She set the glass down on the floor, rose to her feet—and swayed. Dammit. Dizziness forced her back onto the lounge. It wasn’t that she hadn’t eaten much or even that she had just given blood. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her.
Aethan was the first to walk inside and donate plasma. One by one, the others followed.
After the last warrior was done, Kira rose from the lounger and headed down to the kitchen to fetch a container. Back in their bathroom, she filled it with cold water. Kneeling beside the bed, she dipped a cloth into the liquid.
Dried blood smeared his chest and lower torso, and there were specks on his neck and face, too. In his brutal past, he’d awakened too many times to this sight. She didn’t want him faced with that horror ever again.
* * *
Kira straightened and grimaced, ignoring the ache in her back from giving Týr a bed bath. In the bathroom, she discarded the bloodied water and set the metal dish aside, dropping the used towels into it. She undressed and stepped into the shower. Under the cascading water, tears of worry leaked out again.
As she shuffled into the dressing room, a towel wrapped around her body, she found Echo seated on the wooden trunk, pushing at her cuticles while waiting. Her friend nodded to the tray on the dresser. “I brought coffee and sandwiches.”
Food was the last thing on Kira’s mind, but for the last two days, Echo had watched over her like a guard dog. She sighed. “I’m not really hungry.”
Echo got up and shut the dressing room door. “You think it won’t upset Týr to see you wasting away when he awakens?”
Oh, man. “I’m hardly emaciated.” Kira rolled her eyes at her slender friend and opened the closet, searching through her things for something to wear.
“Michael just contributed blood, too,” Echo informed her. “Luceré said since the spell’s broken, he should heal faster now. With all the powerful blood in him, hopefully, he’ll awaken in a day or so.”
Kira spun to her, clothes gripped in her hands, her heart thundering in her ears. “Truly?”
Echo smiled and nodded.
“God, I hope so.” The heaviness inside her easing a smidgen, she pulled on jeans and a forest-green sweater with snowflakes scattered at the neckline.
“Okay, eat up, and then you should try and get some rest. The warriors said they’ll take turns keeping an eye on Týr so you and Luceré can take a break.”
Under her friend’s watchful eye, Kira choked down a grilled cheese sandwich and drank her coffee, then set down her mug. “Where is she?”
“First floor, blue guest room.” Echo picked up the tray, her brow wrinkling in thought. “You know, except for her change in appearance, it’s like being with Gran.”
“Yes. I felt the same when she spoke to me earlier. She explained a lot of things…” Sadness swamped Kira at the sacrifices her mother had been forced to make. There was so much she didn’t know and wanted to understand. “Life’s so unfair.”
“I know.” Echo came back and gave her a one-arm hug. “I don’t care what appearance she takes on, I’m glad we still have her in our lives.”
“Me, too.”
“Okay then.” She smiled. “I’ll get out of here. Please try and sleep once you’re done talking with your mother. Go get in next to your warrior. It will comfort him sensing you close.” Then her soft smile morphed into a wry grimace. “Now to go soothe mine. Aethan’s still rattlesnake-mad because I didn’t call him the moment Gran told us to go to the cabin. I don’t know when he’ll realize and accept that I can defend myself and that we weren’t in any real danger. Well, except when the ass threatened to kill you. Not that I told Aethanthat. Ugh,men.” She blew out a frustrated breath and left.
Now Kira felt worse. She should have insisted that Echo remain behind. She had to apologize to Aethan.
She tied back her damp hair and walked into the vast bedroom, her attention instantly shifting to the massive bed on the other side of the room. Blaéz stood near Týr’s side, his expression pensive.
Týr’s chest slowly rose and fell, the only indication that he lived. A fresh dressing had been taped over the fist-sized wound. An intravenous glucose drip had also been set up alongside the blood one. He appeared to have lost weight, too, as if he’d been through months of illness. It hurt to even breathe, seeing him like this.
Blaéz turned those startling, cerulean blue eyes on her when she stopped at the foot of the bed. “He lives because of you.”
“Except I wasn’t fast enough,” she whispered. “He got hurt so badly.”
“He still breathes, which is encouraging, considering how malevolent that spell was.” His bleak gaze shifted back to Týr. “I saw this moment, long before you both met… Back then, I had no idea what it meant, seeing him swamped by a black storm where a rainbow flickered. Now, I realize you had to be there with him. Without you, his destiny would have taken a darker turn.”
Týr would have died.
Her stomach cramped so badly, she wanted to curl up into a ball until the pain faded. Instead, she wrapped her shaky arms around her waist.
“It will take time, but he’ll be okay,” Blaéz said softly. “Thanks to you and Luceré. But to be brought down by a friend whose bitterness festered for centuries is indeed a betrayal of agonizing proportions.”
