36. Chapter Thirty-Six Rhea
Chapter Thirty-Six: Rhea
I scream as my hands, still alight with my magic, move to where the pain is radiating in the side of my thigh. I can feel the warm trickle of blood trailing down my leg from the arrow—an actual arrow—protruding there. Flynn wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me to the opposite side of the tree from where the arrow came. Though how he can tell in the pitch black, I don’t know. Bella flanks my other side as I breathe through the pain in my leg, not wanting to make too much noise. My magic slowly fades from my hands as I focus on calling it back inside me and letting the darkness come into place around us again.
“Fuck, Rhea, it’s going to be okay,” he promises, his large hand covering mine while his other holds the sword up. “I can pull the arrow out, and you can heal it—”
“We don’t have time,” I say, gasping for breath as I grip Flynn’s forearm tightly. The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before; it’s a radiating burn that feels like it’s coming from deep within the bone in my leg. “We need to get away from them.” Memories of the night Bella nearly died remind me of how much blood she lost when she was shot by an arrow. I’ve never healed myself from an injury like this before. What if it takes more time than we have and something happens to Flynn? My palms grow clammy as I force myself to push away from the trunk of the tree, gasping for breath.
“Rhea—”
“You know we can’t stay still here,” I whisper, grateful for the darkness as I wince and grit my teeth together. Gods, the pain reverberates in a searing heat down my entire leg and up to my hip. My stomach lurches as a bout of nausea and dizziness washes over me. In between Flynn and the tree, I try to stand, using them to hold myself up.
“And you know I can’t bear to see you in pain. Let me take it out now. Please .”
My heart beats furiously, and my breath gets stuck in my chest. Tears roll down my cheeks; that piercing pain exacerbates with every second that passes. Flynn moves us a little farther into the trees, leaning me up against a large trunk. He places my hand on his shoulder, both of his now slowly traveling up my injured leg. His muscles tense as he gets closer to where the arrow is in my thigh.
“Rhea, please. Just a few seconds of pain, and then you can start to heal it.”
“Alright,” I whisper, bringing my other hand to cover my mouth as I heave air in and out of my nose.
“On the count of three,” he says quietly. I squeeze my eyes shut, my fingernails digging into the muscles of his shoulders in a way that must be painful for him. “One. Two—” He starts to tug on the arrow as I scream into my palm. Suddenly, his hands are gone and he is on the ground in front of me, cursing into the darkness.
“Flynn?” I cry out as I try to drop to my knees, aware that my voice is ricocheting off of the trees and likely revealing our position.
“I’ve been shot,” he hisses as panic ices my veins. Bella growls low at something behind us, and I don’t have time to react before Flynn hauls the side of me that isn’t bleeding closer to him. His arm squeezes around my waist, nearly lifting me off the ground with his strength. He says nothing as he starts to lead us through the forest at a faster pace which I know we won’t be able to keep up, injured as we are.
I want to ask him where he was shot, but words are too hard to form. Tears leak from my eyes with each step we take as we run. I bite down on my lower lip to keep the building screams trapped in my throat as a metallic taste blankets my tongue. When I take a particularly jarring step on the uneven forest floor, a small sob escapes from me as the pain nearly causes me to black out—my vision, even in the darkness, blurs.
“Just a little farther, Sunshine. You can do it,” he encourages, his steps never faltering as we move as quickly as possible between the trees. Leaves rustle around us, and it’s hard to tell if it’s from the noise we are making or if it’s from the guards. I wonder momentarily if the king eventually followed his men out here and is hunting us down as well.
Small patches of moonlight dot the ground ahead of us, providing us with some much-needed guidance as we make our escape. Suddenly, Bella—who keeps pace a few feet ahead of us—stops, her paws skidding in the leaves from the abruptness. Flynn hauls me even closer to him, my arms already gripped around his torso for support. Bella’s ears twitch from side to side as she slowly surveys the area in front of us. I stand completely still, feeling the skin around the arrow throb with each beat of my heart. My boot feels slick and warm, and the thought of that much blood pooling in it nearly causes me to vomit. Flynn steps back from me, his arm unwrapping from its place on my shoulders. I watch in the small amount of silver light streaming in above us as he reaches across his chest to his other arm and—gritting his teeth together—yanks something out with a sickening sound. He tosses what I see now is an arrow to the ground, exhaling a breath before running his uninjured hand through his hair.
“We need to get yours out next,” he says softly.
I take a step towards him, my hands reaching out to heal the wound on his arm first. There’s nothing to prepare me for when a second arrow enters the back of my shoulder, the force of it pushing me into Flynn. I can’t help how one of the screams I’ve been holding back releases of its own accord.
“Oy! We are supposed to bring her back to him alive!” a voice shouts from in front of us.
“It’s not my fault she moved in front of him right when I loosed the arrow!” another responds back.
Flynn is ripped from my grasp when someone tackles him from behind as large arms wrap around me from the side, pulling me into a chest covered with golden armor. The arrow sticking out of my thigh gets bumped in the scuffle, and the pain that shoots through me causes me to freeze as I scream out again.
“I have her,” my captor yells.
Beyond the little bit of silvery light, I can just make out Flynn battling with two more guards. One is in front of him, the other behind, but his movements are graceful as he blocks and counters each of their attacks. He looks like an avenging god from the fairy tales I’ve read, even with his injured arm. His eyes flick to mine, and for a brief moment, our connection is undeniable. It’s a tangible thread linking us—being pulled taut. Our souls connect for a breathless fragment in time.
“Your little escape attempt has failed, bitch . It’s time to go back to where you belong.” The guard’s voice grates in my ears as he starts dragging me away with him. I fight to dig my feet into the earth, but my dizziness is winning and the leaves scattered everywhere keep causing my boots to slip.
“Flynn!” I scream, my consciousness beginning to fade. I’m doing everything I can to stay awake because I know that if I don’t fight, then I will wake up back in that tower. Or, it hits me as I let out another frustrated scream, there is somewhere worse for me to end up—in the king’s bed as his betrothed. I would rather make them kill me right here and now than go back to that. Back to him.
Bella growls from somewhere behind me as I kick and twist in the guard’s hold, but it’s no use. I’m completely helpless against him. My sobs turn to wails, my body growing weaker with each attempt I make. In my flailing, I connect a fisted hand with his face, causing the guard to hiss and loosen his grip on me. I jerk free and haltingly, painfully, run back towards Flynn and Bella. I make it four steps, adrenaline flooding my body as I try to get away, but a sharp yank of my hair pulls me backwards.
“No!” I scream, but the guard wraps my hair around his fist until my shoulder crashes into his chest. He pulls on my hair, forcing my face to tilt up as his other hand grips onto my outer hip harshly.
“If it wasn’t a death wish, I would shut you up with my cock right now,” he growls as his beady eyes bore into me. He squeezes me to his side as he begins to walk, his arm knocking into the arrow still penetrating my shoulder with each step. Tears and blood loss cause my eyes to blur, but through my weariness and hysteria, I start to feel a warm sensation—familiar and bright. I look down and see the glow of my magic in my palms. They grow brighter the longer I stare, and the guard sucks in a breath.
“What does your magic do?” he asks warily, bringing us to a halt. “Put it away!”
I thrust a luminescent hand into his eyes, hoping the light blinds him in the near darkness. He releases me immediately, screaming in terror as his hands rub his eyes. I waste no time turning around and hobbling in the direction where I last saw Flynn, trying to find that small bit of silver light to guide my way. My steps are filled with pain, my body beginning to fail after using up all of its adrenaline. I slow my steps down, each thud of my boots causing an all-consuming acidic fire to radiate from each wound throughout my entire body. I stop to breathe through the pain, my chest heaving as I push away sweaty strands of hair from my face. The forest is now silent. There is no clashing of swords or shuffling of leaves under feet. There are no harsh breaths or whimpers of pain except for my own. I’m alone, Flynn and Bella nowhere to be seen.
I force myself to keep moving, but I’ve lost all sense of direction. My shaky hand reaches up to the arrow sticking out from my shoulder, my muscles flaring in pain from the movement. It entered from the back, and I gasp as I feel the tip of it just underneath the skin near my collarbone. A noise comes from my left—where I ran from the guard that tried to take me. Panic threatens to immobilize me, but I cross through the small clearing of trees to the other side and drop to my hands and knees behind a large trunk. The sound of leaves being stepped on echoes loudly throughout the forest. Crinkle. Pause . Crinkle. Pause . Like the ticking of a death clock, I hear whoever it is come closer and closer. My body is moving faster than my brain, and when I lean up against the tree, I’m quickly reminded of the trauma to my back. White hot pain sears my shoulder and arm as a renewed trickle of warm blood flows down to my fingers. I try to force air into my lungs, but the agony is too much. There’s a pounding in my head and ears as I collapse onto my side, one hand gripping the earth in front of me. Blackness creeps into my vision, like one of the swirling galaxies from the Middle, and slowly begins to consume it.
A pair of black boots stepping before me is the last thing I see before darkness descends.
The scent of the forest wraps around me as my body is faintly jostled from side to side. My limbs feel heavy as they just hang there unusable. I try to move an arm, but I’m met with a fiery ache in my shoulder that halts my attempt.
A small whimper leaves me as more and more pain starts to filter into my consciousness. It radiates from my shoulder and my thigh until I’m gritting my teeth and hissing out breaths between them. Memories start flooding back into me: the ambush of guards, Flynn and Bella missing, footsteps nearing as I… Oh gods. What if I’m being carried back to the king? My fingers start to tingle, the sensation working its way up my arms and to my shoulders before draping back down my body like a warm ray of the sun—reminiscent of the mind cleanser exercises Alexi taught me. Just his name in my thoughts chills some of that warmth, that other feeling twisting inside of me like a snake poising to strike.
“Rhea, are you awake? Open your eyes.”
Flynn . My panic immediately calms, the warm richness of his voice soothing my fear. It takes all of my effort to force my eyelids to open, to obey his simple command. When they do, it’s too blurry to make anything out. This continues on for another few moments as I try to clear out what feels like a haze surrounding me. Finally, my eyes adjust, and even in the inky darkness, they find his. They always do.
“There you are, Sunshine. Stars above, I’ve been so worried about you,” he rasps. My head is leaning on his chest, his arms holding me remarkably stable as he steps over jagged roots and pointed rocks on the forest floor. I turn to lean my head further into him, to bury myself into the safety of his hold, as his scent—that autumnal changing-of-the-leaves scent that is just so uniquely him—invades my lungs. “We need to get these arrows out of you. There’s a small stream up ahead that should muffle—” He interrupts himself, breathing in deeply before continuing, “It should muffle the sounds when I pull them out.”
My screams. He’s talking about my screams of pain when he removes the arrows. I tilt my head away from his chest to look up at him. I can only make out the cut of his strong jaw and those incredible cheekbones. If I had to guess, I’d wager a few strands of his wavy hair are hanging over his forehead. Even in the shadowed darkness that surrounds us and through the waves of pain that keep hitting me, I am still so drawn to him. Like a moth to a flame, all I can see—all I can think about—is the mortal guard who risked everything to save me. Words fueled by the overwhelming emotions winding inside of me stack one on top of the other in my mouth, trying to break past my lips, but I swallow them down and instead focus on our surroundings. My eyes adjust to the dark, noticing how it all looks the same as it did when we entered the forest: trees for miles. I look down and see Bella walking a few feet ahead of us.
“How long was I out for?” I ask, trying to hold my head up but failing to do so for more than a few breaths.
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe an hour.”
My head swings back to him, trying to see his eyes but failing. “Have you been carrying me this whole time?”
“Yes,” he says quietly before leaping over something sticking out of the ground. I barely move in the process, his bicep muscles bulging with the effort.
“I can walk. You must be exhausted from holding me.” I move to wiggle out of his grip and let out a yelp of pain which only causes Flynn to lift me farther up his chest, his arms tightening as if he believes I possess the strength to actually get away right now.
“Do I appear weak to you, Sunshine?” he teases. But there’s a tension there too, his words marginally more clipped than how they would normally sound. It hits me then that I can decipher his voice and cadence, even in just our few short months together. I feel like I don’t know very many things about him but I have a decent grasp on who he is.
“What? No,” I answer honestly. “Your body is built like you could carry ten of me, but it doesn’t mean that you should have to. Or that it doesn’t get tiresome.”
“Hmm, tell me what else you’ve noticed about my body,” he says, his voice low in a way that makes me feel very inappropriate things at a very inappropriate time. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Flynn chuckles before giving me a chaste kiss on my forehead. This is what is actually appropriate at this moment, but I wish someone would tell that to my body. Flynn grumbles out a “finally,” and I’m confused at first until I start to hear the gentle trickling of water. We must be nearing the stream.
“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively. I want to touch his face but my good arm is pinned to his chest by the way he is holding me and my other arm is left immobile by the arrow.
“I will be. The sooner we get these arrows out of you, the faster and farther away we can get from the king.” His fingers flex tightly where he’s holding me, his anger and frustration palpable as we clear a few large rocks and start to descend down to the water. The closer we get to the stream, the colder I begin to feel—like the cool air off the water is poking holes in the warm humidity around us. At least, I hope it’s the water that’s causing an icy shiver to wrack my body. The trees begin to thin out as Flynn follows Bella’s guidance. She leads us along the bank of a stream until a small piece of flat land comes into view, just below the bank and near the water. Flynn descends the bank swiftly, carefully. “When I lay you down, do you think that you can call your magic up to the surface so we have some more light?” he asks, his voice now more raw than it was a minute ago.
“Yes.” My magic hums in answer as well. Through the larger gaps in the canopy, I can see the glittering moon—its presence welcoming.
Flynn gets down on one knee and gently lays me on the ground on my good side, moving a few leaves away so they aren’t completely surrounding my face. I lay my head on the ground as I extend my arm out in front of me, palm up. I suppose that if there is an upside to being shot by two arrows, it’s that they hit on the same side of my body. Bella lays down where I can see her, providing silent support as I prepare myself mentally for what’s coming. I focus on calling my magic to my palm, trying to angle it awkwardly towards where Flynn is kneeling in front of me. It moves more slowly than the last time I tried, and I wonder if it’s because of how injured I am. My magic has healed me while I’ve slept and fought to get free when I’ve been in danger, and it has heeded my calls, to either use or suppress it, every time I’ve tried. To feel it move so sluggishly causes a tightness in my throat. I may not understand how I have magic or why, but I’ve become used to the way it feels, the way its presence is almost separate from my own and always there.
When the mellow white glow finally illuminates our space, Flynn carefully begins to peel back the torn pieces of my trousers surrounding where the arrow sticks out. He curses soundly under his breath, and were this any other time, I might actually laugh. But the concerned look on his face has me working to swallow my fear.
“What’s wrong?” My voice comes out shaky and uneven as the terror I’m repressing finds its way into my voice.
“Did you summon your magic to heal your wounds?” he asks while I lay my hand down on the ground.
I shake my head in response before saying, “I don’t think so anyway.”
He eyes me for another moment before dropping his gaze back down to my leg, a crease forming between his brows. “I’ve never—” He pauses, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. “We’re going to have to re-injure you as we pull the arrows out.” His voice is so gravelly that it sounds like it has been dragged over shards of rock. He adds more tenderly, “It’s going to fucking hurt.”
“It’s okay,” I murmur, holding his gaze. “I’m used to pain. I can handle it.” His body goes completely still, like he has suddenly become made of stone. I survey him in confusion. “Flynn? What’s wrong?”
“I will kill him, Rhea. I promise you.” His dark eyes dance with rage as he looks just beyond me at the water.
To anyone else, he would be downright terrifying right now, and maybe even a month ago, I might have shrunk backwards at the way his body is radiating such lethal anger. But I know Flynn won’t hurt me. I know his rage for the king isn’t misplaced. And while I hate to admit that I have a tight feeling in my chest at the thought of him murdering anybody , I’m not naive enough anymore to assume there is a place far enough away from the king that he will stop looking for me. His death may be the only way I stay free, and I don’t know why that thought makes me sick to my stomach. There’s also the not-so-small detail that King Dolian knows I have magic now, and based on his obvious hatred for mages, I don’t know if that affects his plans for me. I know that I’ll never go back there willingly. He’ll have to drag me back while I’m either unconscious or dead.
“Which arrow do you want me to take out first?” Flynn asks, bringing my thoughts back to the present.
Right, two arrows are protruding from my body. Despite my best attempts to keep calm, I can’t stop the racing of my heart. “Surprise me.” I try to joke, but the tremble in my voice gives away my true feelings.
The hand holding my shining magic starts to shake as well, causing the light to bounce everywhere but where Flynn needs it. His entire body eases when his gaze meets mine, like an exhale that’s finally been released after being held for too long. He shifts up towards my chest, so I assume that means he’s going with the shoulder arrow first. But he leans down instead, his nose grazing mine as his hair tickles my forehead.
“Do you remember what I said to you yesterday?” he asks, one hand coming to cup the side of my face while the other lazily slides up and down my back.
“Yes,” I whisper, my body locking up tightly in anticipation.
“Tell me. Tell me what I said,” he commands. And even though I know he’s just trying to distract me, and I have enough fear running through my veins to drown me, I can’t deny him.
“You said,” I start, my voice quivering as he slides his hand slowly up again, “that you couldn’t wait until we were safe.” That hand pauses somewhere on my upper back, though where exactly I can’t tell since my wound pulsates waves of pain across its entirety.
“And then what did I say?” His voice is guttural, the roughness drawing all of my attention. “I want to hear you say every single word.” I watch his eyes dart over to my shoulder for a second before returning to mine. The dark depths of them call to me, luring me into them like a fish to water.
“You said you couldn’t wait to explore every part of me,” I rasp, feeling a sudden pressure surrounding the entry point at my shoulder. “And I said that I wanted that too.”
“I can’t fucking wait,” he chokes out, his voice a subdued declaration. “Close your eyes.”
I do as he says, hearing metal scrape against leather before a quick and searing flash of pain erupts on my chest. I hear the sound of wood breaking before I feel the arrow moving through me. My eyes shoot open, and I look down at the metal tip fully protruding from my front now, blood leaking across my chest and dripping onto the ground. A scream rips from my throat as I force my eyes to close again. I feel Flynn’s hand move to where the tip of the arrow is, and with a jerk, the pressure of it being inside of me is removed.
“It’s out,” he says, his lips finding my forehead as I force air into my lungs and let hot tears leak down my cheeks. “We need to clean it to prevent infection before you heal yourself.”
“I have soap in the satchel you’re carrying,” I grit out between ragged breaths. I hear him shuffle around in one of the bags, tearing a piece of fabric, before he steps up to the stream behind me. Within a few seconds he’s back at my side, carefully dabbing a cold, wet cloth around the wound on my shoulder. I hiss at the contact, curling in on myself a little as he lightly wipes at my skin.
“Okay, call your magic up.”
I release my hold on the magic, trusting that it will do what it needs to. I’m exhausted already, my head feeling dizzy and my eyelids heavy. I hear Flynn move back to the water before coming back into view and kneeling at my legs.
“Rhea, this one…” He trails off, a hand bracketing either side of the arrow sticking out of my thigh. “It’s more complex—going through more muscle and maybe even hitting the bone. I’ll have to try and reopen the wound so that the arrowhead doesn’t shred your leg.”
I swallow down the bile creeping up my throat. My magic, in trying to save me from losing too much blood, ended up damning me. I wonder if this is payback for not using it all those times it begged to be let out. I nearly snort at the thought. My breathing picks up again even though the pain in my shoulder has finally eased and is replaced with just a mild tenderness. I twist my upper body until my back is flush against the ground with my hips still stacked on top of each other. My lungs struggle to take enough air in, my mind whirling and vision swirling. The hand that’s supposed to be providing light just grabs onto Flynn’s leg.
“Flynn,” I whisper, my voice drawing his eyes from my leg to my face, “I can’t do this.”
“Sunshine.” He leans down, clearing the hair from my face and planting a soft kiss on my lips. “You can. You’re so strong, despite what he’s tried to mold you into. Despite everything, you’re so incredibly fierce,” he says each word while kissing the tip of my nose. “And so fucking beautiful.”
I cough out a laugh, my wet lashes blinking away a few more tears as, despite it all, I find myself offering a small smile. Flynn gives me one final kiss and then kneels down by my thighs again. My eyes find the moon; it’s nearly full with the Summer Solstice happening in just a few days. Bella moves closer to me, one of her massive paws laying gently on my uninjured shoulder. I know it must be my exhaustion and blood loss, but a part of me swears the moon pulsates in time with my heart. The stars wave their hello as well, bringing me comfort. It makes me feel braver. That cold curled up inside of me perks up for just a moment, but then it dies back down.
“Do it, Flynn.” I breathe as he nods, brandishing a small dagger. My hand reaches up to grip Bella’s paw while I keep my gaze on the sky above me and exhale slowly.
“Do you want to know why your nickname is ‘Sunshine’?” he asks, but before I can respond, pain bursts to life in my thigh—unbridled and unrelenting. I cry out, the sound echoing out into the forest. I squeeze Bella’s paw and try to steady my other hand as my magic flares brighter in my palm. My mouth gapes open as I try to gulp in air, my body begging me to breathe, but the pain is too piercing. I lift my head to look, but Flynn stops me.
“Don’t look.” He glances at me, his eyes focused and unyielding, and I wonder if this is hard for him to do. To be the one that is causing me pain like this. I also know that the arrow isn’t out yet. My own eyes blur, my breaths moving quickly in and out through my mouth. Warm blood leaks down my leg, and I have the delirious thought that this entire outfit is totally ruined. Then I remember Flynn’s question.
“Why did you pick ‘Sunshine’?” The words are slurred through my sobs, and I don’t know if he can even understand them. In my incoherence, I see the moon glow imperceptibly brighter right as Flynn begins to speak. Unfortunately, he also begins to move the arrow, and I don’t hear a single thing he says before I pass out.