He looked down at his phone, and I turned mine off and shoved it in my pocket before he could reply. Lothar was still on the ground and I heard Relic ask where I was, which was my cue to leave.
I spun around and sprinted away. I didn’t look back.
Lothar told me he wanted freedom, and I loved him too much to force him into something he didn’t truly want. I’d taken so many choices from him, but not this one.
To make him happy, I would give him his freedom—I would set him free.
Chapter
Thirty-One
Lothar
* * *
“How much longer will I be confined to this fucking bed?” I growled.
Willow poured out a measure of some foul-smelling shit. “Another day, two at most.” She poured it into a mug with water to dilute the putrid taste and handed it to me. “I know this sucks, but these aren’t normal injuries, so normal rules don’t apply. You need to be patient.”
I chugged back the potion. No, they weren’t normal. I hadn’t healed like I normally did. The lacerations had taken a week, the broken bones, so far, almost two. Due to the prolonged exposure to blessed silver and my injuries caused by a fallen at her most powerful, my body had taken a serious hit.
Being a fucking invalid wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before, and I felt more insane now than I did when my beast had taken over and used me like a motherfucking puppet.
“I put a sleep draft in there as well,” Wills said.
Fuck. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to get out of this bed and find Roxy.”
She sighed and stood. “Well, you can’t, and you haven’t slept for days. That won’t help your healing, and when you are ready to get up in a day or so, you’ll fall over from exhaustion. So stop complaining and go to sleep.”
I’d fallen over several times while trying to leave, reopening my wounds and refracturing my femur. I rubbed my hands over my face. “Has anyone heard from her?”
Willow shook her head.
“Any word from Zenon? Lucifer still hasn’t talked to her?”
“No.”
“What about her granddaughters? Urs? Have they heard from her?”
“No, Loth, no one has.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I promise if we hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.” Her eyes softened. “You’ll find her.”
The door opened and Relic walked in.
“Excellent,” Wills said to him. “You can stop him from trying to get out of bed. And don’t even think about helping him leave, his bones aren’t finished healing. This is where I remind you of what happened last time. His bones need another twenty-four hours. He’ll manage a few steps, then be flat on his back again, and we’ll be back to square one.” Relic had had a lot more broken bones than me, but his healing hadn’t been hindered, and he’d been back to full strength in a matter of days.
Relic smiled. “His ass will be staying where it is.”
I growled.
They both ignored me.
“I’ve given him a sleep draft, so with any luck, he’ll sleep and we’ll all get a nice break.”
Relic chuckled as she walked out, then sat in the chair they’d put beside my bed. I had a constant stream of visitors, or more around-the-clock guards making sure I didn’t try to go anywhere.
“Anything?” I asked him as soon as she shut the door.
He shook his head. “None of us have been able to pick up her trail. She has to be in another realm or there’s something or someone concealing her.”
