Page 30

Oh, god. Was he going to be just as bad? In some ways worse? At least the foster homes where it was clear there was a predator, I could prep myself, could keep Sloane from finding out how much I sacrificed to keep the attention away from her. The ones that presented nice façades, the good and moral man image? Those ones were always worse, somehow.

“With Arden,” the blond man said in a quiet, gentle voice. “His omega did not handle the transportation well.”

More movement blurred behind the women, my eyes unable to focus on any of it. My stomach flipped again, but I swallowed all of it back down. The guard split apart as if repelled like the wrong poles on a magnet.

“I can evaluate her, Your Highness.” The man’s voice was high and scratchy, almost reedy. A dark blue tunic slowly materialized just in front of the blurs of guards, a dark circlet on his forehead like Callum’s, though I was nearly certain the stone was different. I squinted, trying to keep my head from spinning, but it didn’t help.

Callum shook his head, curling over me until no one could touch me at all, a low growl rumbling through his chest. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him, running his thumb along my skin as I whined at the swirling pain it all caused. The three people who’d approached froze, their breaths catching. Both rags disappeared from my skin.

Someone sighed, the sound full of exasperation.

“If you want to bring her back home, she needs to be stabilized.” It was the same voice as before but with infinitely more irritation. “I can do that while we wait for Reuben.”

Callum only growled louder, the vibrations through his body making my head ache even worse. I couldn’t quite manage to keep this round of throwing up back. He didn’t seem to care, keeping me in his arms as I was sick all over his shoulder and down his back like a damn toddler. By the time the wracking heaves stopped, black spots danced in my blurry vision.

“I’m here,” a rougher voice said, concern woven through the words. There were the sounds of shuffling and murmuring, and then a new person swam into my vision. All I could really tell was bright red hair and a tall, thin body. There was that muttered curse that Callum had used a couple times, and then, “Oh holy Persynthia, nobody move any closer to either of them. Emma, please go grab my larger bag. Phillip, keep a perimeter, please. This isn’t going to be all that pretty, and Callum is going to be in no place to respond rationally.”

There was a rush of movement and clattering that had my head aching all over again. It took me a minute to realize I was crying and shaking. My entire body felt disconnected from my mind, a hundred times worse than the brain fog I’d had when I’d woken in that dark cottage.

“Am I dying?” I asked.

Callum’s arm tightened on me again. It made my leg move, and I screamed loud enough my voice cracked. Another round of heaves completely wrecked my body. There wasn’t even anything left to throw up, and yet I couldn’t stop the visceral reaction of my body.

I couldn’t die. I needed to make sure Sloane was safe, needed to help her get back home.

Red hair came up to my other side.

“Callum,” the new voice murmured cautiously, the way someone might speak to a dog ready to bite, “I need you to breathe and come back from the edge.”

There was a long, tense silence where my hearing wove in and out of underwater, noises disappearing in the rushing waves of my heart and then returning. The arm tight around me loosened and then fell away.

“There you go,” the voice said. “She’s hurt, and I need to check her head because this isn’t normal for the transportation spell. That means I have to touch her. You know I won’t hurt her if I can avoid it.”

There was another bit I didn’t hear, and then hands were carefully but efficiently moving my hair, pulling out the braids and combing apart the strands. They swiped that tender part at the back of my head, and the entire world went dark for several long seconds—minutes? When I could finally hear again, the person was giving instructions.

“Phillip, yes, there. Thank you. Callum, she’s going to scream. It’s not something I can avoid.”

Callum’s voice was hoarse. “I know. Do it.”

Do what?

A palm pressed to my neck at the same time something was pressed against the back of my head. A flood of electricity shot up my spine, straight into my skull. They were right: I did scream. I screamed until my voice cracked and failed, and yet I didn’t pass out. My eyes slowly focused, the black spots disappearing even under the agony being pulsed through my head like the worst migraine I’d ever experienced. I wasn’t sure how long it lasted. It felt infinite. Finally, mercifully, the pain stopped, and the hand pulled away from my neck.

Someone messed with my hair again, and then the new person murmured something that felt positive. Cloths were running over me again.

“How long has the tourniquet been on?”

Callum’s voice was still hoarse. “Half an hour or so. I readjusted it when we got here and she was bleeding again.”

The world slowly crystallized around me again. Callum was a complete mess in front of me, both knees now in the sand, his hands covered in blood and most of his body covered in my vomit. Mortification rose fast enough I wished the ground would just swallow me whole somehow. The blond man was behind him, holding that bucket out for both women who were wordlessly wiping me down with cloths. A third woman quietly joined, her red-brown hair braided like a crown around her head and her green eyes full of worry. She took the bucket from the man and rounded my other side, side-stepping the man with red hair whose name I couldn’t remember.

I gasped in a breath, my heart hammering in my chest.

“What’s her name?” the new man asked.

Callum’s jaw clenched again. “I don’t⁠—”

“Amethyst,” I choked out. Mercifully, the urge to throw up had disappeared with the electric pulse. “My name’s… Amethyst.”