With a scoff, Phulan pursed her lips at Whelan. “You haven’t told him?”
Whelan raised his hands in surrender as he looked at the mage. “I just woke up.”
“What is it?” Madan demanded, feeling more than ready to puke the longer he had to wait for what had happened. Though neither of them appeared overly alarmed by the situation, his mind ran through all the ridiculous possibilities. Did he lose a limb? Was his lifespan more limited? What had Phulan done?
“You know as well as I do that I’m no miracle-worker,” Phulan said. “I do the best I can with what I’m given, and sometimes I’m able to make things better. Other times, I must take what I can.”
Madan wiped his cheeks with the end of his amputated arm. “So, then, what did you do?”
It was Whelan who took his hand and held on firm. “I have been trying so hard since she finished healing me, but…”His beautiful face crumpled as he searched for the words. A heaviness draped over him as he came to terms with what he was about to say. When finally he spoke, his tone lowered to a rasp. “I can’t feel my legs.”
A weight settled on Madan’s chest at the same moment the knot in his stomach eased. It wasn’t a death sentence by any means, but the implications were numerous. There were few things in the dhemon culture that were shunned, but everyone had their biases. In a world where the people knew of only war and death and destruction, the inability to walk or even stand was looked down upon as more than a weakness. It was a liability to others and a shame carried by anyone who suffered from such an ailment.
That shame shone in Whelan’s eyes as he searched Madan’s face for the rejection he expected. His grip on Madan’s hand loosened, and everything about his demeanor shrank. Where whole-hearted enthusiasm once bubbled forth, now a shadow crept in. He closed his eyes, mouth a taut line of tempered emotions, and turned his face away.
But as Whelan began to pull his hand away, Madan held on firm. “Look at me, Whelan.”
His eyes opened, yet he didn’t turn his face back towards him.
Madan glanced at Phulan, who sighed as though she’d been struggling with this since Whelan first understood his new limitations. Rather than impede, however, she simply turned to a nearby patient to check on them. In doing so, she remained close without interfering.
When Whelan still did not look at him, a tear sliding free as he gazed at the tent ceiling in the distance, Madan cursed under his breath. Using his amputated arm on the curve of the nearest black horn, he tilted Whelan’s face back towards him. “Look at me.”
Sad red eyes slid up to meet Madan’s gaze.
“I love you, Whelan,” he breathed, his entire world crumbling at the way his partner suddenly viewed himself. “You are the very beating of my heart. Do you truly believe I would leave you? I will carry you every night for the rest of our lives if I must.”
That succeeded in gaining a rough chuckle from the distressed dhemon as he imagined Madan trying to half-carry, half-drag his much larger partner from place to place. Whelan sobered quickly, though. “I don’t know if I can do much of anything that I used to.”
It wasn’t until that moment that Phulan interrupted again. After working her way farther and farther from them, the mage perked up with a huff and called over her patients, “This isn’t a death sentence, you big oaf, and no one is going to need to carry anyone, either.”
Before they could tell the meddlesome mage to look after her patients and not interrupt them, Revelie was at the foot of Whelan’s bed pushing along a large chair upon, not legs, but wheels. Madan had seen such a contraption before, but only ever in Algorath for the elderly or infirm. Dhemons, being a war-strained and migratory culture, would never have utilized such designs. Vampires had no use for them, what with their fast healing.
Whelan’s eyes flew open wide. “You want me to sit inthat?”
“How else do you expect to get anywhere?” Revelie asked with haughty patience. A patience that Madan realized would vanish the moment she learned of Camilla’s fate. It wasn’t his place to deliver such news and therefore kept his mouth shut.
Glancing at the dhemons on either side of him, Whelan’s expressions went through a large range of emotions. “I don’t think—”
“You’re right,” Phulan snapped, “youdon’tthink. Do you expect to just sit in that bed for the rest of your life? I have places to be. Now just try it.”
Whelan let loose a long sigh, then dug his elbows into the cot to shove himself into a seated position. His shoulders flexed and strained as he used his arms to hold himself upright. The bandage around his torso displayed blood along Whelan’s spine, making Madan’s breath catch. Refocusing on his partner’s face, it pinched with concentration.
“Are you in pain?” Madan asked, moving off the bed. “You don’t have to do this yet.”
After mumbling something about a mage who wouldn’t leave him alone until he moved, Whelan paused and sucked on his sharp teeth before casting his eyes away and whispering, “I can’t get my legs to the side of the bed.”
Madan waved Revelie closer, then shoved the blankets on Whelan’s legs aside. Hooking the nearest leg at the ankle with his amputated arm and the farthest at the knee with his hand, he shifted the dhemon’s legs to dangle over the edge. A poorly concealed chuckle had Whelan glaring at him.
“This isn’t funny, Madan.”
But Madan’s grin only widened as he tucked an arm under Whelan’s shoulder and helped support his body weight while he shifted haphazardly into the wheelchair. Revelie, her vampiric strength more than he would’ve given her credit for, hooked her own arm under Whelan’s far shoulder to prevent him from tipping over.
“Look at us,” Madan said, still struggling to force his grin away. He held up his amputated arm, gestured to his own missing ear, and then shook his head at Whelan. “We’re a fucking mess.”
Whelan gaped at him for a long moment, then barked a laugh that dissolved into hysterics. Leaning back into the chair, the dhemon covered his face with his hands to hide his mirth as his shoulders shook. The sound was contagious, drawing in Madan, then Revelie and Phulan, and even a few dhemons around them.
When he dropped his hands again, Whelan shook his head, still chuckling, before grabbing Madan’s hand and dragging him onto his lap. Madan parted his lips for his mate’s crushing kiss and knew in that moment that, despite the horrors around them, they would be alright.
