CHAPTER 15
“Get me the Sano!” a voice roared, jarring me awake.
Strong arms came around me. Lifted me. Held me. I was weightless. Boneless. Helpless as someone picked me off the floor and carried me to who-knew-where.
Deep down, though, I wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t even alarmed. Instead, I felt . . . I felt relieved. Because I knew that voice, knew the rumbling timbre that sounded so much like distant rolling thunder.
I’d made it. I’d made it to my destination, and I was still alive. For now.
“Spirits and saints, is she—?” another voice said that I recognized.
“She’s still alive but barely,” the first answered, then bellowed again, “Oz, where the hell is that Sano?”
Chaos ensued. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard several loud bangs as objects crashed to the floor. The arms around me shifted, disturbing numerous cuts all over my body. A sound escaped me. A pitiful whimper.
The voice above me swore, then gentled considerably. “Open your eyes for me, Snowflake. I need to see those big beautiful eyes.”
I tried. I tried so hard to open them, but they were so heavy.
“I need a towel and bowl of water, Riku.”
“On it.”
As footsteps hurried away, something solid settled against my back and legs, pulling at more of my cuts. Another whimper left me, the only thing I seemed capable of doing at the moment.
“It’s okay, Snowflake,” the rumbling voice soothed. “I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”
Safe. I was safe? Not a word I ever expected him to say to me. I wanted so badly to contradict him, but not even my mouth would function.
“Oz,” the voice barked, that anger not directed at me for once. The strong arms around me carefully fell away, barely agitating my injuries, but I knew he remained close by. I could feel him. Smell him. His scent swirled around me, shoving back the stench of death.
“Here,” another familiar voice said. “She should take it all, Thorne. But it might not be enough to—”
“Don’t say it,” Thorne cut Oz off. “She’s going to live. She has to.”
Hands fell on me again. Gentle. So very gentle. They lifted my head up, cradled it.
“Did you hear that, Snowflake?” Thorne asked, his head so close to mine. “I won’t let you die on me, so you’d better be prepared to fight. Now take this Sano like a good girl.”
He lifted my head a little higher, and something cold touched my lips. A glass. A vial. I struggled to open my mouth, knowing he was trying to help me, knowing the Sano would save me.
Nothing. I didn’t even have the energy for that.
Liquid moistened the crease of my lips anyway, but none of it got inside. Thorne viciously swore. “Oz, I need help.”
More hands fell on me, coaxing my mouth open with firm pressure.
That small action sent fiery pain through my face, making me aware that the cuts must have formed there too.
I could only imagine how terrifying I looked right now, probably like death itself.
The pressure didn’t let up, allowing Thorne to pour the Sano into my mouth.
As it started to slide down my throat, my gag reflex kicked in, forcing me to cough.
Agony ripped through me, setting my body, my world on fire.
I tried to cry out but only choked more as the Sano mercilessly speared down my throat.
Fingers massaged my neck, urging it down, down, down.
The liquid kept coming and coming, persistent, drowning me.
I was helpless to resist, unable to do anything but fight to keep breathing.
Time became pain, my body racked with convulsions as the Sano sought out the hundreds of cuts. One after the other, it attacked them, knitting the wounds shut and leaving me cold. So cold. Colder than I ever remembered feeling before.
“She needs heat,” I dimly heard a voice say over the chattering of my teeth.
The hands on me shifted once more, and I was lifted again.
As if I weighed no more than a feather, the arms supporting my back and legs carried me to a new location.
But when they set me down this time, the surface beneath me wasn’t flat like a table.
Although solid, it intimately hugged my body, cradling me securely.
When another full-body shiver racked me, the surface beneath me shifted in a way that felt like limbs. Like legs.
A lap. I was on someone’s lap.
Hands guided my head to another solid surface, and when I heard a strong thump-thump-thump-thump beneath my ear, I knew that it was resting on a chest. One quick inhale confirmed whose body I was pressed against.
Thorne. I was cradled on Thorne Hudson’s lap.
The need to get away trembled through me, but at the same time, a soothing warmth stole over my body. My shivering lessened, and my limbs ever-so-slowly started to relax, to melt. Into him. Into his blessed heat.
A deep exhaustion swamped me next, one that I knew I couldn’t escape this time. It tugged and pulled, and I gladly let it to suck me under. Before it could completely devour me, something brushed my cheek, and I flinched.
“Go back to sleep, Snowflake,” a soothing voice rumbled above me. “We won’t let anything harm you.”
I felt the brush along my cheek again moments later, but I knew what it was this time. A cloth. A warm one. Gently washing my blood away.
A relieved sigh shuddered from me, and I sank deeper into Thorne’s warmth, finally allowing unconsciousness to claim me.
* * *
Regaining consciousness felt like clawing my way to the surface from deep underwater.
Everything was a struggle. Thinking. Breathing.
Swallowing. Blinking. I tried moving, and my limbs felt like lead.
When I finally managed to peel my dry eyes open, the first thing I saw was a blurry brown shape.
Blinking to clear my vision, I focused on the shape again and froze when it materialized into a bird.
And not just any bird. Thorne’s hawk familiar.
He met my stare with an unblinking one, watching me in that hawky way of his.
The animal was sitting on a wooden perch near the head of the bed, a bed that was far too comfortable to be mine.
I stretched my hand out, feeling how silky the dark sheets were.
The bed was large, probably a king size. Where the hell was I?
My gaze left the hawk and began to explore the rest of the room.
Not far away was a stained-glass window.
Barely enough light leaked through the panes to see, but I could clearly pick out shapes like a desk and chest of drawers.
The door to the room was shut, but when I twisted my head around to see the other half of the bedroom, I spotted a figure sitting in a chair.
My heart leapt into my throat, nearly choking me. I jerked upright on the mattress, prepared to defend myself, but when the figure didn’t move, I squinted harder through the gloom until I could make out their features.
What the hell?
It was Thorne.
Was I in his . . . his room?
His head was slightly tilted forward, allowing his tousled brown hair to fall across his cheeks and shadow his eyes.
Judging by how still he was, I assumed he was fast asleep.
Not in uniform for once, he wore a black t-shirt that hugged his chest and gray sweatpants.
Seeing him so relaxed, so vulnerable was disconcerting.
As I watched him sleep, the events that brought me here suddenly came rushing back. The feeling of being watched, picking up the spellbook, the cuts. I didn’t know how I’d managed to get to Thorne before completely bleeding out, but here I was. In his freaking bed.
The clock tower bell started to toll the hour, and at the first bong, I flinched, expecting a cut to form. Nothing happened. I glanced down at my arms, relieved to find that the cuts were gone.
That’s right. They’d given me Sano. And I’d been so cold that Thorne had placed me in his lap to share his body heat.
I glanced at his lap now, at the way his legs were widely spread apart, and pictured my body securely between them.
Heat rushed into my cheeks, and I tore my gaze away, mortified that I’d fallen asleep on top of him. Spotting a glass of water on his nightstand, I reached for it and greedily gulped it down. As I did, the bell finished tolling the hour.
Six o’clock?
Panicking, I scrambled out of bed, nearly tangling in the sheets and falling flat on my face. A rustling of wings startled me, and I glanced behind me to see an agitated Comet.
“Shhh,” I breathed, knowing the familiar could understand me. “I just need to use the bathroom. Can you tell me where it is?”
He stared at me as if annoyed that I’d left the bed, then gestured with his sharp little beak at a door slightly ajar across from us.
I gave him a small smile but avoided patting him on the head.
Some familiars enjoyed being treated like pets but not all of them, and I didn’t feel like adding a painful beak bite to my list of injuries.
Certain Thorne would wake up, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief when I tiptoed past him and he didn’t stir.
The second I closed the bathroom door behind me, a lightheaded feeling swept over me, and I slumped against the door.
Okay, I wasn’t completely healed then. The Sano had sealed my cuts, but I was still weak from blood loss. I wouldn’t allow that to stop me, though.
Pushing off the door, I flicked on the light and paused, shocked that Thorne had this bathroom all to himself.
Being Head Prefect definitely had its perks.
Everything was black and slate gray, modern and decidedly masculine.
I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if he’d designed it himself.
My drafty tower and co-ed bathroom felt like the stone ages compared to this luxury. He probably even had hot water.