Alexei and Ronen finished off the rest that didn’t flee into the Spinewalker.
Then Ronen was there. In front of me, grabbing my face. His eyes were pitch-black. His shadows writhed around my body, slipping into my wounds, brushing my head, torso, and limbs, checking me over a bit too aggressively.
“Hellion?”
His voice slipped into my body and released the stopper on my adrenaline. My side throbbed. My feet tingled. I slumped against him. His arms wrapped around my waist and hooked under my knees as he scooped me up.
“I found them,” I whispered as my eyes fluttered shut. “I found them.”
Chapter
Forty-Three
Lucille
Pain pierced through my fuzzy head. Then I slipped back into blissful darkness.
Sometime later, I woke to the mid-afternoon sun shining on a dark head resting beside my bed.
Ronen had changed out of his uniform and into a dark sweater and slacks. His head rested against his crossed arms at the edge of my mattress. The unusual sunlight struck the unruly strands falling across his forehead, bringing out hints of blue.
Warmed by the sight, I reached down and brushed his hair back. His golden eyes immediately blinked open.
“Hellion?” He sat up, scanning my face and body.
I felt fine—more than fine. Sam, or more likely Bree, had healed me.
“I…”
A heaviness descended as I remembered everything from the fight. It sank into my bones, settling there permanently. Valarus. Enora. Oliver’s foot. Rune’s.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked.
Ronen closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before sitting back and opening them. “Yes, Hellion. Everyone is on the mend. Oliver had the worst of it. He might limp for a few days. Rune is healed. The rest of your squad and the Dreads had varying wounds, but nothing too serious.”
The rest of my squad. I picked at the blanket covering my chest. “Except Valarus and Enora.”
I decided to take them. And I got Valarus recycled, and I killed Enora.
“Casualties are part of war, Hellion.”
“And that makes it better?” I shifted to the edge of the healer’s bed.
His shadows skimmed his hands like a tempestuous second skin. “No. It makes it real. It makes every choice, down to the last detail, matter. It makes you question, reconsider, change”—he leaned forward, clasped hands brushing my knees—“rage.”
It did. Did I make the right calls? If I could go back and change Valarus’s or Enora’s fate, would I? Valarus’s, yes. Enora’s… I wasn’t sure. Her fear turned her. Ridigar’s words seduced her. I might’ve pulled the trigger, but she pointed the weapon.
Despite it all, the mission was a success. I was sorry Valarus recycled, that Zera most likely grieved, that the weight of her death felt more like guilt than sorrow, and… his fear.
I gently curled my hands around Ronen’s, feeling his anxiety as much as his rage. Tingles shot across my skin, stronger than before.
“I’m sorry for making you worry beyond all reason again,” I whispered.
He dropped his head forward, exposing the back of his tattooed neck. He battled with himself, his anger fluctuating before finally giving way to defeat.
“That was too close, Lucille,” he murmured against our joined hands.
“I know. But we did it.” I brushed his stubbled jaw. “Will you come back to me now?”
