Chapter 21
“Get him on the table, onto his front. Now,” Zara ordered as the four of them burst through the doors of the kitchen.
Henry shot up from his seat, taking in the bloodied mess they all were. “What’s happened?”
The Dobrins quickly cleared the table of plates and cups and the carafe in the center of the table before Anelize and the twins set Aeric onto it. When he released a pained groan, she hurried over to Zara.
“What can I do?”
“Cut his shirt open. I need to see the extent of the wound,” she said as she rolled up her sleeves, reaching for the shears on the counter and handing them to her.
Anelize did as she was ordered, returning to Aeric’s side.
He breathed heavily through his nose, his eyes squeezed tightly.
Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling as she tried to cut the fabric of his shirt with the shears.
It took her two tries before she forced herself to steel her nerves, her pain.
His tunic was soon cut to shreds, hanging over his shoulders and revealing the broad expanse of his bloodied back. The arrow lodged deep in his chest.
“It just barely missed his heart. It’s a miracle he’s still alive,” Zara gasped, her hands hovering over him as she assessed the damage.
“It was a fucking raid,” Idris explained when Henry asked them what happened to them. “Watchmen were all over the place, ransacking homes and tormenting civilians, looking for sympathizers. As if we had that many to begin with.”
“I can’t heal him this way. We need to get the arrow out before I can do anything,” Zara murmured, pulling Anelize’s attention back to her as she reached for the arrow before grimacing, shaking her head as if the mere thought of what she was about to do caused her great pain. A mother’s pain.
“Zara,” Anelize pressed. “Please, you have to do it. My hand…I can’t do it myself.
” She didn’t care if they could all hear the desperation in her voice.
The helplessness because of what the Watchman had done to her hand.
Even without looking down, she knew her wrist was swollen beyond compare, still bleeding.
The sounds of her blood and Aeric’s dripping onto the hardwood floor filled the seconds of silence.
And it was Adan, of all people, who stepped forward. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gently eased her aside.
“Tell me what to do,” he said with nothing but determination on his face. A fleeting glance of understanding and gratitude was exchanged between them then, and in that moment, she realized there was no one else she trusted more than him.
Anelize’s eyes stung as she nodded once before she told him exactly what to do. Zara holding at the ready to quickly heal Aeric once they got the arrow out so she could keep him alive long enough to stop the bleeding.
“We need to cut the arrow in half. Saw through it gently.”
Adan nodded and retrieved a blade from his belt before he began cutting through the arrow. Aeric groaned but eased once it was done, for a brief moment of reprieve. Idris helped shift him enough so that they could pull both ends out.
“Stay with us, Aeric,” Henry said in encouragement from somewhere in the room, but Anelize did not look up to find him, his own fear coating her senses the same way Zara’s had.
Anelize stepped forward as she gripped the stem of the arrow in her good hand and nodded toward the twins. “Hold him down.”
As she yanked the arrow out, Aeric’s eyes widened as he released a guttural, pained sound through clenched teeth.
“We’re here, brother. We got you. You’ll be all right,” Idris murmured as he braced his hand against his shoulder. A deep crease lining the space between his brows as he frowned.
As soon as she got the other end out, Zara stepped forward. “It’s only going to get worse now, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Aeric.”
At Zara’s words, Anelize stepped closer to his side as Adan and Idris did the same to hold him, should he writhe again.
He did, and every passing second of her stitching the gaping wound in his chest, along with stopping the overflow of blood, was agonizing.
Sweat formed on Aeric’s brow as he fought to endure the pain.
Tears streamed down the side of his face, his eyes barely opening, finding her through the pain. Anelize placed her hand on his cheek, brushing aside the strands of hair matted to his face.
“You said you could handle pain, remember? The first time we met. I thought you the most foolish man I had ever met. To my utter surprise, I hadn’t hated your pride or your insouciant manner.
Not at all,” she confessed, wishing her words would reach him enough to calm him while Zara worked.
When his eyes opened once more and held her gaze, she said, “And when you left, I regretted not giving you my name. So that maybe we could find each other again, despite my fears and worries of needing to hide from the world. Hoping that…you would find me again.”
“I would…have…” he rasped, and the sound was as lovely as it was heartbreaking when she’d thought moments ago that she would never hear his voice again.
She quickly wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek as she nodded, whispering softly, “I think I know that now.”
Slowly, Anelize watched as the wound stitched itself back together until there was nothing left behind save for a painful looking jagged scar over the left side of his chest. Proof that he’d nearly died.
That he had died, and somehow, he’d come back.
He’d fought to come back. If it had been for her or some other reason, Anelize didn’t care.
By the time Zara finished, he was lost to sleep. His chest rising and falling fast from the exhaustion before it eventually settled.
“That should do for now. He should be safe. We’ll move him to his room upstairs so he may recover,” Zara said, her complexion clammy from pushing the limits of her power.
“We shall help carry him up,” Henry offered before hurrying out of the kitchen, returning with Gabriel and another wounded Vedran she had only seen in passing before.
As the men helped carry him out, Aeric looked so weak, so fragile in that one moment that she was compelled to go to him. Needing to be close enough where she could hear his heart was still beating. A melody that still filled her ears now before she realized she was even conjuring.
A hand gently reached for her arm, and she flinched as pain shot down to her wrist, turning to find Adan searching her face then roaming down the rest of her tattered, dirty appearance.
“You’re hurt. Let Zara take a look at you.”
“I’m fine—”
“If you say you’re fine, I’m going to actually throttle you.
I don’t care what Aeric does to me when he wakes, I will,” Adan cut her off, but there was no fire in his words; granting her a glimpse of his worry.
For her. She wondered if this was how friends cared for one another, if she ever had any before all of this perhaps she would know.
But she decided that it was, as he guided her to one of the chairs at the table.
Casting one glance toward the door where Aeric had been taken, she reluctantly did as Adan ordered and allowed Zara to take a look at her injuries.
Apart from the burn on her shoulder and her wrist—which had been the ones the most in need of attention by far—there had been cuts along her cheek and hands.
Her back felt tender, and she knew if she mentioned it to Zara, she would find a canvas of purple and blue bruises.
While Zara carefully healed the burn on her shoulder, Anelize explained to them all that she’d seen and heard. The Watchmen seeking out sympathizers and Vedrans, alike. What they’d planned on doing to those children if the rebels hadn’t interfered when they had.
Then how Aeric had been injured. What she’d done to save him. The entire time, Adan and Idris had watched her with varying shades of fury.
“He is truly lucky you brought him when you did,” Zara said as she finished healing her wounds until she looked close to fainting herself.
Idris came up to support her and eased her onto a chair before she could attempt to fully finish healing Anelize’s wrist, which had been about the size of a fist before she started.
“I’m sure you’ve done more than enough to push yourself to your limit for today. Rest now. I’ll be fine. I can wrap it in the meantime.”
Despite the worry on the woman’s face, she nodded apologetically and promised to be up to see her first thing tomorrow.
The entire time, she felt Adan’s searching eyes on her where he and Idris had taken to leaning against the counter, discussing with Henry how many rebels had been lost today in the middle of the Watchman’s impromptu attack.
There would be time to discuss with him what had happened—if she thought herself capable of reliving those moments of crushing that Watchman’s heart in his chest—for now, there was only one place she wanted to be.
Excusing herself, she rose from the bench at the table still covered with Aeric’s blood.
“I don’t understand. That arrow practically went straight through his heart. He should have been dead by all accounts. The saints must have truly been looking after him,” Zara said to the men as Anelize made her way toward the door.
When she casted a glance over her shoulder, she caught Adan’s curious gaze before he said, “Perhaps it was someone else who looked after him today.”
Anelize stared into the mirror in the bathroom after she’d taken a long, hot bath to ease the aches and bruises along her body, scrubbing away the blood and grime of the day.
Scratches littered her cheek and the corner of her jaw, and her eyes looked entirely consumed by exhaustion.
Still, she had just enough energy left in her to turn away and stride out of the bathroom.
She pulled a robe over a pale blue nightgown and fastened the ties around her waist. She ran a towel through her wet hair before tossing it onto her bed and made her way out of her room. Eager to leave as she quickened her pace.
Crossing the hall, she found herself standing before Aeric’s door.
His room was nearly identical to hers, save for the dark colors of the curtains and the lack of a rug.
It was all black oak and dark furniture.
A fire warming the room where his leathers and other clothes had been left strewn across the settee and chairs situated around a small table by the windows, littered in books and maps that he’d no doubt been given by Castian.
His sword had been left propped up against the wall, standing sentry. In many ways, it was entirely him.
A world of his own making when he had been given nothing without a cost.
He was there, laying in the large canopy bed to her right, sleeping soundly beneath the sheets and dark covers.
He wasn’t alone, for Idris was seated in the chair closest to the bed, angled toward him.
The Bane twin’s long legs were stretched out before him and his own sword was laying atop the arms of the chair, at the ready.
If he were here to protect Aeric, he was doing a poor job of it, for he looked to be dozing, his head bobbing forward before shooting back up.
His tired eyes wandering over to Aeric before they slid closed once more.
Anelize grinned as she wandered over to him. When she gently patted his shoulder, Idris sat up in his chair, the sword easing free from its sheath an inch before he realized it was her.
All right, so not too poorly then.
“Anya, are you all right?” Idris breathed out as he slumped back in his chair, running a hand over his scarred face.
She nodded, then motioned toward Aeric. “Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll stay with him.”
Idris eyed her before he reluctantly said, “You’ve been through a lot today. Are you sure you do not wish to sleep? No one would fault you for it, not even my brother. If he does, I’ll set him straight for you.”
“Thank you, but I’d feel more reassured if I stayed here. I can keep watch over him if he stirs.”
“Is that the only reason?” He grinned suggestively, and despite the circles under his eyes, there was always that light in them that was so unmistakably Idris that she couldn’t help but grant him a small smile.
She kicked his boot with the tip of her slipper. “Go on, before I change my mind.”
Chuckling, Idris rose from his chair that looked entirely too small for him. He stopped before he could pass her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for what you did today. For him. For all of us. It is not a sacrifice Adan or I, even Castian, will take for granted.”
A knot formed in her throat. Her eyes stung at the admission he’d just made.
That they knew what she’d done, and what she feared it had cost her without her needing to say it out loud.
That she’d taken a life when she had said she’d never be capable of such a thing.
And that they recognized the toll it would take on her once the dust finally settled, and she was left with no choice but to face the consequences, the guilt, of what she’d done.
The same one the twins shared in their own way.
Idris slid out of the door, closing it with a soft click behind him before his footsteps faded down the hall.
She slowly approached the side of the bed, the fire in the hearth painting Aeric in a golden glow, willing more color to return to his pale face.
His long lashes casted shadows over the skin beneath his eyes, and his dark hair was strewn over the embroidered pillow beneath him. He looked beautiful, even in his pain.
She gently took a hold of his hand where it rested above the covers. Warm and calloused. Safe and familiar. Reaching up toward his face, she brushed back that curl away from his brow, tucking it behind his ear.
“You’re going to be insufferable when you wake up, aren’t you?” she murmured half-heartedly.
When he didn’t open his eyes to make a remark, she found she wished he would. That he’d smile and tell her everything would be all right now.
Instead, low enough so he may be the only one to hear, she said, “You can’t leave me. You said so yourself that nothing would stop you. So, please, do not venture where I cannot reach you.”
As she watched him sleep, never taking her eyes off the rise and fall of his chest, never ceasing to listen to his heart that called to hers, she realized that no matter the guilt she felt in taking a life today, she would do it again.
At the cost of her humanity and the fleeting kindness she still managed to possess after everything she’d lost. She would rip every part of herself to nothing more than shreds.
Unravel the threads that had weaved her soul from the beginning all to become a wretched creature.
If it meant protecting those she could not live without.