“Where’s Lenora?”
I’m wearing a white shirt—at least, it used to be white. There is absolutely no missing the steady flow of my life force pooling beneath me, or the bloody knife Augustus used to carve Julen open lying at my side.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I roll my eyes when he continues to stare at me. “She’s wherever you sent us.”
“You left her there alone?”
“To save you!” I roar, lifting both hands to show him the glistening flood of blood running down my hands.
He blinks. Glances from my slick palms to the gash in my side, then to my face.
I’m beginning to think there is something mentally wrong with him.
“Why?” he blurts at last.
“Fuck if I know,” I bite out. “You’re a pain in my fucking ass…” I slow down to breathe slowly through my mouth. “But she cares about you and I’m not letting anyone else she cares about die, okay? You’re … family, I guess,” I mumble stupidly.
And earn a cock of his head like some overgrown cocker spaniel. I can almost see the gears moving behind his eyes, a war of confusion and something I don’t give a shit about when I’m bleeding at his feet.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here,” he says, forcing me to calm the urge to scream at him.
“I heard what they said about needing my blood to feed you.” I show him my hands again. “It seemed like a good idea in the moment, but now I kind of wish I’d let them kick you around a bit more.”
He considers this a long moment, then, to my irritation, he nods. “I would have.”
Missing my sputter of indignation, or ignoring it, he moves forward, bends at the waist and tosses me unceremoniously over his shoulder fireman style. The motion tears a snarl from me as my injuries are dropped straight down on his broad shoulder.
“You’re fine,” he mutters moving with long, purposeful strides up the incline to the hole. “Once I’ve made sure Lenora and the baby are okay, you and I are going to have a long talk about being an idiot and putting your life at risk.”
“For you!” I snap. “To save you.”
“I am not important. You are. She is. That baby definitely is. My life means nothing without you … her,” he corrects quickly, but not quick enough. “Mainly her.” He goes quiet the rest of the way up. At the top, he pauses. A heartbeat. I think he’s out of shape and needs a minute to catch his breath, but when he speaks, low and steady, that doesn’t seem to be the case. “Thank you.”
I realize as I hang down his back upside down that this is it. This is our odd little family now. For better or worse, I am stuck with this demon and somehow, we have found a middle ground. A bridge that joins our worlds.
Lenora.
We may never like each other, but we both agree that we love her and we will put up with each other for her. I guess that really does make us a kind of family.
Chapter Forty-Five
Lenora
They’retakingtoolong.
It’s unclear how long, exactly, but the spears of pain are increasing with frequency. Almost overlapping as I kneel in the center of a large, four-poster bed and try to breathe through each one.
I’m unsure where Veyn sent us. The room is none that I’ve seen and I don’t believe we’re in Usher House. What little I can see of the world outside the French doors it’s a starry night, and the city below glistens with a million golden lights.
The room itself is homey. Furnished with patchwork blankets and a thick, foam mattress. It’s been silent and no one has come to see why there’s a random woman giving birth on their bed.
I kneel near the foot, clutching one of the carved posts watching the tall, oval mirror propped in one corner. It’s the same one we’d come through and the same one Marcus had returned in.
What if neither came back?
What if I sent Marcus to save Veyn and I got him killed?
Another twining pulse of agony that has me cutting my nails down the post. My watery gaze never leaves the gleaming surface. I try to bite back the hysteria building up the back of my throat, but it keeps bubbling up my chest.
