I slept.
If a nurse came into my room to draw blood, or inspect my vitals, I had no knowledge of it. I never woke up to thumb my morphine drip. If my pain troubled me, that, too, went unnoticed.
I slept.
***
Gradually, like a diver coming up from deep water, I discovered life returning to me. I heard voices, hushed, as though the owners feared waking me up. Comfortable, relaxed, I drifted on a luxurious cloud, content to lay in my comfortable bed and drift some more.
“I’ve had colleagues who have experienced miraculous recoveries,” one voice said, “but I’ve never experienced that myself.”
“Is that what this is? A miracle?”
That voice belonged to Alaric. What was he doing on my cloud? Dammit, I told him to go away. I want nothing to do with dragons or shifters or miracles. Nestling into my bed, I breathed deeply, trying to return to my sweet oblivion where there was no pain, no morphine, and no dragons.
“She’s awake.”
Hellfire and damnation.Cranky, wishing they’d both leave me alone, I opened my eyes a fraction. The doctor, looming over me with an expression of concern, lifted my right eyelid. He rudely flashed a bright light into my eye, then did the same to the other eye. Alaric, the cad, watched me over the doctor’s shoulder.
“She appears to have nearly recovered,” the rude one commented. “Her vitals are great, her wound has closed with only a red scar.” He hummed under his breath while looking down at me. “Though I don’t like it much, she can be released at any time.”
“I am here, you know,” I snapped crossly. “You can talk to me.”
“Can you sit up, Hayley?”
Annoyed, I huffed and sat up.
I widened my eyes in shock. Running my hands down over my ribs, I found them intact, and no drain sutured into the gunshot wound. I swore it was there just an hour ago. Like the annoying drain, my pain had vanished along with my IV lines, the heart monitor, and the catheter inserted into my bladder.
“What the ever lovinghell?”
“It appears you’ve healed yourself by sleeping,” the doctor said dryly. “You’ve slept for the last forty-eight hours straight. Nothing we did could wake you up.”
“But –”
I stared past him at Alaric, who smirked.
“Since you didn’t need the monitors and such, we removed them,” the doctor went on. “How’s the pain?”
“What pain?”
With a heavy sigh, the doctor straightened. “If this shit keeps happening, I’m out of a job. I’ll sign her release papers.”
As he departed the room, I lifted the gown and my arm to examine my wound. Like he’d said, all that remained was a surgical scar, red and slightly swollen. I stared up at Alaric in part astonishment and part horror.
“What’s happened to me?”
“Lanokota’s gift,” he replied easily, sitting in the visitor’s chair. “She’s healed you.”
“How?”
“Don’t you remember drinking from the vial Willow brought?”
“Well, yeah.”
“There you go.”
“But. That’s impossible.”
