* * *
I gasp awake,but my scream is muffled by something soft. I think it may be a pillow, but it’s so wet it could be a sea sponge. I try to twist around but all I manage is to turn my head.
“Lore?” My mind feels fuzzy, yet I’m lucid enough to wonder why he is the first person I call. Because he was the last person I saw?
Fingers sail through my hair. “I’m right here, Little Bird. Right here.”
“Where is—” A cry rips the wordherefrom my throat when what feels like twenty blades flay the back of my body open.
“Shh.” The fingers keep stroking, cool against my scorching scalp.
I squeeze my lids tight as another breaker of pain rolls through me, and fire and ice collide inside my bones.Is raising the dead one of your powers, Lore?
Why? Did you want me to revive the wildling so you could kill her again?
What?I’m so stunned by his answer that I momentarily forget about the pain, but then it comes rushing back, and I grit my teeth and curl my fingers into the bedding.I think I’m dying.
Would I ever let that happen?
You may control many things, Lorcan Ríhbiadh, but you surely cannot control the rhythm of my heart.
I control all that belongs to me, Behach Éan.His voice is both hard and soft, sharp and supple.
My heart belongs to you?
It’s always belonged to me. I’m hoping that soon you’ll understand this, so you stop wasting its precious beats on males who aren’t me.
I snort into my pillow.You are most delusional, Mórrgaht.
My pain softens suddenly, and my mind wanders, drifting as though it’s grown wings, as though I were riding atop a Crow and soaring through the bright blue.
I want so much to live and wander the world.
And fly. Oh, how I long to fly, and not as a spirit. I add this in case the Cauldron is listening and cares to grant me my wish.
I swear to you, Fallon Báeinach, that you will live, wander, and fly.
Another one of your empty promises?
The fingers slow. Halt.
Fire suddenly erupts in my veins, stealing what little respite I’d gotten, and I fall.
But I don’t fall alone. Someone falls with me, and although I cannot see the person’s face, his thunderstorm scent coils around me like the frostbitten threads of his magic.
I’d have preferred to fall with anyone else—well, almost anyone else—but I’ve neither the energy nor the willpower to press this perplexing man away.
* * *
Raised voices rouse me.
My head hurts. My muscles ache. My veins burn. Every part of me is sore.
I feel as though I’ve been strapped to a writhing serpent and set on Fae-fire by a dozen purelings while rabid beasts feast on my entrails, and humans use me as a dartboard.
“You said the poison was out! It’s beendays! Fucking days!”Lore.
“The poison is out, Mórrgaht. I’ve drained it.”Lazarus.
