Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
I awoke in a room I’d never seen before, pain aching in my side. I probed the tenderness. Someone had bandaged me, and my fingers traveled over the bumps of stitches. But whatever had happened, I was not healed yet. I groaned and shifted and groaned again, attempting to sit up.
“Don’t get up yet,” Victoria said, swishing across the room in a wave of black satin. The bathrobe brushed the floor, showing flashes of a red nightgown underneath. Thinking about tiny things was like climbing up a ladder of lucidity.
“What happened?” I croaked, my side stinging from the movement.
“ Shhh , you need more rest,” Victoria said, offering me a glass.
My throat was desert-dry. I gulped the water.
“There now, rest more, and then you can tell us who you are.”
That I was in an alternate past made sense in my head, but in reality, it made no sense at all to be talking to someone who should know who I was and no longer did.
That knifed into me, tearing open the lucidity.
But I had to give it a shot. “You’re Victoria, Wald’s mother.
I’m Harlan, the Harlan . The one with Agatha in me?
” I suddenly knew that was a lie. Agatha’s power was gone.
“Agatha?” Victoria’s eyes widened. “I think perhaps the herbs I’ve given you have made you dream. Sleep now, and we will talk about it again when you awaken.”
“No! Don’t leave me. I know you, and Britannia, and Agatha, and Wald, and Maverick, and even Mason.
I’ve even met your son Devlyn and his lover Sert and Elizabeth, even though we haven’t actually been introduced, and Soda, and even Caledonia, although I didn’t get to talk to her. ” I was rambling. The room was glassy.
Victoria froze, and then her face shifted through wide-eyed shock to pursed lips of pensiveness.
“Something odd has passed. We will investigate. Rest now. My son is visiting from Norway. I will see if he will visit you.” Her hand was warm on my arm and tingled.
It wasn’t unlike the sensation of being licked by Wald.
Would he know me? I drifted off in the memory of his body warming my skin.
The room grew fuzzy edges and then disappeared.
W hen I woke up again, I was alone, and the bedroom wasn’t hazy. I inhaled lavender vanilla as I pushed away the lilac purple coverlet, attempting to pull myself up on the pillows. Pain from my side circled my ribs, and I smothered a yelp but got into a more upright position.
The bedroom had fabric in shades of creamy coffee, and wallpaper with sprigs of light purple flowers.
The bed was a four-poster with honey-colored wood that matched the floor and the door.
My linen nightgown was the same color as the walls.
I never wore nightgowns. Had I dreamt about Victoria or had it happened?
If I was going to figure it out, I’d have to move.
With more than a few curses, I managed to sit up. My feet settled on a brown linen mat. I lifted the hem of my nightgown to see the damage, but my torso and side were wrapped in bandages.
The bathroom door was open across the room. Settling my weight on my left side, I pushed myself off the bed. My body exploded in an unholy hell kind of burning pain. Moaning, I fell back, clutching my side. Standing was out of the question.
The door flew open, and Wald raced in, spectacularly handsome in a pink shirt and a black velvet dinner jacket.
“Vat rrr you doing? Get back into da bed,” he barked, walking to the bed and pointing to it.
His accent was much thicker, and he wasn’t wearing sunglasses.
I stared, mesmerized by his amber eyes framed by feathery lashes, as the thick accent filtered into English. My heart battered my ribs.
I leaned back coquettishly. “I don’t want to be in bed, but I’m willing to get back in if you join me.” I dropped my focus to his lips, and the bottom one twitched. If he didn’t remember me, he still found me attractive.
“An interesting offer, but alas, I am currently unavailable.” His mouth curled up with the smile that would haunt my dreams forever.
My stomach plummeted. “You mean dinner is more important than my recovery?” I asked, yelping as I shifted in a bad direction. The not-being-able-to-stand part was going to have to get fixed fast. “Since I can’t make it over there, lick me and fix this?” I gestured to my side.
He paused and then walked to the bed. His amber eyes were bright with concern. “Perhaps I should call my mother back to tend you? You seem feverish.”
“What are you talking about? Just lick me and take the fricking pain away.”
“Moo-thar ‘as done all she can to heal you. Your vound ees deep made by the Klyngore that does not heal.”
“It was your flipping knife-sword thing that did this. Don’t you know how to fix it?”
“My sword?” His brows knit, and his lips pressed together as he sat on the edge of the bed. I squealed as his weight shifted the mattress.
“Yes, your bloody sword, the teenage fang or whatever you call it. You were going to kill your stepsister, and I got to you first.”
“I had thoughts of threatening Britannia, but I vould never truly ‘urt ‘er. But how vould you know I ‘ad the Klyngore? No one knows that but Mother. Did she tell you?”
“No, you idiot, you told me about it, and then you stabbed me with it when I tried to help you. What are you waiting for? Heal me and fix this.”
“If you vere in fact vounded by the Klyngore, then there ees no cure.”
“What do you mean there is no cure?” My throat closed over the words. I gulped air in breaths, choking on my own thoughts.
“One wounded by the Klyngore will die.”
“What?” I screeched, causing searing pain to rip through my side. Tears poured down my face as I panted, attempting to settle my nerves and relax. “What exactly do you mean by die ?”
“Ve’ve done all that ve can do. I am sorry. If you ‘ad traveled to a hospital, you vould have already passed on. Victoria’s healing skills are extensive but limited. ”
My heart pounded, the fear writhing in my insides.
I was not dying. I didn’t feel like I was dying.
What did dying feel like? Nine hells. I was not dying from this.
No way. “No. You did this, and you need to fix it. Find a way. There must be a way. Please, help me.” I buried my face in his pink shirt and sobbed.
The musk of him wafted around me as his arms wrapped me against his chest. His lips touched the top of my head in a chaste kiss.
“I don’t know if there ees a vay, but if there ees, my Aunt Agatha vill know.”
“Agatha is alive?” I choked out through the tears. “I’m sure she can help me.”
“She ees on her way. Now rest. I vill send Mother to you.” Wald got up, ruffling his sodden shirt while I wiped my eyes. Then he left.
No chance I was resting. I dropped to the floor, curling in a ball until the pain subsided, then crawled to the bathroom.
It was a ten-minute endeavor that left me panting at the end.
This state of distress was unacceptable.
Pain wasn’t stopping me because I wasn’t going to let it.
I used the sink to haul myself up and almost passed out.
Okay, Harlan, you need to go slow . I only screamed maybe twenty times. Things were definitely improving. I even managed to shrug on the cashmere bathrobe that had been hanging on the back of the door. It was the same color of coffee as the tile.
The bedroom door creaked open. I gripped the bathroom doorknob for dear life as I peered out.
Victoria walked in, wearing a sweeping gown of lilac chiffon, dripping in diamonds. “You should be in bed,” she barked like a Chihuahua adding little yips of cuckolding tsk s.
I took a deep breath and staggered from the door to the bed, managing to hold back the cursing until I collapsed .
“Oh, Harlan, dear,” Victoria said, supporting me so I could pull myself up onto the pillows.
Her scent of vanilla sugar was strangely comforting.
I trusted her, though I had no reason to, other than she seemed to like me.
“You mustn’t walk. You need your rest. Wald is making some phone calls, and he’s told me your story.
If it’s true, then my son can help you. How this has happened is beyond my imagination.
We found you bleeding in my daughter’s room with no idea how you’d gotten there. ”
“It was the ring. It must have been. It’s caused all this mess.”
Her hand froze on the coverlet she was pulling over my chest. “What ring?”
“The time ring. The one Caledonia had that broke, only it didn’t.” I looked at my bare fingers. Where was it?
“How do you know about the ring?” Victoria’s face paled, and the fingers of one hand twisted at a diamond ring on her other hand.
“I used it.”
“You what? You couldn’t have used it. You aren’t of this family.” She shook her head, the blonde curls so artfully piled up bouncing.
“It’s a long story, but I was, kind of, and maybe I still am.”
“Stop. I shouldn’t hear it, and neither should anyone else. Don’t mention it again. If your life can be saved, it’s imperative that your use of the ring remain hidden. Do you understand? It is part of the timekeeper’s duty.”
“No, but I’ll keep quiet.” If it meant living, I was up for anything.
Wald walked in. “They are coming.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Agatha, Devlyn, and Sert. ”
“They aren’t dead?”
Wald and Victoria looked at me. Victoria placed a finger in front of her lavender-painted lips as I covered my mouth with one hand.
Keeping secrets was going to be hard. I flipping knew they weren’t dead.
No one was dead, only me if whatever plan I came up with didn’t work.
I needed these people who thought I was a stranger to be my advocates.
Besides, Devlyn and I were such good friends. Fuck me.
“Rest now. It will be a few hours before they get here, and you need to conserve your strength.”
My side burned in reply, followed by a deeper pain, as if the dying thing might be taking hold. Holy crap, maybe I was dying, really dying. “How long do I have?” I choked out.
“We don’t know,” Wald said, fluffing my pillow.
His cloves and musk blended with something sweet and sugary, but it was the musk I wanted.
I pulled his head down and kissed him. His lips were tight and unyielding at first and then opened for me.
His tongue, his glorious tongue met mine. Ignoring the pain I tugged him lower.
He broke the kiss. “You should not ‘ave done that,” he rasped, standing up, but his bottom lip twitched as if he wanted more too.
“Kissing my boyfriend isn’t going to get me to like you more, you know,” Soda said, walking in a puff of sage green tulle and chiffon.
Fairy clothing. Her long blonde hair was twisted half up in curls, framing her head with dragonfly pins that sparkled as she approached.
She was a vision I could never compete with.
“How’s she feeling?” she asked Wald, placing a cool feather-light hand on my forehead as if I wasn’t in the room. “The fever is low, but I will make something for the pain. You should have called me back when she woke up.”
“You’d been here all night. I thought you needed a break.”
“You know I don’t sleep either,” she tittered back flirtatiously. I would have thrown up if I could. Instead, all I could do was groan to break the hot gaze between them. I wanted Wald to be hot for me like that. He had been and was going to be again, so help me. I was not dying.