Vade crouched in front of her. His face immediately dropped. “Holy hells . . .”
“You’re here,” she managed before bursting into a grateful sob.
He carefully scooped her up like she weighed nothing and carried her. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. I felt the spell trying to rip me apart and I knew something was wrong. But I didn’t expect . . .this.”
Orelia wrapped an arm around his neck and buried her face in his warm chest, even though it hurt like the hells. She cried the whole way back to the cabin, and only when he set her on the edge of the tub in the washroom did she stop. The warmth from the hearth inthe main room carried into the washroom, eliminating the chill on her skin.
Vade grabbed a cloth from the counter and dipped it into the water basin. “Would you like to do it, or do you want me to?”
“You,” she rasped.
Vade knelt so he was eye level with her. “I’m going to start by wiping away the blood on your skin that isn’t coming from a cut so I can assess your injuries better. Is that all right?”
She smiled at him asking permission to touch her, but her split lip didn’t let her get far. “Yes.”
With more tenderness than she thought him capable, Vade cupped her chin with one hand and carefully wiped away the blood from her forehead.
“Why aren’t you healing faster?” he asked.
Orelia gripped the rim of the copper tub, trying not to sway. “I can’t feel the tingling in my body like usual. Maybe I’m just too drunk.” But she knew something else was wrong with her healing. It had never not worked.
Vade handed her a glass of water, and after a few sips, the scratchiness in her throat subsided. He moved down to her left cheek, and she hissed through the pain. As he worked, an idea came to her. A memory from her younger years when she’d accidentally poisoned herself.
“Nightshade is tasteless,” Orelia said. “Maybe Ivan slipped a berry in there or something when I wasn’t paying attention. This feeling is—” Orelia coughed. “Familiar.” She looked at the ground, ashamed to have let this happen.
Vade ran out of the room and returned seconds later with a vial of dark blue liquid. “Here. This offsets the effects of poison.” He gently tilted her head back and poured the sweet liquid into her mouth.
She swallowed, and he gently wiped away some liquid from the corner of her mouth.
“Hey,” Vade said softly, looking at her swollen eye. “Is Ivan the one that did this to you?”
Tears welled as she nodded. “I tried to be careful when I left the tavern. I snuck through the shadows to get back here like you taught me, but he found me anyway. He tried to get me to come home with him again, saying we were just having fun. When I said ‘no,’ he beat me, then kicked me into the ditch.”
Vade sighed through his nose. She waited for him to reprimand her about putting his life at risk with her decisions, but he didn’t. “You have a cut over your brow that’s pretty deep. It’ll hurt when I press the cloth on it.”
“Go ahead.”
She winced through the pressure, but Vade was gentle. He dunked the cloth in the basin and squeezed out the bloody water.
Orelia stared at the floor, letting him work. Her mind went blank, and Vade didn’t speak until he was finished. He tossed the cloth on the counter. “I’ll be right back.”
She felt herself leaning to the right, even with a firm grip on the tub. She’d give anything to sober up. Flashes of Ivan’s fists hitting her over and over turned through her mind like pages in a book lost to the wind.
Her breathing quickened, panic rising.
The images flashed again and again.
She could hear him curse. Hear him grunt. Feel him hitting her harder.
Orelia put her hand over her erratically beating heart.
Vade entered the washroom carrying one of his black tunics. “This will cover you more than your chemise and might be more comfortable.”
His familiar presence alone calmed her down, and her heart worked its way back to a steady rhythm, Ivan fading into the background.
Vade grabbed her hand and helped her stand, looking into her eyes with a pained gaze. “Do you want me to help you change or let you do it yourself?”
“Can you help me?”
