Chapter 41
Chapter
Forty-One
Race gently laid Ash on the bed at Talonhold. Though justice had been carried out, fury remained, pounding like another heartbeat as he looked at his broken mate and at how close he had come to losing her.
Despite his lethal powers and quick self-healing, Gaia hadn’t granted him the ability to fully heal others with grave injuries.
Carefully, he ran his fingers over her arm. The bone had snapped, a piece jutting beneath the skin. His jaw locked as his gaze traced the bruise on her left cheek. From a slap?
He scanned her for further injuries, picking up a fractured rib, a swelling on her head, and talon gashes across her side. Every wound was a blade through his control, and he wished he’d killed Vaesarra himself—
A knock sounded. The door opened, and Bregga entered. “Sire? Elder Healer Meliora and her assistant.”
Two females followed him inside, their robes and faces smudged with ashy residue from the city battle. Both bowed.
“Sire,” Meliora said softly, setting down her satchel. “We came as soon as we were asked.”
They set to work, cutting away both Ash’s sweater and t-shirt, leaving her in her bra. At the raw, bleeding slashes, his mouth tightened, and he prowled the length of the chamber, so he wouldn’t put his fist through the wall.
Ash cried out as they set the bone in her arm, her sounds of distress gutting him.
In a flash, he was at her side, dropping to his knees and willing her to sleep. He gently held her damaged hand with its bloody knuckles and broken nails, evidence of how fiercely she fought to stay alive.
His saliva had healed her similar minor wounds all those weeks ago…
He licked the scrapes on her knuckles once, twice, and the wounds slowly mended.
Soft voices drifted as Meliora and her assistant worked, binding her arm, her ribs, and her clawed side with swift precision. The healer murmured chants that vibrated faintly in the air. Magic stirred, low and steady, heating the air and seeping into Ash.
Race lowered his head, his eyes shut. “Hold on, heart-fire. Just hold on…”
The room grew silent, only the crackle of the fire sputtering and Ash’s uneven, raspy breaths. Race didn’t move from her side. His hand cradled hers, his thumb gently tracing the delicate bones of her wrist as though touch alone could anchor her to him.
“Sire?”
Race looked up with a blank stare, then realized he was in the healer’s way. He jerked to his feet and prowled around the other side of the bed.
“Come, lass, awaken.” Meliora roused Ash and helped her sit, and his mate moaned. “Hush, child. This will aid you.”
She put a steaming cup to Ash’s lips, murmuring something low and ancient. Bitter aroma filled the air—herbs, smoke, and dragon magic.
Ash coughed weakly, swallowed, then grimaced. “Bloody vile…”
His chest tightened at the sweetest words he’d ever heard.
Her pain-darkened, champagne eyes met his. Her lips trembled. “Y-You caught me…”
The stark reality of what she’d done to save him strangled him. He could barely get the words past the knot in his throat. “I will always catch you, my heart.”
With a soft sigh, her lashes fluttered closed.
His gaze lingered on the purpling bruises on her face, the sweep of inky lashes against golden-brown skin, the fragile rise of her chest. His heart shuddered.
I love you, heart-fire. You are the only one who anchors me. I lose you, I’ll burn this world.
A flicker of warmth stirred in his chest. Race froze.
The faint warmth, so familiar and precious, sputtered again.
Ash?
There was no response, and the truth struck like lightning.
She hadn’t severed their bond entirely. No, she couldn’t have, not with her body so broken. She must have passed out before finishing it.
But the memory of that absolute emptiness—the silence where she should have been—still left him gasping, as if the air itself had been ripped away.
With gratitude to whichever gods still listened, he kissed her healed knuckles then pressed his brow to her fingers, holding on, afraid that if he let go, she might somehow slip away from him.
Again.
While the thread of their bond was too faint to feel much more than a tinge of her warmth, he’d rather that than nothing at all.
“Sire,” Meliora murmured with a soft, knowing chuckle, and he looked up as she put Ash’s wrapped arm in a sling.
“Have you forgotten? Your bloodline belongs to the gods. With your claim mark, she now carries your gifts—at least some of them. It strengthens her. See how the bruises on her fade already, hmm?”
Her gnarled fingers traced the compression bandage around Ash’s ribs, her smile dimming. “But the arm and ribs will still need a few days.”
Race blinked. Faced with Ash’s healing skin, tears stung his eyes. He thanked every damn star still burning for this miracle.
He rose to retrieve one of his shirts from her backpack. He never bothered much about clothes before, but his ever-efficient mate made sure he had proper things—more than the usual conjured-up cotton pants after a shift.
Carefully, he put the t-shirt on her, then got out of Meliora’s way as the woman tidied up. He tossed Ash’s ruined clothes in the pot-bellied fireplace in the corner and crossed to the window, inhaling a deep breath—
His Guardian senses flared. Something felt off. He scanned the street below. Shadows pooled thick between the lamplights. One of them moved. Shit.
“I’ll be back.”
He was out the door in seconds, pounding the steps, fury flaring as he hit the street. But when he reached the spot—
Nothing.
Only silence and his own reflection in the wet cobbles.
He stood there, chest heaving, the night wind slashing coldly at him.
Malcarion was gone.
Vaesarra was dead.
Who the fuck in all the realms was watching them now?
Warmth surrounded Ash as she drifted back to awareness. The excruciating agony had dulled to a faint ache, a lingering ghost of pain that told her she was, miraculously, still alive. She inhaled deeply—
“Ouch.” She winced, her ribs protesting.
“Ash?”
That voice, his voice, made her heart soar. She forced her eyelids open, burgundy tenderness filling her world. He knelt near the bed. Then it all tumbled free—Vaesarra’s treachery, the fall, winds screaming—
“Race!” she gasped and pushed up, or tried to, only to find out she couldn’t. Her left arm was in a sling, her ribs bound tight.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he ordered, gently easing her up and tucking pillows behind her.
She caught his hand. “Race—”
“Easy, heart-fire.” He sat near her, the mattress dipping under his weight. “You’re healing fast, that’s good.”
She was? “How long was I out for, anyway?”
“Anyway?” He arched an eyebrow. “Since yesterday afternoon.”
“What? It feels like weeks—Vaesarra?” she rasped, her stomach twisting.
His mouth tightened. A dark anger blazed for a second behind those crimson depths. “Dead.”
Her held breath escaped in a whoosh. “Oh, good. She was rather dreadful—”
Her eyes widened as she took in the blood on the side of his face and streaks of crimson in his silver hair, the fading bruises on his face. “What happened to you?”
He glanced at himself, exhaled. “The aftermath. Bastard had a spell in place for his depraved chamber to disintegrate.”
“Oh, God—”
“I’m fine. We…we were digging ourselves out of the rubble when I heard your cry…” A vein pulsed on his brow. “But that can wait. I’m already healed.” He rubbed her knee. “Right now, you just focus on getting better.”
Ash frowned, staring at her mended hands; only her ragged nails bore testimony to clinging to a mountain ledge. “How am I healing this fast?”
He grasped her hand. “When I marked you, it seemed my venom gave you a part of me—my quick healing abilities, though not in full. It means minor wounds will heal within minutes. Major injuries, such as broken bones, will take a few days, not weeks.”
“Oh, that’s good to know.” With a weary smile, she rested against her pillows again. Then she frowned, rubbing her chest. “I can’t feel you…”
A tic worked his jaw. It took a moment before he answered her. “You broke our mate bond when you fell.” His voice roughened. “There’s still a thread of it left, if you dig hard enough to feel it. Never do that again. You hear me?”
“What?” She blinked, then remembered what she had done. Right. She lifted her chin. “If it means saving you, I will.”
His grip tightened slightly. “Ash—”
“Don’t you Ash me,” she grumbled. “Wouldn’t you do the same if you were dying?”
“Dammit.” His eyes blazed for a second. “Fine. Then we both go together. Promise?”
“What a morbid conversation to have with someone who just survived a near-death experience, but all right.” She smiled at his dark scowl and patted his hand.
Late afternoon sunlight gilded the hard planes of his beautiful face—sunlight?
Her gaze darted to the window, and her jaw nearly dropped. “We have sunlight now?”
“It seems with Malcarion’s death, the cursed pall over the lands is lifting,” he murmured. “All thanks to you.”
“Us,” she corrected.
His lips twitched. “Aye, to us. But once you’ve healed, we’re leaving for Earth.”
“So, back home, then? Is that what you want?” she asked, lacing their fingers. “You know I will support whatever you decide. But what about Lemuria? These people need a ruler to show them happier days ahead after millennia of suffering.”
He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his unshaven jaw. “I already have a duty, Ash. One I swore my fealty to.”
“I understand, but Race, this is your birthright.” She grasped both his hands. “You risked your life, fought so fiercely to save these people when no one else could—”
A sharp knock cut through the moment, breaking the tension.
“Enter,” Race called out.
Attor stepped inside, his armor streaked with soot, one arm wrapped in a crude bandage spotted with blood. He bowed low, a gesture of his deep loyalty, not mere formality.