Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Iris
Itook Nikolai back to the librarian’s house.
It was the only place I could think of while panic and terror still muddled my thoughts.
It had taken all of my strength to pull him off the horse and help support his weight as we made our way into the small home.
He had sagged against me, all muscle and dead weight.
His blood had been all I could smell—all I could feel.
It ran in rivers down his torso and leg, staining both our clothes.
Inside, his knees buckled when we reached the living area, and he flopped on the couch, a plume of dust scattering in the air at the impact. He didn’t even cough.
His breathing was already so labored that his body didn’t even respond to the dirt.
His face had gone frighteningly pale, too.
I was so accustomed to his sun-kissed skin that it was odd to see the blue veins so visible beneath it.
I’d dropped the illusion the second we left the auction, and now it was his own hazel eyes that followed my movements as I desperately struck at the flint by the hearth to start a fire.
The arrow had hit his lower flank, just under his ribs—thankfully missing any vital organs.
It was possible it struck through his intestine, but without a healer, I had no way of knowing definitively.
Not that it mattered, his bleeding was the priority for now.
I had to stop that bleeding, or I was going to lose him.
“Iris,” he croaked my name just as the spark lit, catching on the wood.
Ignoring him, I bent down and blew on that tiny flame, hoping to nurture it to life.
“Iris,” he repeated.
“Not now!”
Slowly but surely, that fire grew, hues of orange and yellow filling the tiny hearth. Now I just needed some…metal. Yes, I needed metal.
A fire poker? There had to be one of those nearby.
I searched wildly, taking in the stacks of books and discarded quilts. Desperately, I shoved aside a stack of those books while I searched, pages scattered across the floor in my rush.
“Damn it!”
I didn’t have time to comb through every inch of this room. He was going to die if I didn’t stop that breathing right now. Hadn’t I been taught to think creatively in situations like this? Hadn’t I been trained for this exact predicament?
I tore through my hair, wanting to beat upon my skull as if that could make me think faster—smarter.
The blades!
It came to me in a wild flash of realization, as if the Gods themselves had intervened to guide my hand.
I wasted no time pulling up my skirt, tearing the fabric in my haste to pull out one blade from my sheath.
Nikolai’s ragged breath was all I heard as I held it over the fire and waited until the steel was glowing.
“I need to stop the bleeding,” I explained, turning to him with the blade. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes lingered on the dagger in my hands, its silver hue turned molten.
A million emotions played on his face. He was calculating, I knew, because I would do the same.
He was debating the odds if we took the time to find thread and try to stitch the wound, compared to the risk of infection from this technique.
Eventually, he came to the same conclusion I did, and he used all his strength to reach down and pull up the edge of his tunic.
It stuck at first, too heavily coated in blood to peel away easily.
He hissed through his teeth, and I darted forward, carefully helping to pull away the fabric while I prayed my face displayed the calmness I didn’t feel.
With pursed lips and an air of determination, I investigated the injury. Swollen, red edges surrounded the oval-shaped wound. Subtly, I breathed in through my nose, taking in the sharp smell of iron.
That was good, at least. That smell meant it likely wasn’t infected.
Yet.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, my voice nothing more than a hollow whisper.
He stared at me, his eyes tracing my every movement, with an intensity that had nothing to do with his injury. Slowly, he nodded. “I trust you.”
I have to do it.
I knew that—knew that if I didn’t immediately seal this hole, he was going to die. Still, the moment I pressed that searing blade onto his flesh, the contact making a terrible wet sizzle before his screams tore through the tiny house, I hated myself for it.
He passed out after I cauterized the wound.
And then he didn’t wake for a day.
I didn’t sleep for a second, though. I remained on that floor, staring up at him on the couch, monitoring the wound every so often and counting his breaths.
Occasionally, I would wander to the well behind the house so that I could fill a bucket with cold water.
Then I would press a damp rag against his feverish brow.
He trembled as I did.
Even though his skin was scalding hot to the touch, he trembled. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so frightened in my life as I was staring at his pale, shaking body.
“You don’t get to die,” I told him as I pressed the rag against his hairline, tears falling freely from my face. “I won’t allow it. You hear me? I won’t lose you.”
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t lose him like I’d lost her.
More than that, though, I didn’t want it to be temporary. When he finally woke, I didn’t want him to open his eyes just for us to part ways once more.
Just when I pulled his head into my lap and felt myself slipping towards sleep against my wishes, he stirred, dark lashes fluttering rapidly before his eyes blinked up at me.
“Beautiful bird.” His voice was gravely. Too dry.
A shuddering breath escaped me, relief so pungent I could almost smell it in the air. Golden-flecked eyes met mine, and my fingers shook as I brushed them through his hair.
“You are so beautiful.”
“Hush,” I pressed that rag against his brow and down his neck. “Save your energy.”
“If these are to be my last moments in the realm, I want to spend them complimenting you.”
His words picked at that unhealed wound inside me, and I railed against them, a vicious frown forming across my face. “You will not die, Nikolai.”
He released a labored sigh, reaching up to knead my shoulder. “It’s okay, my bird. You’ll be okay.”
How could he say that to me? How could he even think it?
I wouldn’t be okay. If I had to bury him—if I had to leave him here—while I moved on and my life continued, I wouldn’t be okay. No, Nikolai Legum didn’t get to decide that I was going to be okay without him just at the same time that I had finally decided I wanted him.
I needed him.
With salty tears running down my already stained cheeks, I set aside that damp rag and cupped his cheek. He leaned into the touch, closing his eyes briefly and breathing me in.
“You do not get to die,” I told him again, more forcefully this time. “I won’t lose you. I won’t.“
“Iris—”
Bending, I didn’t waste another second before I pressed my lips to his.
He stiffened at first, not expecting it, but eventually his mouth parted against me and he tangled his tongue with mine, a soft moan escaping his lips. I poured all of my anger, pain, and fear into that kiss. I poured all of my need into it. Our breaths mingled until there was only the two of us.
No war. No injury. Just this singular moment.
Just his head in my lap, his hand pressing against my shoulder to pull me closer, his eyes burning into mine as I pulled away.
“You are not temporary, Nikolai.”
There was relief in the declaration, and a sense of permanence that seemed to reverberate through us both.
That dimple formed in his cheek as he blinked sleepily up at me. “I was never going to be temporary for you, wife.”
My fingers continued pushing through his sweat-drenched hair as I smiled down at him, my heart so full it felt as if it might burst. His eyes blinked closed, and I began humming softly under my breath, content to let him rest further.
“Bird.”
No.
“I won’t hear it Nikolai.”
“You need to. If I die—”
My muscles locked, stubbornness rolling through me.
“You will. not. die.”
Even if I had to track Thea down, wait for her powers to return, and insist she help me, I would drag him back to the Mortal Realm if it was the last thing I did. The Underworld couldn’t have him.
He didn’t open his eyes. “Little bird, I need you to think like the brilliant woman you are and realize—”
“How about I make you a deal?” I interrupted, fingers stilling in his hair.
He coughed gently. “A deal?”
“You live through this...” My heart was a steady beat, pounding so heavily in my body that it hurt. I tried to breathe through it as words I never expected to say forced themselves out of my mouth. “And I’ll let you marry me for real.”
He went dangerously still in my lap, and for the briefest moment I thought I had made a mistake. Maybe I was the one who was only temporary to him.
Hazel eyes blinked open once more, clearer than they had been since that arrow had struck him through. His lips curved.
“It’s a deal.”
Hours turned into days.
Days turned into a week.
Nikolai began spending more time awake than he did asleep, and I savored every minute that I felt his eyes on me.
It took time, but his color eventually returned.
Soon after, his appetite did too. After we went through all the food that I could find in the cupboards, I eventually had to leave him briefly to venture into the abandoned town and scavenge for supplies.
I’d rushed through the entire trip, terrified and consumed by anxious visions that I’d come back to that small cottage and find his body.
When I had returned and thrown the door open in my desperate haste to see him healthy, he had glanced up with a smile and a book in his lap.I’d had to bite down on my lip to keep from openly beaming with joy.