A cool metal cup held to my lips had me swallowing reflexively, though the water may as well have been acid. It hurt. Goddess, ithurt. A tear seeped out of one eye, falling onto the cloth.
Stop being such a whining little brat,I scolded myself.You’re not dead. Not even close to dead, if you can cry like a smacked baby. Focus.
“What do you need?” Goran’s voice rolled over me like a velvet blanket, comforting me as it always had, though there was a strange coldness to it now. “What herbs, Ratter?”
Ratter?Goran never called me that. It was always Rada in private, or in publicbohinya, his queen. I lifted a hand, intent on taking the blindfold off.
“Leave it. The smoke damaged your eyes.”
I inhaled slowly, feeling the damage in my lungs, my eyes, the odd seared sensation in my nostrils. My feet, I would think about later. For now, I fought to set aside the pain and fear, cataloguing the herbal remedies I’d need.
“My bags.”
“Gone. Left in the fire.”
Some people thought cursing was a sign of a crude mind or poor upbringing. I had both of those, but I knew what else cursing was: a tool for releasing the rage that I would otherwise use to destroy the world. I drew a painful breath and let out a string of profanities, not stopping until I coughed, knife edges raking up and down my esophagus. I thought I heard a chuckle, and I made a fist, wondering if he was close enough to punch, and if I could take him by surprise.
Then I felt a familiar garment under my fingertips. My cloak. I would’ve cried again, with joy, but I’d used up all my tears for the decade.
“Sit up,” I croaked. I felt those massive hands moving beneath me, lifting me until I sat straight. Stars swam behind my eyelids as the pain in my legs tripled, and a few more choice words made their way past my tight lips as I breathed through the sensations.
Goran grunted. “Can I do it?”
“Nah.” I moved my hands down the inner lining along the edge, and the familiarity of the cloth and the small bulges there had me almost smiling. I turned the fabric in my hands, not needing to see to know where the right herbs would be. I slid my nail along the seam, the small knots loosening as I’d designed them to, and the folded package fell into my hands.
At least my fingers hadn’t been burned. I opened the package with one nail and sighed gratefully. “Water.” The cup was held to my lips again, and I took a sip, then spat onto my hand, rubbing the herbs into a paste in my cupped palm. “Blindfold.”
The cloth slid away gently as he removed it. I dipped one finger into the paste, then rubbed it carefully along my eyelid, feeling the puffy skin and charred lashes. I spent far too long transferring the paste to my eyelids, before applying some to the spots on my neck and face that screamed for healing. I pressed my hand to a spot on my chest that felt like it had been clawedfrom the inside. My pendant, the nautilus shell I’d worn for years, was gone.
My head pounded as I thought about it. I fished out another packet of herbs that would work for all sorts of pain, braced myself, and reached down toward my feet.
A large hand stopped me. “Don’t touch. They’re covered with fenrick leaves. They didn’t look as bad as I feared, but I assumed the pain would be intense.”
“Fenrick.” The word came out on a relieved sigh. That was why I couldn’t feel my feet. Fenrick leaves came from a rare succulent plant that was used as pain relief and for severe burns. “Where did you get those?”
“Does it matter?” he asked after a long moment. When I nodded, he said, “I’ve been living with an herbalist for a long while. I picked up a few things.”
“Wren?” The Omega I’d apprenticed to years before had been the one to introduce me to Goran, in a roundabout way. She’d been the one to teach me just how much power our blood held… and how an Omega’s good sense could be stripped away by the manipulations of the Goddess and an Alpha with wings and a knot. She’d forgiven her mates for all sorts of shit. The most important lesson I’d learned watching her was how easily a strong woman could be transformed into a puddle of forgiveness by the damned biological imperative the Goddess had baked into every Omega’s bones.
Watching her forgive the wyvern husband who’d left her to suffer for four decades was one of the reasons I never wanted to take a mate. Well, that and witnessing firsthand what unredeemable trash most Alphas were.
Goran handed me the blindfold, and I put it back on over the herbal paste. “Wren is why I came to Mirren, looking for you. Levi called in my debt. She needs some herbs to stop early cramping and wants you to stay for the baby’s birth. I agreedto ask you for the medicine and pass along the invitation to Drakonspear.”
That explained his presence in Mirrenar, though for some reason, my heart thudded angrily. He hadn’t come for me. He’d come for my skills. Wren was good with herbs, but I’d written to her often about the new combinations I’d developed to help Omegas in labor. I wasn’t certain they would work the same on an Omega pregnant with a kraken, though, and I was sure I couldn’t go to Drakonspear. Not now.
My heart ached as I thought of missing the baby’s birth. “You’ve been living with Wren?”
“Wren? Ah, no. With another Omega, one you haven’t met, unless you’ve been sneaking around Northern Starlak in the past five years.”
My fingers twitched for a knife that I didn’t have. “Another Omega? Where?”
“In far northeast Starlak, near the coast. I’ve been living there on and off for five years now.” His voice changed, softening. “I never thought I’d have an Omega as a best friend.”
It was a good thing my eyes were covered, or I would have burned holes in his face with my rage. “You’ve been living with another Omega? Your… best friend?” I reached up and closed my fingers around his right hand, moving it toward my face. My nostrils were too seared to pick up anything, not even any of his own crisp pine scent.
Fuck.
But I felt something else. There was a ring on the middle finger of that hand, the one that males of Starlak would sometimes wear when they’d found their mate and claimed her.
