pixie healer rushed in. She set her satchel down on the table next to the bed, then lifted Bellamy’s hands, inspecting them, shaking her head and speaking in low tones to Goji. Leoni and Driscoll sat on either side of Bellamy. Leoni kept a cool cloth pressed to her head, while Driscoll just held her hand, staring at her with red-rimmed eyes.
She had to make it. She had to survive this. She was a pain in my ass. She had been since the day she arrived.
She could ruin everything. A part of me also thought she might be the answer to everything. Everything I needed. Everything this world needed.
Because if a woman like her could be this brave, this fearless, this selfless, if she could survive this, then she could do anything.
Shame rose up in me. All those years ago, I could have stood up to the other gods. I could have told them I wouldn’t become their monster. That I would fight against them to be a force of good in the world. I could have gone after my family and shown them that I was still the same person that they once loved. But I didn’t. I gave up.
Something Bellamy would never do. She was willing to risk her life for her brothers. All I’d known for so long was selfishness, cruelty, arrogance, and I thought I’d seen some of that in Bellamy when we first met. But I’d been so wrong. She was none of those things. She embodied the opposite, but she’d put up walls to protect herself.
Something I knew far too much about.
If she ever woke up from this, I swore that I would do everything in my power to tear down those walls and show her that she wasn’t alone in this world.
The healer finished speaking to Goji, and I joined them at the side of the bed.
“Can you save her?” I asked the healer.
She tipped her head up, the lines and wrinkles on her face more prominent in the dim light of the fire, which crackled in the hearth. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “This poison has gotten into her blood, possibly her bones and organs.”
I stiffened. “So what can you do?”
“Try to draw it out and hope that that’s enough.”
Tears streamed down Leoni’s cheeks. I wondered if Bellamy’s brothers knew this was happening to their sister. They knew something was wrong before. So maybe they knew now too. I hoped they’d come.
“Then get to work,” I said. “No breaks. No resting. No goddamn anything until you get that poison out of her body.”
The healer gave a stiff nod while Goji glared at me.
I strode from the room, the pixie following.
“What has gotten into you?” Goji snapped from behind.
I whirled and she stopped, both of us standing in the hallway, the stairs overlooking the foyer below.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
She gestured to me. “I thought we agreed she wasn’t good for you. You cannot continue with this.” She bit her lip. “Are you in love with this woman, Kairoth? Because I would like to remind you what happened the last time you felt anything remotely human.”
She knew about my family, what had happened to them. I’d confided in her years ago.
“And maybe that’s the problem,” I said, once again thinking of Bellamy and everything she’d sacrificed for her brothers. “Maybe I’ve been shutting off my emotions for too long. Maybe my humanity isn’t a weakness.”
“Maybe not,” Goji said. “But love is.”
The pirate lord had really done a number on my pixie. She hadn’t recovered from her broken heart, but I hoped she would.
“I didn’t say anything about love,” I snapped back.
“Just be careful, Kairoth. If the gods get free and you’re not prepared for what comes next, it could be the end of us all.” She paused. “Did you ever seek out those shadows? The ones who might know where Bathalous is?”
Fuck. I hadn’t. I’d planned on it. Then I went after Bellamy instead. I’d already wasted too much time. If Bathalous was out there, I needed to go find him. I looked back into Bellamy’s room, her limp form lying on the bed.
“Go,” Goji said. “We’ll take good care of her. You have to focus on your mission, Master.”
With that, she flew away, leaving me with nothing but her warning ringing through my head.