Chapter 28
Quinn
Something was beeping. In kind of an annoying way too. If there was an afterlife, surely I’d earned a spot someplace that didn’t come with irritatingly repetitive noises?
And if there wasn’t an afterlife, why the hell was I hearing anything at all?
My eyelids fluttered. My body twitched on the firm padding it was lying on, and a thin fabric surface shifted with it. An ache woke up in my chest, but weirdly distant and fuzzy, as if the parts of my body were scattered around me instead of all attached in one piece.
I registered groggily that I’d felt this way before. The bright lights, planes of white around me?—
A deeper sense of recognition jolted my eyes all the way open. I blinked, staring at the hospital room I’d somehow ended up in. The ache sharpened and eased, intensifying and retreating with every thump of my heart.
Of my heart?
As I stared down at myself, at the hospital gown cloaking me, a nurse hustled into the room. “You look like you’re doing well,” she said in a soothing voice. “Everything’s on track. Your immune system has responded well so far. It’s a long process fully adjusting, but of course you’re an old hat at this—you know how it goes.”
She flashed me a smile, but I was too distracted by taking in the fresh stitches marking my chest to return it. Fresh stitches sealing a fresh incision, right over the area where my last surgery scar had been.
How could— It didn’t make sense. Was I dreaming? I blinked hard as if that might wake me up if I was, but all that happened was my head spun a little before my thoughts settled down again.
The nurse said something else that I missed completely. Then she bustled out of the room. The second the door clicked shut behind her, four monstrous men wavered into being out of the shadows, surrounding the bed.
I gaped at all of them, but I had enough of my wits to quickly check them over for any new damage. I thought Crag had a few more scars marking his face and arms than he’d sported before, and Lance had a new one cutting across the golden skin at the crook of his shoulder, but otherwise they weren’t noticeably worse for the battle we’d somehow all survived. They smiled down at me in their own ways.
“What—” I croaked, and swallowed hard. “How?—”
Rollick chuckled softly and brushed his fingertips over my hair as if he were afraid to touch me too firmly right now. “I have enough resources at my disposal to get giant crossbow-cannons manufactured with a few days’ notice. Did you really think I couldn’t find you a new heart?”
“But I—” My gaze shot directly to him, focusing on his face. “Where did it come from?”
He held up his hands. “I took a perfectly legitimate route. I wouldn’t go against your sense of morality, even if it doesn’t totally align with my own. I simply saw to it that you were bumped to the front of the list.”
A strange emotion swelled inside me, so bittersweet it brought tears to my eyes. “That’s cheating,” I mumbled. “I stole someone else’s spot, and?—”
“Stop right there,” Torrent said in his best no-nonsense tone, folding his arms over his chest. “If things had been the way they were supposed to be, you’d have had months if not years of warning to work your way up the list in priority. There’s nothing fair about anything you’ve been through in the past couple of months.”
“And I bet none of the other people on that list just defended the entire world from destruction,” Lance pointed out with a broader grin.
Crag let out a rumble of agreement. “You can’t save billions of lives and tell us we’re not allowed to save yours,” he informed me gruffly.
I sank back into the hospital bed. Maybe they kind of had a point. Maybe I didn’t need to feel guilty. Maybe… maybe I actually deserved a second chance at this whole transplanted heart thing, without a legacy of toxic magic attached to it.
I glanced at Rollick again. “I hope you made sure this one doesn’t come with a supernatural bonus.”
He outright laughed. “No more sorcery for you. Such a shame when for a few minutes there, I’d imagine you were by far the most powerful sorcerer the universe has ever known.”
I made a face and closed my eyes. “Not a title I had any interest in claiming.”
Rollick hummed to himself. “There are a couple of people here I think you might want to see. Your parents are in the waiting room. I can have the doctor let them in if you’re ready for other visitors.”
My spirits leapt, and my eyes popped open again. “They’re out of the bunker? Of course they’re out of the bunker. Everything really is okay?”
Lance beamed at me. “No more storms, no more waves. No more tricksy ancient beings enslaving the rest of us.”
Torrent’s smile turned crooked. “The Highest were so offended by the assault on their autonomy that they collapsed that particular rift completely. So, as far as I know, there isn’t even a portal left that’s large enough to fit them if someone decided to give it another shot.”
“Good,” I said, a renewed wave of relief washing through me. I paused, studying each of them in turn. The familiar faces that didn’t look at all monstrous to me now stirred up a pang of affection not even the aches of the transplant could overwhelm. “What happens after this?”
Rollick shrugged. “We assumed you’d go back to your regular life, your college courses and the rest. Unless you had some other plans.”
“No. That’s good. I just mean—what about you? What about us?”
I didn’t need their protection anymore. They didn’t need the special powers that had emanated from my chest. Neither of those facts made a difference to me, but these men didn’t think or feel like regular humans did. I couldn’t take anything for granted.
But Crag was leaning down to press a gentle kiss to my temple. “We’ll be with you as long and as much as you want us there, Softness.”
“Nowhere I’d rather be, baby girl,” Lance declared.
Even Torrent’s expression brightened. “If we can make it work when we’re being chased by murderous fiends, I think we can handle a peaceful regular life just fine.”
“Unless you’ve had your fill of us,” Rollick said in a teasing tone.
“No,” I said with total determination. “Not at all.” Not ever, I suspected. And now… now I might have decades more with them.
I didn’t want to have to totally hide that fact. I paused. “I would like to see my parents. But… I’d like you all to be here while I talk to them too. Where they can see you. They should know that you’re sticking around.”
The demon nodded. He vanished for a moment, and my stomach twisted at the thought of how Mom and Dad might react. They’d been stunned and horrified by the realization that monsters existed at all. How were they going to accept four of those monsters as a permanent presence in my life?
Well, they’d just… have to, one way or another. I wasn’t hiding who I was or what mattered from them again. It wasn’t my job to act as a human shield, to protect people from myself. If I deserved anything, it was to set that one worry aside after all the protecting I’d already accomplished.
Rollick reappeared in the same spot as before. The other men flickered out of view when the doctor opened the door to motion my parents in. As soon as Mom and Dad were inside and the door had closed, they solidified into physical form again.
Mom let out a soft yelp that she smothered with a hand to her lips. Dad flinched. But then they relaxed, presumably recognizing the men as the companions I’d introduced them to back at the bunker. Their gazes jerked back to me, and they hustled over.
“Sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mom said in a voice taut with emotion, leaning over to hug me gingerly. “The doctors say all your results look fantastic so far.”
“You’ve always been a fighter, kiddo,” Dad said, sounding pretty choked up himself, and squeezed my hand.
“I’ve still got a lot left to do,” I said. Fatigue rolled over me, reminding me that no matter how long I’d been lying in this bed, my body had just been through more than one kind of marathon. My eyelids drifted down, but I held on to alertness long enough to add, “There won’t be any more monsters around. Not like the ones that were hurting people. But these guys—they’re staying with me. We’re going to keep looking out for each other.”
My parents lifted their gazes to the monstrous men. I couldn’t say they looked overjoyed at the thought. Mom’s attention lingered on Lance’s claws and Torrent’s supporting tentacles, and Dad’s brow knit as he considered Crag’s stony jaw. But Mom simply rubbed my shoulder.
Dad tightened his grip on my hand reassuringly. “They’ve done a good job of that so far.”
Mom inclined her head. “And it’s good to know you have someone else to turn to when you need it. You should have someone other than us. No matter what kind of people—or… whatever—they are.” She shot my men a smile to show she didn’t mean her comment as an insult.
Rollick gave them one of his charming grins. “We’re people enough in all the ways that count. And Quinn definitely has us.”
“Good.” Mom sounded like she meant it.
The relief I’d felt before sank right through to my bones. My eyes drifted all the way shut. Rollick teased his fingers over my hair again, and I started to drift off, content with the certainty that everyone in the room was perfectly happy to see me get my rest.
It was really over. I really could rest, for the first time in weeks. No more sorcerer heart. No more magic pulsing through my veins. No more murderous, psychotic fiends out to kill me.
I was a one-hundred-percent-normal human being again. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t changed. I knew about so many amazing things out there in our world that most mortals had never imagined could be true. And that magic would stay with me no matter how short or long the rest of my life might be.