Reverie trembled behind him, but she held tight. "Shh... We’ve got you," she said in his ear, though as he started to choke again, he wasn't sure he believed her. "We've got you, Dorian. Stay with us." Her lips pressed to his clammy temple.
Dorian started choking on the blood again. He couldn’t breathe.
"Now, Mons!" Hagen bellowed.
"Right, right," the stranger said. "Hold him down."
The hand moved over Dorian’s skin again, and Dorian nearly bolted off the table.
Searing heat stretched over the cuts. Not of his form, but a fire of a different kind. This felt of molten iron dripping on his flesh. A pain pulsed through his body hotter than he could stand. He thought he would vomit at the excruciation of it. As though his skin and insides were being melted together. Reverie held tight to his head and shoulders as Dorian's entire body jerked. Corbin's arm tightened around his to its limit. He couldn't breathe. His chest was off the table, muscles seizing—
All the pain stopped.
His muscles edged one last time, and he surrendered into Reverie's chest. A bucket was passed from Hagen to the strange male. It was thrown under the side of the table just as Dorian's stomach lurched. Blood and amber fire emptied into it, and the stranger gave him a clap on his shoulder.
"Get it out, kid," he said gruffly. "Your form will want to evacuate the unfamiliar fire. You'll be puking like this a few days."
Trying to catch his breath, Dorian slumped back against Reverie's chest and closed his eyes. The stranger moved closer to his head, and Dorian once more found him grinning over him. He clapped Dorian's cheek harshly.
"Breathe," he said. "You'll live to fight another day."
Reverie rested her head against the top of Dorian’s, her hand continuing to stroke the hair on his neck. He heard her curse, and she kissed his forehead again. He ignored the chill running down his flesh and pulled all his strength to speak.
"Who are you?" he managed. His gaze caught the place where his gashes had been, and his eyes widened. The gashes were completely closed, four significant scars across his left side and abs now looking as though his skin had been melted together along the lines.
Hagen was glaring at the stranger, arms crossed over his thick chest. Dorian's lungs started to heave again as no one was speaking.
"Hagen, who is he?" Dorian forced.
Corbin exchanged a look with Hagen, and then Hagen stepped forward to the edge of the table. "Dorian Eaglefyre, this is our father. Mons Magnus." Hagen's eyes cut to the male again. "Fuck of a time for you to show up, mate," Hagen sneered.
Mons shrugged. "Heard my beast had been killed. Wanted to see which bastard survived it." His darkened gaze danced over Dorian, and a slow smirk spread on his lips. "Never expected a son of Arbina."
Dorian was still grasping onto it being the Blackhand giver and Lesser One, Mons Magnus, standing in front of him. Mons Magnus, who had saved his life.
Mons held out a hand, to which Dorian forced himself to take. "It's good to see a son of hers not swallowed by her fury. Perhaps that's why my father likes you too," he said, referring to the Ghost of Fire.
"It feels like your father tried to kill him," Reverie snapped. Her arm wrapped around Dorian's shoulders and the front of his chest, hugging him against her, the other hand still entwined in his hair. Dorian could feel the tenseness in her hands, almost as though she were trying to protect him.
Between her grasp on his shoulders and Corbin's still clutching his arm, Dorian was sure he'd never felt safer.
Mons's stared at her as though he’d just actually noticed her. "A Dreamer? Now that's a story I want to hear more of." He clapped Dorian's shoulder again. "Welcome to therealfire family, kid," he said with a wink.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE WIFE, WHOSE name Nyssa learned was Shae, was good on her word.
For three weeks, Nyssa's body was inspected and poured over. Not only by the wife but also by surgeons and men who looked at her as she'd never been looked at before. Men who told her her face was stunning but that it was a shame she had such muscles and fat on her.
The same muscles Nyssa had worked for her entire life. Desperate to be stronger than people thought she was. Muscles that she'd earned in the sand, fighting and climbing cliffs with her brother, the pair pushing one another to their limits.
She wondered if anyone had told him she was missing.
The world wasn't on fire, so she assumed not. She was sure Lex was keeping that bit of knowledge quiet.
On the fifth day, every hair on her body was stripped using wax and ribbon. She'd gritted the inside of her mouth so harshly she'd drawn blood. Some of her skin had burned beneath the heat of the wax, and some had torn off with the ribbons. She was thankful for the creme that was put on the burns, as Shae insisted to the men she did not want her dead.
They thought they could burn off the dark freckles on her shoulders. That if the skin was grown new, it would not carry such spots. She wanted to tell them the scars from their burning her would be worse than any so-called defects the freckles made already.
