Chapter 12
Jessiah
Iknew things were bad when Rummy no longer insulted me every time I spoke. Now, she was burning up. Her body molded against mine on the saddle, completely deadweight. The condition of her wound tempted me to fly the rest of the way to the kingdom to get this trip over with and find a healer.
But it was too risky. We’d received a letter asking for our help from Pericius, and Matthias had practically come to us with the complete opposite message. We still didn’t know the reality of the situation we were walking into.
Who knew what sort of reaction an angel flying over the borders of their kingdom unannounced would receive? One carrying a dying fae in his arms, no less.
She’s not dying, I reminded myself. She’s not dying, she’s just fighting the infection. Once we get to this damn inn, she’ll be fine.
I repeated those words in my mind until they were all I thought about.
If I didn’t focus on that, then I’d get caught up in concerns about how pale her skin was, how fragile her body felt.
We’d run out of clean bandages hours ago.
Not that they were helping anyway. She was too weak to fight the infection that overtook her.
It was official. I’d never let her travel with us again.
And I’d never let Huntyr and Wolf off the hook for insisting she come on this journey.
“Come on, Rum.” As the horse marched forward steadily, I tightened my hold on her, securing her to keep her from being jostled as best I could. “Hold on a little longer.”
I’d been overcome with true fear a handful of times in my life, but this was different. If she died like this… if she died before I could tell her the truth…
“Almost there!” Matthias yelled from ahead.
A small cluster of buildings came into view ahead. The sight was nothing like I expected. I was expecting… I don’t know, war? Crowds of people rioting and trying to break through the walls that protected a castle I’d yet to see?
This was a quaint, quiet building miles from the rest of the kingdom.
“Are you sure this is it?” I asked. From here, it looked almost abandoned. There was a single structure, without a soul in sight.
“Yes! This is it!” Matthias’s mood lightened, and I was too desperate to be picky about our location, so I followed, with Xavier at my back.
As we stopped outside the small building, Xavier swung off his horse and helped me lift Rummy off my saddle.
Letting go of her felt wrong. Foreign.
But time was of the essence. Her breathing grew shallow, and she only fluttered her eyes open for a second when I tried to wake her up.
“This way,” Matthias said.
I took Rummy from Xavier’s arms, leaving him behind to tie up the horses and gather our belongings, and stormed through the front door of the small, dark inn behind Matthias.
I’d yet to see a single living being, so when I stepped inside and found a dozen fae milling about the cozy space, I came to an abrupt stop.
“We need rooms,” Matthias said to the fae behind the counter. “What do you have available?”
The man looked from Matthias, to Rummy in my arms, to my white angel wings, his face hardening.
“I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “Perhaps it’s best if you take your business elsewhere.”
I stepped forward, gently shifting Rummy in my hold. “We don’t have time to go somewhere else. We won’t cause any trouble, you have my word. She needs to rest.”
The man was older, his face edged with age and worry. But he sighed, his shoulders lowering, and took two keys from a board hanging on the wall behind him.
“I have two rooms available. You’ll have to make do with what we have.”
Xavier appeared, already pulling coins from his pocket. “We’ll take them,” he said. “Thank you.”
Goddess above, it was all happening so fast. I should have been more concerned with the patrons who were watching us, with all the prying eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about anything but Rummy.
She needed help.
Now.
As Matthias took the keys from the inn owner, I turned for the stairs.
“Here.” Xavier took one key from Matthias as we made it to the second floor. “This way.”
As he wiggled the key in the lock, I couldn’t help but take in Rummy’s pale skin and use my heightened ability to listen to her heart beating. It was slower and weaker than even the last time I’d checked an hour or so ago.
“We need a healer,” I said as Xavier opened the door. “She won’t survive the night like this.”
“I know someone,” Matthias said from behind me. “She’s not far from here. I can be back within an hour.”
I carried Rummy to the bed and laid her on the clean linens before turning to face him. “Go. I’ll pay anything, just get some help.”
He nodded, and then he was gone, sprinting back in the direction we came.
Time stilled. Two days ago, she was making jokes, insulting me, laughing and flirting with Xavier. I would have preferred literally any of that to this sickening silence.
“You really fooled me there for a minute,” Xavier said from the other side of the bed. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
To anyone else, he would look as if he couldn’t give a single shit about Rummy’s health right now. But I could see the worry in his eyes. In the way his brows drew together, watching her. Watching me.
“What are you talking about? Fooled with what?” I quickly focused on Rummy again, plucking a folded washcloth from the dresser and wiping the sweat from her face.
His responding laugh was a low sound, but it was just loud enough to ignite my sleeping temper.
“I was starting to think you might not actually care about her. You put on a brave act, you know. But for the last few days, I was sure you couldn’t be this much of an asshole if you secretly still cared for her. ”
“I don’t care for her.”
The words rushed out of my mouth before I could stop them. No, I didn’t care for her. Not in the way he was thinking. Not in the way I used to care for her.
Xavier shook his head, his form shadowed in the corner. “See, that’s what you keep saying, but if that were true, you wouldn’t have pushed so hard to get here and get Rummy to a healer.”
I barked out a laugh. “If Rummy dies, Huntyr will kill me. This is just as much for our protection as it is for hers.”
“Right.” He wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t have the time to dive into my emotional past right now.
He’d seen enough of it. Too much, probably.
“You ever going to tell me what happened between the two of you?” He pushed off the wall and sat on the edge of the bed.
Rummy didn’t even react to the way the mattress dipped. Her eyes stayed tightly closed against her too pale skin.
“Why do you two hate each other so much?”
I wiped another bead of sweat from her forehead. “We don’t hate each other.” Goddess above, it was a pathetic response, but I didn’t have the energy to come up with a bullshit lie. “We just don’t get along very well.”
He huffed a laugh. “Soph and I don’t get along very well. You and half the damn army don’t get along very well. You and her?” Brows lifted, he looked at her, then me again. “That’s different. That goes deep.”
“What’s with all the damn questions?” I asked, my blood heating.
He shrugged. “Just trying to figure you two out, that’s all. She’s different when you’re around.”
I stilled. I couldn’t stop myself from meeting Xavier’s green eyes. If I were a better man, I would have brushed the comment off and moved on. But I was weak. Pathetic. “Different how?”
Xavier’s expression went stoic. “She closes up. She gets serious, even when she’s saying shit to piss you off. It’s like she puts her guard up when you’re around. And she gets meaner than all hells, but you know that already.”
I laughed quietly at the last part. “She’s mean as hells all right. She always has been, always will be.”
“I don’t know.” He turned his attention to Rummy, whose chest rose and fell with labored breaths. “I tend to believe that the world makes us this way. I don’t think anyone is born fighting the way she does. Something must have happened to her to make her so damn cynical.”
“We’ve all got our shit,” I replied, choking back the unease swirling in my gut. “That doesn’t give us the excuse to walk around making life miserable for everyone else.”
“She only makes your life miserable because you let her. She gets under your skin and she knows it.”
I swallowed back a rebuttal. If I argued, I’d only embarrass myself further. “Yeah, well, I wish she wouldn’t. I wish she would just leave me alone.”
I tossed the washcloth to the side. Where was the damn healer?
“Do you?” he asked. “She made the journey less boring, that much is certain.”
I grunted. “This journey couldn’t have possibly been boring. We’re just getting started here, and I have a feeling this place won’t be very welcoming.”
“Who knows?” He lifted one shoulder. “Maybe Rummy will win everyone over with her exuberant charm and politeness.”
At that, we both laughed.
The next hour moved at a torturously slow pace. I was beginning to think that Matthias ditched us when the door flew open and Matthias stormed in, his boots wet from the downpour, his chest heaving as he sucked in air and forced it back out.
An older woman trailed behind him. She wore a black coat to protect herself from the rain, the length of it falling almost to her ankles. She stood to about the middle of my chest, and her white, curly hair hinted to her age more than the light wrinkles on her face.
And her eyes damn near glowed in the dim lighting of the inn.
I stood up to greet her, but her eyes were already locked on Rummy. “Move aside,” she said. “I need to see the girl.”
I did as she ordered, scrambling away from the bed. As I stood beside Matthias, the woman took my seat next to Rummy and dropped her bag on the floor. Immediately, she focused her attention on Rummy’s face. She brushed her fingers over her pale skin and inhaled a sharp breath.
“The boy tells me she was attacked?”