Across the room in front of the fireplace, a jaguar raised its head off its paws and stared at me with icy emerald eyes. It hissed in my direction. Next to it, a wolf with red eyes flattened its ears and bared its teeth at me.
Opening my mouth, I asked if?—
The doctorrudelyjammed my dislocated shoulder back into my socket, and throbbing pain radiated down my side.
I whimpered.
A wolf’s deep growl vibrated through the room.
Sharp feedback burned my left ear.
The doctor glanced back at the animal and took a step back from me. “All her dislocated bones have been reset. I just need to wrap any fractures.”
As if she heard him, the other doctor walked in. She had a green crow on her shoulder and a clipboard with a long page in her hand.The winged abomination (I’d never liked birds) glared at me as she held up the page to her colleague.
They both gaped at it, looked down at me, then stared at the paper.
“What is it?” Patro asked with annoyance. The doctors had been stitching and setting my bones for hours, and he was clearly losing his patience.
She turned over the sheet. It was an X-ray of my body—they’d scanned me with a fancy handheld Spartan machine—and there were red arrows drawn on it in permanent marker. “The arrows are where her bones are fractured,” she said.
There were alotof arrows.
My wrists and forearms were practically covered in red.
“How the fuck are you still alive?” Patro asked softly.
I’ve been asking myself that for years.
Achilles stared at me from the end of the bed. Since he couldn’t speak with the muzzle, it was unclear what he was thinking.
I was jealous.
If I had a muzzle, then people wouldn’t expect me to talk to them.
I wonder if he’ll let me borrow it.
“Do you know how many broken bones Achilles and I had—between the two of us—after our massacres?” Patro asked through gritted teeth. “Guesshow many.”
Both doctors backed away from the bed and glanced anxiously at the men.
Achilles crossed his arms.
He’d taken off his suit jacket and tie and unbuttoned his cuff links. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing an intricate tattoo on his right forearm. A weapon holster hung loosely across his wide chest.
“Guesshow many,” Patro repeated harshly.
He snapped his fingers in front of my face.
I glared at him.
Green eyesflashed.
“Zero,” he enunciated slowly. “We survived because we brokeeveryone else’sbones—that’s how it works.”
I gritted my teeth, sweat dripping down my brow as another wave of pain coursed through me.
Turning, Patro slammed his fist into the wall next to the headboard and breathed roughly like he was trying to get control of himself.
