Chapter 35 #3
There would have been nothing that awaited that Caersan except a long, painful departure from this world. The healer had done what she needed to ensure he did not suffer more than was necessary.
Emillie turned back to Madan’s partner, still very much unconscious, at the same moment the ground shook outside the tent.
She knew the feeling by now—the arrival of a dragon and therefore another patient who needed immediate care.
They had felt the same shudder when Whelan had been delivered to them with an injury that she had been almost certain would kill him. Gods, it still could.
Like the rest of those working in the tent, Emillie pivoted to see who was arriving so they could each assess whether or not their assistance was required.
The tent flap opened to let in two of the dhemons that had been stationed in the camp to help anyone who needed medical attention.
Between them, they carried a lycan with a massive pole sticking through its chest, which moved but incrementally.
No sound came from the wolf—never a good sign.
It was best when patients arrived screaming in agony, for they were more likely to survive.
Blood dripped from the long maw and coated the fur.
The brown fur.
Brown.
Fur.
If the world had tilted on its axis before, it now stopped entirely. The very ground beneath Emillie’s feet dropped away, careening into nothing as she stared at the latest addition to their tent.
As she stared at Luce.
“Emillie.” The voice was familiar as it called her name, but she did not recognize who spoke.
Her feet moved before she could stop them, eating up the distance between her and the dhemons who lay the lycan—her lycan, her partner—on a cot near the entrance.
The cry that went up through the tent was entirely too humanistic to have come from the wolf with a pike in her chest, and somehow Emillie knew that it had come from her.
“Get her back!” Magic wrapped around Emillie’s middle, halting her as she reached for Luce.
Another scream, this time as hot tears splashed down her face.
This was not like Dahlia. When her friend had died in her arms, Emillie had mourned and been so angry with herself for not helping more that she could not remain in the tent.
This was not like Dahlia—she would not let it be like Dahlia.
She had failed her friend but, this time… This time she had to succeed.
Failure meant Luce was gone.
Failure meant that Emillie lost yet one more person that she loved with her entire heart, and she was not certain she could live through another such loss.
Her father had made her stop eating—doing so only at Kyra’s and Alek’s behest. Then Alek…
Gods, Alek had tried so hard to get her away from Loren, and she had continued on only because she would not let his death be in vain.
But Luce.
Losing Luce…
“Please,” she begged when Revelie appeared in front of her, pushing her back as Phulan’s magic refocused elsewhere, poking and prodding at Luce’s too-still body. “Please let me help—”
“We can help,” Revelie said, holding her back with every ounce of her Caersan strength, “by letting Phulan do what she does best.”
Bile rose in her throat. She had just watched the mage kill a patient to save them from long-lasting pain. Phulan would not hesitate to put Luce out of her misery as well, all in the name of allowing the Lycan Queen to die with dignity.
And Emillie would be damned if she was not by her mate’s side.
“I cannot let her die,” Emillie gasped. “I cannot. She cannot die!”
Revelie took a step forward, forcing her back against someone very large and very sturdy.
Before Emillie knew what was happening, a new set of blue arms wrapped around her, hoisting her feet from the ground.
She writhed in the dhemon’s grasp, her heart shattering as the distance grew between her and the swarm of people now creating a wall around Luce.
“Keep her out of here,” Revelie called. “I will come find her when I can.”
Betrayal had never stung quite so much as the moment her best friend turned and let Emillie be hauled out of that medic tent by a dhemon. She cried and kicked and flailed, all to no avail, as they exited out into the cold.
“Sabharni,” the dhemon said, though the word meant nothing to Emillie.
Snow fell all around her on winds that whistled by. The snowstorm had turned to a blizzard in the time since they had begun the battle, and now Emillie saw it as nothing but an omen of death. Destruction. The chaos of the weather only made her more desperate to return to Luce’s side.
Still, the dhemon did not release her. In fact, the man almost cradled her as he settled near a fire, his warm body providing more heat to her vampiric body than even the flames. No matter how hard she fought to free herself, it did not seem to disturb him.
It was not until Emillie had finally ceased her attempts to get away that his hold eased a fraction.
She looked up at the dhemon, taking in the face of the man who held her at bay, and noted the Keon symbol on his cheek.
It was not unlike the one Ehrun bore after the ritual in Eastwood, though the man himself appeared younger and far more at peace.
“Sabharni,” he repeated as she calmed, brushing a tear from her face. When he spoke again in the dhemon language, Emillie gaped at him, uncertain how to respond. Noticing her confusion, he sighed, frowned at the falling snow above them, then mustered, “Phulan help.”
Emillie sucked in a burning breath. “But what if she dies?”
The dhemon frowned, his red eyes scanning her face as he calculated her words. After a moment of mental translation, he said the two words she did not realize she needed to hear: “No die.”
Emillie’s mouth quivered and she did the one thing she had not done since the night Kyra had left her: she lay her head against the dhemon as he stroked her hair and cried.