Chapter 24
Every species has a mating instinct, but for some, the instinct is more than biological. It’s metaphysical. It’s ethereal…
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUPERNAL
I surfaced to the rumble of male voices, cracking open my eyelids to Vitra and Drayven standing at the foot of my bed.
Was I still dreaming? Some kind of kinky sex dream that… Oh… Oh shit…Tamina! The bitch.
I tried to sit up, but there was a boulder on my chest. “Ugh…how long have I been out?”
“A couple of hours,” Vitra said.
I swallowed to moisten my throat and looked down at my chest where a bandage peeked out from beneath the loose sleep shirt someone had changed me into. Hopefully Darla. “How bad is it?”
They both took a step closer, shrinking the space with their muscular frames.
“You’ll be fine,” Vitra said tightly. “Mr. Thorn stopped the bleeding.” His eyes narrowed at the words. “Darla applied a poultice to speed up healing.”
“I did indeed,” Darla said from somewhere beyond the guys. “Now, if you’ll move.”
The males parted, and Darla bustled in carrying a tray. “You need to eat, dear. You lost a lot of blood. Not as much as you could have, thanks to Mr. Thorn’s quick thinking.” Her tone suggested she was less than pleased.
I did feel weak and fuzzy-headed. Classic blood loss symptoms. My arms were tingly, too. The wound must have been deep to bleed so profusely before Drayven stopped it. “How did you stop the bleeding?”
Drayven fixed his gaze on the window, twin spots of color appearing high on his cheeks. “I licked your wound.”
“Licked?”
“Yes.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“As in licked with your tongue kind of licked?”
“Is there another kind?” Vitra asked, nostrils flaring. “Your shirt, however, is ruined—Mr. Thorn was forced to tear it off you.”
“To get to the wound,” Drayven bit out. He finally looked at me, dark eyes pleading for understanding. “My saliva has a clotting agent and…Ana, I’m sorry I—”
I was so confused. “Why are you sorry? You saved me from bleeding out.”
He clenched his jaw before speaking. “I did, but I also exposed you. I stripped off your brassiere.”
Seriously? He was worried about that? “Okay, so everyone got an eyeful of my boobs. So what? I don’t care. I have nice boobs.” I paused and reached for the bandage on my chest. “I still have nice boobs, right?”
Darla snort-laughed, and Drayven’s mouth twitched, but Vitra remained still and serious as stone.
“Mr. Thorn, tell her, or I will,” he ground out the words.
A low growl rumbled from Drayven’s chest. “Dammit, Vitra, there’s no need.”
“Yes. Yes, there is. She must be made aware. You acted without her consent.”
“I did what I had to,” Drayven said, shooting Vitra a sharp look. “You would have done the same.”
“No, Mr. Thorn, I would not.”
“You’d have let her bleed out?” Drayven challenged.
Vitra opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, leaving me fascinated by the muscle that feathered along his jaw. He was furious.
But why? Because I was alive? Or because Drayven had licked me? Did Vitra want to lick me and see my boobs? Heat pooled low in my belly at the thought of his tongue on my skin. Of his hands on my body.
Both males broke their eye-off and slowly turned to look at me, nostrils flaring slightly.
Fuck, could they smell my arousal?
I filled my mind with images of dead critters and glared back at them. “What?”
Drayven quickly looked away, but Vitra held my gaze, a challenge in his topaz eyes.
Darla sighed heavily. “If neither of you will explain the significance of what’s happened to Miss Onyx, then I will.”
Twin spots of color stained the tops of Drayven’s cheekbones. “No. I can do it.” He cleared his throat. “A barghest marks his chosen mate with the scent carried in his saliva. A healing saliva, only to be used on a potential or actual mate.”
My fuzzy brain took a moment to comprehend, and when it did, indignant heat gripped my throat. “You mate marked me?”
“No,” Drayven said at the same time Vitra said, “Yes.”
For fuck’s sake. “Which one is it?”
“I need to mark you three times to claim you. This once won’t matter.”
I relaxed against the pillows. “Okay, so we’re good. As long as you don’t lick me again.” Gosh, that sentence sounded odd.
“Then maybe don’t get yourself injured,” Vitra snapped. “You could have been killed tonight. It was foolish and stubborn to agree to battle a Baobhan Sith, especially without access to the Weave.”
“But I won.” I grinned up at him. “I beat her and… Shit.” My smile dropped. “Is Ruspin okay?”
“He’s fine,” Drayven said. “He’s in the barracks with the Thropes. I’m sure he’ll want to thank you as soon as he’s able to shift into his human form again. What she did to him over the years…” He shook his head, lip curling. “He’s lost his beast voice and is trapped in his beast form. For now.”
“As noble as your intentions were, Miss Onyx, they were still rash,” Vitra continued. “If you’re to survive at Nightsbridge, you must be more discerning in the battles you choose to fight.”
“I chose to fight to save Ruspin, and I’d do it again.”
“Because you feel no pain.” Vitra arched a brow. “Yes, I understand why you thought you could best Miss Vayne, but a lack of pain doesn’t exempt you from death. In fact, it makes death more likely, because you lack the basic biological system that warns you just how hurt you are.”
“I know that. I’ve lived with the curse most of my life.”
“And yet you chose to ignore it.” Vitra exhaled sharply, as if he were done with this conversation. As if I were a child, not worth the effort of debate. As if my words—and I—were pointless.
Anger sparked behind my eyes, my nails biting into my palms. “I know exactly how much damage my body can take, with or without pain. Tamina lashed out after the bell. She broke the rules to try and break me. I was fine until then because I know my body, so back the fuck off.”
His tawny gaze brightened with anger before going dull and flat. A look that was clearly a dismissal. “Very well. I shall see you in class tomorrow. Bright and early.”
“Wait a second,” Darla said. “She needs to rest and—”
“Actions have consequences,” he said coolly. “Miss Onyx’s injuries aren’t my problem.” He turned away. “Nine a.m. sharp. Be present or accept a failing grade.” He strode off, leaving me with a stunned Darla and a seething Drayven.
“Well,” Darla said. “I’ve never seen him behave that way before.”
“You mean he’s not always an asshole?”
“He’s never an asshole,” Darla said, looking perturbed.
“You’re not going,” Drayven said to me. “You need to rest. The poultice needs time to work. And without pain, you won’t know if the wound has reopened.”
“I thought you sealed it.”
“I helped it clot, but it could still break open. The poultice needs time to work. One failed class won’t matter.”
But it did to me. Failing a class meant having the return of my power delayed. “I’ll be fine. I want to go.”
He looked set to argue, but a rap on the door interrupted him, and Clary stuck her head into the room.
“Hey…” She slipped inside. “We were so worried. How are you feeling?”
“Like I have a boulder resting on my chest.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” Drayven ducked out before I could thank or reassure him any further.
“Get some rest and eat the food,” Darla said before following Drayven out.
The Unwoven scattered around my room.
“You look like shit,” Dori said.
“Thanks.”
“No pain, huh?” Benedict said.
“Not a twinge.”
Silence fell for several beats before Clary broke it. “I mean, when Drayven climbed the mesh and leapt into the arena to save you...” She clasped her hands to her chest with a dreamy sigh. “That was something.”
He’d scaled the barrier. Leapt in to save me from bleeding out because…
Because he cared. He cared about me. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Attraction and banter were one thing, but emotions complicated everything.
Drayven was a good guy, the kind of guy I could catch feelings for, and the fact that his touch seemed to bypass my curse was a bonus, but I wasn’t here for romance.
I couldn’t allow it to distract me from my goal.
“You’ll need a new bra,” Dori said, biting back a smirk.
“And Tamina will need new pants,” Benedict said. “She almost shit herself when the Thropes descended on her.”
I flopped back against my pillows. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“What I don’t understand is why the Weave didn’t help you this time,” Benedict said. “It defended you before.”
“Good point,” Clary said.
It was a good point, but not one I wanted to expend energy on at present. “I have no idea. Maybe it’s just unpredictable right now.”
“Well,” Clary said. “You need to eat and sleep.” She helped me sit forward and fluffed the pillows behind me. “Pass the tray, Dori.”
Dori set the tray on my lap, and the place inside me that had been dead and cold for the longest time flickered with the first ribbons of warmth. This…them, surrounding me, checking up on me. They cared too. Genuinely cared. Panic squeezed my lungs.
I breathed through it. It was fine. I was fine. This was a means to an end. Their being here meant I was doing my job. Finding allies to reach my goal. They’d serve a purpose, and once I had what I needed, I was out of here.
The panic slowly subsided.
“I’ll collect your notes from classes tomorrow,” Dori said.
“No. It’s fine. I’m going to class.” I explained Vitra’s terms.
“Wow, that does not sound like him at all,” Benedict said. “He’s usually so even-tempered and controlled.”
The calm, collected Vitra seemed to have evaporated, leaving a domineering stick-up-the-ass eager to punish me for something that wasn’t my fault. But if he thought I’d concede, then he was strongly mistaken.