“I couldn’t stop him,”I confess, and sorrow bleeds out of me with the admission.“You guys were right. We should have never split up.I thought I could do it alone…”A sob cuts me off.
“I love you, Vinna. We love you. We’re coming for you, and then we’ll end him together.”
Relief floods me and helps drown out the throbbing ache that’s hammering my insides. I start to become more aware of my surroundings, and Valen’s voice gets further away.
“I’m waking up,”I warn him, and a soft echo of,“We love you, we’ll be there soon,”wraps around me before it disappears.
I open my eyes slowly and look around. I’m in a cell, but I can immediately tell it’s not the same one I was in with Lachlan. That cell had stone walls that were darker, but the stone in this cell is tanner and more porous. I test my muscles by trying to sit up, but it hurts and takes too much effort, so I drop back to the cool rock floor.
“Your leech friend told me to give you this as soon as you woke up,” a voice sounds behind me. The distinct pang of metal on rock rings out to my right, and with way too much effort, I turn my head to find a metal canteen. I know what’s in there, and I’m painfully aware of how badly I need it, but fuck I hurt. I stare at the silver container and realize, even if I can manage to grab it, which is doubtful since I’m pretty sure I just spent all the energy I have turning my head, I definitely don’t have the strength to lift it to my mouth.
I close my eyes and breathe through the feeling of helplessness that rises inside of me. I’m getting really fucking tired of feeling this way. I grab onto Valen’s promise that they’ll be here soon and lick my dry lips.
“I need help,” I tell Becket, who’s sitting somewhere behind where I’m lying. He doesn’t say anything or move toward me. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t have to, but I can barely move my finger, let alone drink that,” I grudgingly admit. I wait in the silence that overtakes the cell, and just when I think he’s going to leave me here to struggle on my own, Becket’s hand reaches out and picks up the canteen from the ground.
He scoots closer to me, and the next thing I know, his hands are under my arms, and he’s pulling me into a somewhat upright position. Becket’s legs are sprawled out on either side of my body, and my back is supported by his stomach and chest. He unscrews the top of the canteen and brings it to my lips. I empty the contents quickly, greedily swallowing every last drop of blood, and wait for it to heal all the damage I did in my failed attempt at killing Adriel.
The blood immediately starts to work, and I’m able to tilt my head to the side and look up at Becket. I’m shocked when a very bruised and battered face stares down at me, and I suddenly feel like a selfish bitch for drinking the whole canteen without even offering a sip. “Sorry, I should have saved some for you from the look of it,” I tell him, nodding my head at the canteen that he’s set on the ground.
“I’d have to be hurt a hell of a lot worse than this before you’d catch me chugging down blood like it was the best thing I’d ever tasted,” he tells me, the disgust and judgement in his tone clear.
“Noted,” I tell him as I push off his chest and move away from him as fast as my tired muscles can take me. The blood continues to move through me, repairing and fortifying my body, and I stretch out and take stock of any injuries. “So I take it, by the state of your face, that I didn’t simply imagine you stabbing Adriel through the throat with an arrow?”
Becket releases a humorless snort, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a smile that doesn’t reach the one eye that’s not swollen shut. “Some good it did. He didn’t die, and his guards were on me before I could do anything else. I got to watch that piece of shit get thrown across the room over and over again when he kept trying to bite you so he could heal. It took some of the sting out of the beating I was receiving,” Becket chuckles and then winces when the movement pulls at his split upper lip.
I mentally high-five my magic for continuing to protect me even though I was unconscious. I smile at the thought of Adriel getting thrown into a wall over and over again. “Bet that pissed him off.”
“Oh yeah, he finally gave up when he realized he wasn’t going to get so much as a hint of a fang in your pinky finger and then turned on me.” I tense at his revelation and start searching his exposed skin for bite marks. “But guess which runes you marked me with?” he asks, and his brown eyes light up with amusement.
“You have fucking shields,” I recall with a chuckle, and he nods his head yes.
“I got to throw him into the wall five more times before he was carried out of the room, raging and covered in blood. Too bad it’s so fucking hard for them bleed to death,” he grumbles, and I grunt in agreement.
“Learned that shit the hard way my first night here,” I confess. I lean against the wall and start to work the tangles out of my hair with my fingers.
Silence seeps back into the cell, and it’s like Becket just remembered that he hates me and shouldn’t be laughing about getting the best of Adriel.
“I didn’t know if you would be able to use your runes,” I admit, fully expecting him to ignore the statement now that he’s once again classified me as the enemy.
“Elder Cleary practically forced me to start trying to use them. I’m shit with the bow and arrows, and the mace seems a bit useless. You need to update your arsenal. Bring those magical weapons into this century. No one uses a mace anymore,” he grumps, and I chuckle.
“I just killed a bear shifter with one,” I tell him, and he rolls his eyes.
“Of course you did,” he deadpans.
“It’s a good option when you need to do damage and work out some aggression at the same time,” I offer, and he just shrugs and shakes his head.
“Would you like me to try and heal you?” I ask, gesturing with my hand at the eye that’s black and swollen shut.
“I thought you couldn’t with that thing around your neck?”
“It doesn’t stop me from using magic; it just makes it fucking excruciating.”
“You could barely move five minutes ago, and now you want to hurt yourself even more to heal a couple bruises?”
“A couple bruises?” I challenge. “Bruh, you look like one big fucking bruise.”
He smiles like he can’t help himself and then works to put his scowl back in place.
