Chapter 32
The next day,Kira quietly shut the door behind her and walked into the bedroom, the silence an ache in her heart. She’d gone downstairs after Echo had dragged her off for a break, leaving Aethan to watch over Týr. But with one glance at Týr’s still body, the hope she’d harbored that he’d be up faded.
Dull daylight cast a soft light over the bed where her once vibrant, larger-than-life warrior lay, brought down to this near skeletal figure. Tyr’s pale features almost matched the gray sheets. Purplish smudges had formed beneath his sunken eyes from his massive blood loss.
Aethan straightened from where he leaned against the wall. “He’ll be up soon,” he said, probably sensing her anguish.
She understood that, but the waiting was killing her. So, she forced a little smile. “I’ll stay with him.”
With a nod, he headed for the door.
“Aethan, wait…” He glanced back. “About Echo accompanying me to the cabin the other night? Please don’t be mad with her. It’s not her fault, I would have gone alone, but—”
“She wouldn’t let you.” His chest expanded as if inhaling a tired breath. “It’s not that I want to keep her trapped here like she accuses me. We have enemies—”
“I know, but we are no longer mortal like we thought, Aethan. And we can take care of ourselves. Echo’s really amazing. With her ability, we got to Týr faster…” But she still couldn’t stop what Narfi had done to him. Pain swamped her again.
“Yes, you arebothpowerful females. Don’t worry about us, we are fine. And what you did, taking on a demented deity? Not many would have been that brave, but you saved our brother, and for that, you have our eternal gratitude.” Aethan inclined his head and left, the door closing softly behind him.
Sighing, Kira sat on the chair pulled close to the bed and shut her eyes, rubbing the dull throb in her temples. At the slight hum of power inside her, she absently followed the trail of glowing energy to the nucleus of where her power resided in the core of her mind. Pretty strands of gold swirled inside her, the vicious red, web-like filaments dormant. For now.
“Kira…”
At the low, hoarse voice, her hand dropped. Frozen, she sat there for a second, her stunned gaze locked with Týr’s pale-toffee ones. Then the tears started at hearing him after so long. She shot up from her chair. “Do you need a drink?”
He grimaced and tried to sit, the sheet sliding down, revealing the dressing on his chest. Hastily, Kira pushed pillows behind his back, and he collapsed heavily against them, perspiration beading his brow, his skin stretched tight over the bones of his face as if he were in pain.
“You shouldn’t be exerting yourself,” she scolded, wanting to hug him so badly.
Instead, she sat on the bed beside him and held the glass to his mouth. His gaze fixed on her face as he drank some of the liquid, almost as if afraid she’d vanish if he looked away.
As she set down the glass, his attention suddenly veered up to the drip suspended on a stand, the one feeding glucose into his vein. His brow pulled into a frown. “How long?”
“Three days.”
He grabbed the taped needle piercing his forearm and yanked it off.
“Týr!” she gasped.
He tossed the thing aside and stared at the blood seeping from the puncture wound, then his self-healing kicked in, and the bleeding stopped. “I’m fine.”
He was such a bad patient.
“How can you say that? You didn’t see yourself. Didn’t see the hole in your chest, your ribs showing—the blood…” Her words tapered off on a choke. “You nearly died!”
“Hey, I’m okay,” he said softly. “It takes more than whatever that blow was to kill me.”
Tears of anger and frustration welled in her eyes. He was impossible. She found it hard to shut off her terror, reliving the moment again and snapped, “It wasn’t a simple damn blow. Narfi struck you with a death spell, one meant to painfully destroy an immortal.”
“Oh…rrright. That would explain why I was out so long.”
Gah. Men! Thank God, the last blood transfusion had taken place a few hours earlier while he was still unconscious, or he would have hauled that needle out, too.
“How do you feel?” she asked on a sigh.
His warm, callused palm covered hers. Remorse darkened his eyes. “I’m sorry,elska.”
“For what?”
