Chapter 56
Rory glanced down at the dazed woman in her arms. “Stassi?”
She looked up, breathing hard and shielding her eyes against the bright sunlight streaming in through the tall windows. When Sam and Aemas left, they cleared the darkness Caius released upon the realms. It turned out that he didn’t destroy the suns; he covered them.
“What happened?” the maid croaked.
Rory looked nervously at Lauren. Did Aemas wipe all her memories from today, or did they only erase Sam? “What do you remember?”
Stassi clamored out of Rory’s lap, and her hand went to her chest. She cried out, ripping at her dress. “He stabbed me.” Her hand moved across her skin, and she looked at Rory, bewildered. “I remember him stabbing me. I died!” she shrieked.
They only erased Sam. Got it. “You didn’t die,” she lied. “We gave you a potion to close your wound before you lost too much blood.”
Stassi’s wide eyes landed on Gedeon’s lifeless body, and she screamed before puking on the floor. “Normal people don’t wake up to dead bodies lying around like piles of laundry,” she cried.
Rory glared at Caius when he smothered a laugh. “Stassi,” he said gently, avoiding the vomit on the floor. “We’re taking you to the infirmary.”
They helped her stand on shaky legs, but she stopped dead when Dume asked Lauren where Keith and Patrick were.
Rory dropped Stassi’s arm and looked back at Dume. “My dad and Keith came with you?”
“We split up,” he explained. “Keith’s job was to shift and try to find your scent. Your dad went with him.”
“What?” she yelled. “They’re missing, and you’re just now saying something? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“They’re probably lost,” Lauren said. “If they were caught, we’d know by now because someone would have to alert Gedeon.”
Stassi started sobbing, and Caius tried to calm her down, but she pushed him away, shaking her head frantically.
“A guard shot Keith.” Her sobs came harder, and Rory’s world tilted on its axis.
“H-he died. His chest s-stopped moving, and his eyes…” Stassi stopped, unable to finish her sentence as she buried her head in her hands.
Dume took Stassi from Caius, and Rory felt her husband’s arms wrap around her as she slid to the ground.
Keith was dead?
“Are you sure?” Lauren asked. “Did you see Patrick?”
Stassi nodded. “I had my hand pressed to Keith’s chest to stop the bleeding, and he stopped breathing,” she cried.
“He died right in front of me. Patrick said he needed to get Keith’s body out of here so they wouldn’t find it and hurt his family.
” Her arm swiped across her nose. “Patrick wasn’t hurt, but the guards,” she whimpered, and her eyes trailed to a dead body lying near Gedeon’s desk, making her skin turn a paler shade of green. “They were dead when he left.”
Rory’s eyes were unseeing as the room closed in on her.
Her father was safe.
Keith was dead.
Her eyes found Dume’s, and her chest fractured down the middle. Keith was dead.
Caius held her as she screamed, wishing Aemas was still here so she could ask him why.
“I knew you were a supermystic.”
She would never see his beautiful blue soul again. Never hear one of his stupid jokes or be talked into drinking too much on a weeknight.
What would she tell Kordie and his parents?
Lauren led Stassi out of the office, and Dume approached Rory, crouching down to check on her.
“May I help you?” Adila asked someone at the door.
“I’m looking for my daughter,” Rory’s father said, searching the room. His eyes landed on her, and she watched his shoulders sag with relief. He jogged across the office and bent down next to Dume.
“Are you hurt?” he asked frantically, lightly touching her face. “Why is there so much blood?”
“I’m fine,” she hiccupped, unable to say anything else. Blood stained his clothes, but he didn’t look hurt. It was probably Keith’s.
“We need to tell Adila where Keith’s body is. She can have someone transport it to the city,” Dume said to Patrick. “I’ll call his parents and Kordie.”
Rory sat up and forced herself to stop crying. “I should be the one to call Kordie.”
Dume tried to stand, but Patrick grabbed his arm. “What are you two talking about?”
They stared at him.
“Stassi said Keith was killed,” Caius told Rory’s father. “And that you moved his body.”
Patrick’s eyes flared. “Keith is alive.”
Rory burst into more tears, unsure how she had any left to shed.
“Where is he?” Caius asked. “She needs to see him.” He stood and scooped Rory into his arms, and she continued to cry into his chest.
Patrick rose to his feet. “He’s in the infirmary.
He was shot while in wolf form,” he explained to them as they walked.
“I thought he was dead, but he had a faint pulse when I got to him.
His body had shut down, making him seem dead.
I picked him up and ran back the way we came until I passed a maid.
“The infirmary doesn’t have an operating room, but they had scalpels and sutures. The bullet nicked an artery, and he would’ve bled out without surgery. I had to work with what I had.”
“You performed surgery on a wolf?” Caius asked in disbelief. “Successfully?”
Patrick grinned over his shoulder. “I’m one of the best vets in Erdikoa, son.”
“That’s impressive,” Caius replied and kissed the side of Rory’s head.
When they arrived at the infirmary, Caius set her down, and she and Dume rushed to Keith’s side. He was still in his shifted form, and when he saw them, his tail thumped against the bed. The wolf tried lifting his head, but it dropped back onto the mattress.
“Why can’t he shift back?” Rory asked, petting him softly.
He licked her hand, and she pulled it back with a glare.
“His anatomy is different in wolf form,” Patrick explained. “The artery needs to heal before he can shift. He’ll be like this for a few weeks.”
Keith blew air out of his nose with a tiny bark. “We thought you were dead,” Rory said, petting him again, and he whined. “Stassi said she saw you die.”
“Is she okay?” her father asked. “We almost got that poor girl killed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to her.”
Rory forced herself to not react. No one in the room other than the Royals remembered Sam, and it would be impossible to explain what happened. “She’s alive but shaken up.”
Keith’s tail whacked harder, and Patrick looked skyward. “Thank the Seraphim.”
If only they knew.
“She freed Cora’s soul,” Dume said quietly. Patrick’s breath hitched, and he turned away to swipe at his eyes while Keith whined.
“We’ll make sure she’s taken care of for the rest of her life,” Caius promised them.
Patrick nodded. “I look forward to getting to know you, son.”