My heart began to break into smaller and smaller pieces, the agony of the heat that battered at my body combining with the reality of what I had done, had been forced to do, to protect my mates, overwhelming me.
Axe’s arms circled me. Tarn’s hands stroked my damp cheek. I stared at the pile of ash and charred bone that had been a man, whispered, “help me,” and fell into blackness.
Rigol
The peasant army intercepted two more cloaked assassins on our way to the castle. They fell on them like a wave to shouts of “For the Queen!” and “For the Omega!” By the time I reached the intruders, the pieces of them I could recognize were too small to stab.
In addition to my six guards who were killed outside the pub, two more were found dead at the east gate. The co-captain of my personal guard, Graham Knightley, was discovered on the paving stones beneath Axe’s rooms, gravely injured, his spine broken. Vilkurn had trapped one of the assassins in a dungeon filled with the stuff of his fantasies—and most men’s nightmares. Tarn and Axe were mostly unhurt, save a wound on Axe’s neck that sickened me every time I saw it. If he had died, so would we all. I needed to make full-body armor for all of us to wear around the clock.
Vali was the only one of us still suffering. She had incinerated the assassin who dared to disturb her nest but had overtaxed herself in the effort and had been unconscious for seventy-eight hours. Nothing we could do would wake her; the herbalists and apothecaries we called to her bedside all wrung their hands and shook their heads. Only the knowledge that Vali would disapprove kept me from sending them to the dungeon for their failures.
Vilkurn had retreated to torture the spy. Axe had spent his time rounding up traitors who had helped the Guild infiltrate Turino and had kept his axe in use. I sat with Vali almost every hour, touching her, wiping her down with cool cloths when her fever wouldn’t break.
She lay as if she were dying.
I prayed like I could convince the Goddess to take me instead.
Tarn hadn’t slept, spending every moment reading in his valuable collection of texts on Omegas, hunting for an answer. Finally, Sorcha came up from the laundry to check on Vali and the rest of us, berating Tarn for not eating or drinking. “You’ll do our wee girl no good at all if you’re neglecting your health. In fact, the more you lot hurt yourselves, the more she’s bein’ hurt. You share them matin’ bites an’ all.”
“Shit,” I murmured. “She’s right. Vali’s physical health could be connected to ours.”
Tarn began stuffing the sausage roll into his mouth, his eyes almost tear-filled.
“Aw, don’t worry, lad,” Sorcha crooned. “You don’t need to make yourself sick eating for her. But I have a feelin’ it’ll help her.” She sighed. “The cat’s doin’ fine, and her wee kittens are well, all four of them. I had the servants strip the sheets off that big bed you boys put together for her, the one in the Guest Suites. Thought you might like to get in there, the four of ya. Get to work.”
“What do you mean?” Tarn’s bloodshot eyes narrowed on Sorcha’s face.
She sucked at the space where one of her front teeth once resided. “Well, one of my grandma’s tales was about a sleeping princess, like.”
“A sleeping Omega?”
“Maybe.” She let out a huff of breath. “Musta been. See, the princess was taken by a witch up into a tower and left there to sleep on the stones. Her knights were seeking her, and when they found her—after goin’ through the usual dragons and griffins and whatnot—they couldn’t wake her. Not with a kiss, not with nothin’.
“But then one of her knights brought her in the fixins’ for a bower, like. Blankets from his own bed. The others did the same, and when they’d all contributed, she woke up.”
“That’s it?” Tarn’s eyes went wide. “We just need to build her a new nest and she’ll wake?”
Sorcha shrugged. “Well, my grandma always did leave out the juicy bits of the stories. My guess is there’ll need ta be a bit more than just nest building to help your lass get back on her feet. I’ll sit with her while you lot get sorted.”
In less than a half hour, we had rounded up Axe, persuaded Vilkurn to wash the blood off before he joined us, and stood together inside the room where, only a few days before, I had laughed at Axe’s insistence on building a perfect nest.
But now, building a perfect nest was more than a desire. It was a pressing need.
“You’re sure this will work?”Axe signed.
“No,” Tarn answered, “but Sorcha said to try it.” Vilkurn handed me a fluffy blanket, and we began.
In less than an hour, the nest was complete as far as we could tell, with sheets and blankets that only we had touched lining the edges of the enormous bed. Velvet pillows and satin-covered bolsters rimmed the inner edge of the low cloth walls when Axe came striding into the room, carrying our queen in his giant arms as gently as he would cradle a newborn.
We watched as he settled her into the middle of the bed, then stepped back, waiting. She didn’t change or move. Her breathing pattern was still the short, sharp panting it had been for days, but as we stood on all sides, it hiccupped and ground to a stop.
“Vali!” Vilkurn had his ear against her chest, listening for a heartbeat, when she took another, longer breath. He relaxed and murmured, “Scared me, kitten.”
“Keep breathing, Peaches,” Tarn rasped. I wasn’t the only man in the room with damp eyes, and I was certain I wasn’t the only one praying with every breath she took from then on.
Her skin was flushed crimson, sweat dripping in rivulets. Tarn’s forehead creased, and he reached for a glass of water on a nearby table, drinking it down as quickly as he could. I wasn’t sure it worked the way he thought it might, but I didn’t dissuade him from trying to eat and drink for our mate.
We would try anything.
