Whatever small hope I had allowed myself to feel that I could learn to channel my mana was dashed when the next thing I knew, I was waking up to the oppressive weight of Draven’s fury.
Slowly, I took stock of my surroundings.
I was in his bed, on my stomach, with Batty trilling worriedly from the pillow next to me. My body was drained, like I hadwalked through a desert for days on end without food or water or shelter.
And my wings burned as if they were on fire.
Something trickled down my skin, and I reached a hand up to my nose only for it to come away covered in blood.
“Son of a frostwhore,” my sister cursed. “It’s bleeding again.”
Her slim hand came into my periphery, holding out a cloth for me. I took it, and her hands went to my wings instead.
“What happened?” I croaked out.
“Oh, nothing. You know, just, the two of you apparently thought it would be smart to poke the frostbeast of your uncontained mana without bothering to have a healer present.”
Her touch was far more gentle than her tone as she rubbed ointment into my wings in a familiar soothing motion, just as she had treated my wounds the first time I was brought to her.
“As soon as you attempted to channel your mana, it spun out of your control. Your wings emerged, and your ice punctured through them before I could control it.” Draven delivered the words in what might have been a matter-of-fact way, if I couldn’t feel the rage that underpinned every single one.
At himself? Or at me again for going to get this power to begin with?
Both, most likely.
Fatigue clawed at my limbs, darkness threatening the edges of my vision.
“Amias is on his way, but I’m doing what I can in the meantime.”
If he hadn’t come yet, that meant he was with Nevara. It didn’t bode well that he couldn’t leave her side, knowing how forcefully Draven must have demanded his presence.
I sighed. Suddenly, the idea of returning to unconsciousness felt less like a threat and more like a reprieve. I gave into the darkness that beckoned at the corners of my mind.
The last thing I heard was Batty’s indignant squeak, just as I felt Draven’s weight settle onto the bed next to mine.
Chapter 17
Everly
Islept through the day and the rest of the night, but between my sister’s salves and Amias’s healing, I woke up with the wounds on my wings already scabbed over.
Not that it mattered much when it wasn’t like I could use them to fly.
How do you stand it?
Did you think I was planning on hiding you forever?
I pushed away the echoes of Draven’s and Zerina’s voices in my head, still too groggy to consider all the implications of a future I might not even live to see.
Draven’s mana was close enough that I knew he must be in his sitting room, so I left the door between our rooms cracked as I went to my own bathing chamber.
I got all the way to the outside of the tub before I remembered that I couldn’t call my own bath. Even now.
All the risk I had taken, and I couldn’t risk channeling my mana long enough to learn to do basic household things with it. Gritting my teeth, I debated whether it was worth facing my irate husband to rid myself of the grime and sweat that still clung to me from yesterday’s… misadventure.
I could still feel his frustration echoing through the bond, and he had made no move to come after me, though I knew he must have sensed that I was awake.
But I was also disgusting and had no way of calling for Mirelda.
