Chapter 18 The Precipice of Eternity
The Precipice of Eternity
I woke up in an unfamiliar room.
Terribly confused by where I was, and how I got here, I sat up, wincing when I felt dull pain in my right side. I went to lift up my shirt and investigate the source, but I realized my clothes had been changed. Gone were my jeans and band tee, replaced instead by a simple gray nightgown.
Finding my glasses resting on the nightstand, I slid them up my nose and pulled the nightgown up.
My skin was clean. No wound—not even a scratch. I frowned, still feeling that dull pain, but seeing as I was utterly healthy, I lowered the fabric back down, my confusion growing.
I looked up and studied the room. It was a simple bedroom with a cottage feel to it: wooden dresser and TV stand, wooden nightstands next to the wooden-framed double bed I was currently sitting upon.
The door to my right, wooden as well, was closed, and the window to the left showed nothing but a mass of glaringly green bushes and an assortment of lanky trees, seemingly leading to a forest beyond.
Considering there was no forest within the city of Los Angeles, I concluded I was far away from any sort of urban area.
And that made me wonder why.
The last thing I remembered was seeing Lucien being stabbed in his wolf form . . .
I froze.
Lucien.
Panic set in, and I pushed the heavy duvet away and stumbled off the far-too-tall bed. Someone had placed a pair of slippers nearby. I put them on before I opened the door and exited to find a short corridor outside.
The corridor was short, leading to a couple of other doors, while opening at its other end to a surprisingly spacious living room, a kitchen, and a modular desk that was probably a makeshift study.
The common areas were empty, though. Voices came from behind one of the doors to my right.
I pulled the first door open and saw another bedroom, a mirror to the one I’d just woken up in, but it was empty. The next door led to a stunningly luxurious bathroom that seemed out of place in the general cottage design of this house. Finally, I tore open the last door.
Lucien was there. He was still in his wolf form, awake, and lying on his front on top of a king-size bed, with Enoch, no longer wearing his doctor’s coat and dressed casually, spreading some sort of creamy liquid over Lucien’s back—and raging red wound.
He was assisted by a petite, pretty woman with slanted dark eyes and brown skin, who was continually murmuring something, reading out from the huge, thick open book she was holding.
Next to the bed sat Thayer, whose face was as white as a sheet.
The moment I opened the door, though, Enoch and the woman paused and turned to look at me. Thayer immediately jumped to his feet and strode toward me, lifting his arms as if to hug me.
I flinched.
It was an instinctual response. I didn’t mean to.
But the thought of hugging my older brother after a year of him refusing to acknowledge my existence as if I were carrying a contagious disease was too much for me at the moment.
Him flying over and telling me about the threat to my life might’ve been enough for other people, but it wasn’t enough for me.
Him worrying about my living or dying wasn’t enough to make me forget all the ways he’d hurt me.
When he saw my stiffness, Thayer froze a few feet away and slowly let his hands fall, pain crossing his still-pale face. He then said in a hasty tone, “I was just about to come check up on you.”
I folded my arms. “How long have I been out?”
“Three hours,” he replied, gray eyes scanning my face before he swallowed and shifted from side to side. “Drew, I . . . I mean . . .”
Realizing he was about to talk about that, I put up my hand to stop him.
“This is neither the time nor the place,” I hissed at him, scowling, before I walked past him and approached Enoch, his assistant, and Lucien, who turned his head to watch me with exhausted arctic-blue wolf eyes.
My gaze traveled to Enoch, though, and from the pitying look in his and his assistant’s eyes, I could tell Lucien had told them I was his Eteria.
Wordlessly, I looked at the wound. It was as raw as if it had been pried open, fresh blood pouring out of it too fast.
I returned my gaze to Lucien. “You’re dying,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes, raising a hand to softly touch his shimmering auburn coat.
“Why are you still in your wolf form? Enoch.” I turned to the hospital director, whose face was starkly bleak.
“You said werewolves heal better in their human form—”
“He can’t shift right now,” Enoch answered quietly, as he resumed pouring whatever liquid he was using over the wolf’s back.
“Much like when you first met him, it seems that the holder of the Mathenio renewed the Spellscript effects, causing him to be unable to shift, meaning that the attacker was definitely Fae, and definitely from the Sable Syndicate.”
Enoch dropped all those terms as if I could understand and offered no explanation even though I stared at him, frustrated and desperate for answers.
The assistant then closed the heavy book in her hands and dropped it with a satisfying thud on top of the dresser before she came over to face me.
I was taller than her by at least a head, but that didn’t seem to deter her from looking at me with a disapproving scowl.
“You need rest,” she said, eyes dropping to my side. “You must still feel the pain.”
My heart stopped. “How do you know I feel pain here?” A dull pain, but pain nonetheless.
She arched a brow. “Because when I checked up on you an hour ago, you were still bleeding?”
I blinked rapidly, uncomprehending. “There is no wound,” I blurted, eyes wide. “I feel some pain, very faintly, yet there is nothing there.”
Both the woman and Enoch froze. The two immediately exchanged glances before Enoch’s face twisted in true anger, startling me.
I’d only seen him being kind, calm, and collected; this bout of anger was far too drastic a change.
“You fucking fool,” he snarled at Lucien, whose unblinking eyes were still on me. “Do you want to die?”
Lucien remained unmoving and unflinching as his gaze lingered on my face, as though he wasn’t even bothering to listen to Enoch.
And that seemed to enrage the doctor further. “Anais,” he snapped, and the assistant turned to him. “Help Drew lift the dam on her end so this idiot can finally stop killing himself.”
Anais narrowed her eyes. “She’s human, without a drop of fluxion within her,” she argued, scrunching her nose, though I could see the deep worry that flashed in her eyes. “A fluxionless human is merely a vessel, not a conduit.”
“I don’t care.” Enoch glared at Lucien. “Infuse her with Inverna for a temporary solution.” Whatever Enoch meant seemed to cause Anais to freeze and widen her eyes with incredulity, but Enoch didn’t stop.
“One liter should do it, straight to the brain to create a pathway. That should help move things up—”
Before he could finish the sentence, and before I could process the fact Enoch wanted to inject something into my brain, the wolf’s fur rippled and hissed.
I jumped, watching as the fur withdrew into golden skin, the body elongated, paws and claws turning to hands, and the wolfish face turned into an infuriated, beautiful human one.
Lucien was no longer lying on the bed. Instead, his arms were suddenly wrapped around me from behind as he pulled me close to his mouthwateringly naked body, a low growl reverberating from his chest to my back.
Enoch was on his feet now, too, with Anais right by his side, looking beyond me at Lucien, with alarm and worsening worry. “Lucien,” Enoch said, his anger turning into fury too. “We are not trying to harm her—”
“Leave.”
The baritone voice behind me that until now had only sounded like music to my ears, it was so smooth and melodious, was now guttural, as though ripped out of his vocal cords, mingling with his ceaseless growling.
Enoch seemed to want to argue, but Anais, whose pretty face was now taking on a grayish undertone as she suddenly seemed sick, grabbed Enoch’s arm. “Let’s get out of here,” she said softly, almost fearfully. “Staying here will only provoke him further.”
Before Enoch could argue, Thayer, who’d been silent until now, suddenly piped up. “What about my sister?” he snapped, glaring at Anais. “Don’t you see his claws? He’s going to kill her!”
My eyes dropped to Lucien’s hands, and sure enough, his nails were long and sharp, his wolf claws apparent in his human form. But they weren’t aimed at me. In fact, if anything, Lucien was cocooning me protectively.
“She’s going to be fine,” Anais barked back and took my brother’s arm. “Let’s get out of here, human, before you’re ripped to shreds.”
Thayer protested, but Anais was surprisingly strong despite her head barely reaching Thayer’s chest, and she quite literally dragged him outside.
Now it was only Enoch here. And he looked at me. “His side is also injured,” he said quietly now, reluctantly resigned. “Force him to put this cream on all wounds, no matter what.”
I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, but Lucien squeezed me tight, almost too hard, to his chest, cutting off my train of thought.
Enoch grimaced, shook his head, and murmured, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” before he strode out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Lucien and me alone.
But Lucien did not let me go. He was still stiff, his claws still out, still caging me in his arms as if he was prepared for any threat.
It wasn’t until I glanced down to his side and saw the wound there bleeding incessantly, in addition to the one on his back, that I finally snapped out of it.
Angry myself, I tried to turn in his arms, but he didn’t let me. “Lucien,” I said warningly, “I refuse to watch you die, so you’d better lie back down on this damned bed and let me apply this damned cream.”