And the new possibilities to come.
CHAPTERFIFTY
“Hey, babe. How are things looking today?” I asked Alex as I entered Tiberius Thorn’s healing sanctuary.
The facility was a bunker in that it was underground, but unlike most bunkers I envisioned, it was actually kind of nice. Thorn had brought in lamps that mimicked the light of the sun, and tons of plants, most of them medicinal.
“Not bad,” he said, glancing up from a medical chart, and beaming at me.
“I’m such a slug. Hunter and Eva are out jogging around Seattle, and you’ve been in here for hours. And here I am, just now getting up at noon.” With the cup of coffee in my hand, I gestured down to my silk polka dot pajamas.
“You needed the rest, sweets,” Alex assured me, taking a seat at his desk. “Especially if you’re going to stay awake for me to take you out on the town tonight.” He winked.
My heart leapt. I couldn’t wait for our long-overdue date.
“The PJs don’t matter, anyway,” Amelia, the patient in the bed closest to where I stood, spoke softly so as not to wake those who were sleeping. “We haven’t been out of our pajamas in days!”
“You wear them better than me.” I smiled at her. “How are you?”
“Better by the day. Thorn gave me a can of soup to use as a weight to start building up my muscles again. I’m up to five reps!” She beamed at the accomplishment, which was a huge one.
When we’d assessed her at Nightdwellers a little over a week before, Amelia couldn’t even stand. Lifting a soup can? You might as well have asked her to bench a car.
“You’re killin’ it, girl,” I congratulated as I moved over to where Alex sat, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration as he mixed up a tincture for a patient.
After we made a quick stop in London to seal up the Hellgate as tight as we could, a relatively painless task now that we weren’t being threatened by a horde of demons, Hunter, Eva, Alex and I had traveled to Seattle. Tiberius Thorn had requested Alex’s help, and the rest of us weren’t ready to split yet. Seeing as most of the royals were dead, it was probably silly, but we’d come to rely on each other a lot. We were each other’s safety blankets.
And the ex-prisoners needed as much help as they could get. Most had been experimented on, or enchanted in such a way that normal remedies hadn’t worked. Since we arrived three days ago, Tiberius and his favorite protégé had been brainstorming up new cures for whatever ailed each patient.
To be honest, it was kind of ironic that Alex claimedIneeded my rest. Lately, my man had been surviving on less than five hours of sleep a night.
No thanks. I would take being a slug over that.
“Whatcha working on?” I perched on the edge of the desk, and leaned over for a kiss.
“Will has an infection—magically-induced, we’re sure—that we can’t quite pin down. He’s better, but not as far along as we hoped. I’m mixing up a new treatment to see if it will help.”
I glanced at the vial, which held a liquid the same color as a bright blue sky. “You and Thorn are amazing.”
Alex cocked his head.
I gestured to the sanctuary. “Most of your patients have improved so much.”
My boyfriend gave me a sweet smile. “It’s just what we do.”
There was a loud sigh from somewhere in the room, and Alex’s joy fell from his face.
He glanced past me, at the beds. “Do me a favor?”
I nodded, ready to do whatever he needed.
“Chat with a few of the patients? They’re getting bored, and we need to keep their spirits up. They’re probably sick of talking to just each other, or maybe just me. We need new blood.”
I slapped his shoulder; I didn’t like him making digs at himself.
Alex chuckled. “Seriously, though. I need an hour or so to concentrate. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I said. I needed something to do besides sleep, eat, and scour Thorn’s massive library for information on the godlings—the final task I was failing at spectacularly.
