Chapter Seven
Bréagha groaned as she fought towards consciousness. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been run over several times. She gasped when she moved her head as white-hot pain shot through it. She tried to flinch away from the agony, but she had nowhere to go.
“Kat! She’s starting to wake up I think.
” Bréagha turned her head towards where Roz’s voice came from, then slowly and agonizingly opened her eyes.
She only got them open a sliver before the light hit them; it felt like fireplace pokers being slammed into her eyeballs and into her brain.
She clinched her eyes closed again and moaned.
“Turn the lights off, they’re hurting her!” She heard Aiden’s gruff command and felt him take her hand. Relief flooded through her when someone finally listened. A quiet moan escaped her as a cold, wet cloth was gently placed over her eyes.
She tried to speak but her throat felt dry as a desert and raw like she had screamed for hours at a concert.
She felt someone place an ice cube against her lips, so she opened her mouth and welcomed the cool water as the ice quickly melted against her tongue.
She opened her mouth again, silently asking for more and she was so grateful when her silent plea was answered with another ice cube.
She had several more before she tried to speak again.
"What happened?" Her voice came out as little more than a husky whisper. She turned her head to where she thought Aiden was and asked again, a little louder this time.
“Well, um. We’re not entirely sure. The ceremony started normally and then everything caught fire, or well not everything. Just you really.” Roz answered her from the direction of her feet.
“Isadora and Donegal? Okay?” Bréagha whispered anxiously, they’d been standing so close to her, just as close as the arch.
“They’re both okay, everyone is shaken up but okay.” This time it was Kat that answered from behind Bréagha. She replaced the cool cloth, noticing how dry it already was. She shared a concerned look with Roz. “I think she’s still running hot.”
Bréagha tried opening her eyes again and was relieved to see that the lights had been turned down to a gentle glow.
She was able to see Aiden sitting beside her on the right, and Roz was at her feet taking notes on a clipboard.
She heard Kat behind her rustling in a cabinet.
She moved her head slightly to the left where she felt another presence and was surprised to see Killian sitting there.
His silver eyes examined every inch of her face as he took note of every wince, groan, or flinch.
He held a cup of ice next to her head and when he saw her attention on it lifted another cube up to her lips for her.
She took it and held it on her tongue, enjoying the coolness as it flowed down her ravished throat.
She tried to sit up but Killian and Aiden both reached their hands out to gently force her back.
She frowned at them both and tried to push their hands off though she was unsuccessful since she was still weak.
Roz moved next to Killian and pushed a button on the bed to raise her up slowly.
Bréagha smiled at her when she was sitting up properly.
She took a few deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Four seconds in, hold for seven, then release for eight.
Again, and again until she felt the pain slowly recede.
She learned to do that when she was doing the self-defense training Aiden insisted on.
Those first couple months of training were brutal until her muscles built up their strength and tolerance.
She also used it when she wanted to knock Aiden’s head off his shoulders, kind of like she wanted to do right now, for him thinking he could keep her lying flat in this bed.
She glared at him, and he just gave her a shrug.
“You say I caught on fire?” She was finally ready to try and understand what happened. The three she could see nodded.
“A red light came from the sky. Then, whoosh! You went up like a dead tree after a severe drought,” Aiden explained. He even included hand gestures of something falling and then what she assumed was supposed to be her blowing up.
“Then why don’t I feel worse? I mean…I’m sore like I was run over by a bus but nothing like that.
” She glanced down at her arms looking for horrific burns but saw only clear, glowing skin.
She lifted one up and looked closer. The skin was perfect.
It didn't even have freckles. She frowned. “Where did my freckles go? Did someone airbrush me?” She looked at the other arm that should’ve had a scar from a fight she got into when she was 10, a guy came at them with a broken bottle, and she had used her arm to block him.
It took 15 stitches to close that cut. She just saw flawless skin, no scars.
She sat up more, then pushed the light quilt that was over her legs off and pulled up the hospital gown she was wearing.
Both legs were also unblemished from freckles or scars, and she should’ve had plenty of those.
“Dude, where did the scar go from when I crashed that motorcycle? Or the one where I got a fishhook stuck in my knee? Or the other one where that dick Johnny Wilson cut me with the chainsaw when we were cutting firewood?” She was frantically searching every inch of her exposed skin for the stories of her life.
But nothing. Every scar had a memory attached to it.
Now it looked like none of it had ever happened.
“Oh hell no.” She pulled the gown off her right shoulder and cursed when it was bare. “Dude, not my tattoo! That was awesome.”
“Hold on, there’s something on your back.” Killian spoke up from where he had moved to stand behind her to try and preserve her modesty as she pulled up her gown to search for her scars. He moved her hair aside gently then pulled the gown away from her back. He whistled low.
“Damn. Aiden, was this here before? I don’t remember seeing it last night and I’m fairly sure I would’ve.
” He thought back at how gorgeous she had been in that blue gown last night.
He shook himself and focused on her back, where a full tattoo of a phoenix in flight sat in perfect detail; from its fiery tail feathers, trails of fire behind it, sharp claws and fierce eyes that seemed to look right through him.
“That was for sure not there before,” confirmed Aiden. Kat moved closer as did Roz, both ladies having to use their wings to fly up closer to see it. Roz waved her hand, and two hand mirrors appeared. She handed one to Bréagha then held the other behind her so she could see what they saw.
“What the actual fiery bird hell is that?” whispered Bréagha.
“It’s your soul-bonded animal.” They all looked over to where Marcus stood just inside the door. He wasn’t wearing his robes today, instead choosing to wear a pair of slacks and a button-down green shirt. He moved closer.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, his kind eyes filled with worry and compassion. Bréagha teared up a little at the kindness in his voice.
“Sore, very sore but I guess it could’ve been worse. I could be covered in third degree burns,” answered Bréagha, in a voice still husky from screaming.
“Yes well, it should be better fairly quickly I think.” He moved a little to the side so Kat could hand Bréagha a cup filled with a floral scented concoction.
“This should help that soreness; it should help your head as well and hopefully soothe that throat. You did a fair amount of damage with the screaming,” Kat stated matter-of-factly and with a slightly chastising tone like Bréagha had chosen to catch on fire and had the poor manners to scream out in anguish.
Bréagha felt like she should apologize but frowned and started sipping the liquid instead.
It tasted sweet and did feel soothing as it went down her throat.
She gave Kat a small grateful smile and the Magic Keeper elder nodded, then gave another stern look before leaving the room.
“What do you mean it’s her soul-bonded animal?” asked Killian, bringing the conversation back to what Marcus had said when he entered.
“Lily and I spent most of the night reading and trying to figure out what was going on with Bréagha, trying to find answers about how she could touch the soul-bonded animals and bring them into the physical plane like she can, and then of course after the ceremony where she caught on fire it was even more urgent that we find answers.” Marcus took his glasses off and cleaned the spotless lenses.
“Lily found several passages that referenced a phoenix, and we both agree that’s what we’re probably dealing with,” he finished as he replaced his glasses.
“A phoenix? The mythological creature that goes up in flames periodically and is reborn out of the ashes of its former body?” Bréagha’s voice cracked several times, her surprise and incredulity should’ve caused her voice to go supersonic high, but her vocal cords were still recovering and the best they could do is slightly tenor instead of bass.
“Mythological on the Earth realm maybe, but you have to remember there are seven other realms, and though phoenixes are few and far between, they’re still very much a thing, and the ultimate protector I would think,” Marcus explained quietly.
“You are saying she soul-bonded to a phoenix?” Aiden asked again. Marcus nodded.
“We think so, yes. But though phoenixes are the ultimate protector there has never been an instance where they chose a Sentinel to soul-bond to, if that is truly what we’re seeing.
Lily believes that it might be more than that.
” Marcus hesitated and looked around the room, at a loss.
He rubbed his hand across his face and into his already disheveled hair.
As Bréagha looked closer, she could see the deep dark lines under his eyes.
She could see how tired and worried he was.