A protector. A killer. The monster that keeps other monsters at bay.
The door creaks open on well-oiled hinges, and Lucky slides back into the room with a wooden tray balanced in her hands. Steam rises from a copper kettle, and various glass jars and leather pouches are arranged neatly beside it. I tense automatically, ready to shift again if needed, but she merely cocks her head at me with something that might be amusement.
“The blood on your clothes is going to stain my floors,” she says matter-of-factly, placing the tray on a side table carved from what looks like a single piece of driftwood. “That wound needs tending before infection sets in. Strip.”
I blink at her, caught off guard. “I’m fine.”
“You’re an idiot.” She rolls her strange violet eyes, and the slitted pupils contract like a cat’s. “And I’m not asking.”
There’s something in her tone that reminds me of my old pack healer, no-nonsense, brooking absolutely no argument, the kind of authority that comes from years of patching up stubborn wolves who think they’re invincible. I glance at Esme, still motionless as death, then back at Lucky. She’s already mixing something in a small ceramic bowl, the scent sharp and medicinal, like pine sap and something that burns.
Reluctantly, I peel off my shirt, wincing as the fabric sticks to the wound where dried blood has acted like glue.
“All of it,” Lucky says without looking up from her work. “I’ll fetch you clean clothes that aren’t covered in Night Court soldier blood and whatever else you’ve been rolling around in.”
The authority in her voice has me obeying before I can think better of it. I shed the rest of my clothes, careful with the arm that still holds the arrowhead buried somewhere in the muscle. I must’ve snapped the shaft during fight, but the tip is still in there, throbbing like hellfire.
Too tired to be modest, I sit naked on the edge of the bed beside Esme. The cool air raises goosebumps along my skin, butit’s nothing compared to the chill radiating from Esme’s still form.
Lucky approaches with the bowl and a clean linen cloth. “This’ll sting,” she warns, then, with one sharp, practiced motion, she digs the arrowhead out of my arm.
Holy fuck.
“Sting” is a massive understatement. It feels like she’s packed the wound with molten steel and fire ants, like someone’s driving red-hot needles directly into the bone. I bite down on my tongue hard enough to taste blood, refusing to cry out and potentially wake Esme.
“What the fuck is that?” I hiss through clenched teeth.
“Briar root, mountain ash, and a few other things you wouldn’t recognize,” Lucky says with perfect calm, as if she hasn’t just introduced my nervous system to a new definition of agony. “It’ll draw out any poison and speed the healing. You wolves might be hardy, but Vanir arrows are often laced with nasty surprises.”
She’s right, already the pain is transforming, morphing from sharp agony to a deep, cleansing burn that somehow feels like progress. I watch through watering eyes as she wraps a bandage around my bicep with practiced efficiency, her tattooed fingers quick and sure.
“Thank you,” I manage once I can speak without embarrassing myself.
Lucky just nods, then turns her attention to Esme. “She’s drained. Whatever she was doing in that lake. . .” She trails off, placing a hand on Esme’s forehead with surprising gentleness.
“How did you know about the lake?”
Lucky’s violet eyes flash with something that might be amusement. “Locke and I have ways of communicating that don’t involve ravens or runners. And I see things sometimes. Fragments in the water, in steam, in reflections. Enough to knowyou were in trouble.” She frowns, moving her hand from Esme’s forehead to her throat, then her wrist. “She’s cold. Too cold for someone who should be generating her own heat.”
My heart clenches with fresh fear. “Is she going to be okay?”
Lucky’s lips press into a thin line that doesn’t inspire confidence. “That depends on what exactly happened down there. Her magic is. . .scattered. Like it’s been ripped apart and put back together by someone who didn’t quite remember how all the pieces fit.” She moves to the tray and begins brewing something in a small copper pot, her movements precise and practiced. “I can help, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
I tell her everything I know, about the trials, the first and the second, about Esme diving into the lake like she was called by something none of us could hear, about the strange lightning strike that seemed to come from the water itself before she fell. Lucky listens without interruption, her hands moving deftly as she works with various herbs and powders, mixing them in combinations that fill the room with scents both familiar and alien.
“The Trials of Identity,” she murmurs when I finish, her voice carrying a weight of old knowledge. “It’s been generations since anyone attempted them. Most who try don’t survive the first trial, let alone make it to the second.”
“But she did survive,” I say, perhaps too forcefully. “She’s still breathing. She’s still here.”
Lucky gives me a look that’s both pity and understanding, the expression of someone who’s seen too much loss to offer easy comfort. “Her body survived. Her spirit. . .to battle one’s own self, to face the truth of what you are and what you’re not. . .” She leaves the thought unfinished, pouring her concoction into a small glass vial. “We’ll see.”
She lifts Esme’s head with infinite care and tips the liquid between her lips, massaging her throat to make her swallow. Themixture smells like spring rain and something deeper, earthier. “Body heat will help,” Lucky says, stepping back. “Get in bed with her, and I don’t mean that the way it sounds. She needs warmth, connection to something living and vital.”
I don’t need to be told twice. Once Lucky leaves, pulling the door closed behind her with a soft click, I slide under the covers beside Esme, pulling her cold body against mine. Her skin is like ice, and I wrap myself around her, trying to infuse her with my supernatural heat, with the life force that runs hot in all my kind.
“Come back to me,” I whisper against her ear. “I don’t know how to exist in this world without you. I don’t want to learn.”
The words feel torn from some place deep inside me, from a well of need I didn’t know I possessed. Here, in this strange tavern, in this stranger land, with the woman I love unconscious beside me, I’ve never felt more lost or more desperate.
