by Moni Boyce
All he could think about was getting to her, but before he could do that, he had to dispense with these monsters. “Gladius.” He stated and watched the staff in his hands change into a sword. In a quick motion, he spun around and swung the blade toward the woman’s throat. Anyone else would have been decapitated, but she had expected his move and burst into a swarm of bats before the blade connected.
The retreating swarm must have been a signal to the other vampires because they either ran away using their super speed or vanished into the mist and fog, which receded and disappeared once they all fled.
With the battle over and the impending threat departed, he charged across the meadow like a steaming locomotive gone off its rails.
Once he reached her, he dropped next to her limp, seemingly lifeless body. When he recalled the way she looked at him after realizing she’d been wounded, something twisted in his gut. Thankfully, she’d landed on her side and hadn’t caused any further damage with her fall. He placed his hand on her stomach. “Sana.” A faint white light glowed beneath his hands as he tried to summon enough magic to heal her, but barely anything happened.
Dirt and debris kicked up as Phaedra skidded to his side. “How bad is she?”
His eyes darted around to the various parts of Willow’s injured body. The cut on her forehead, the purplish choke marks that lined her throat then his eyes finally took in the horror of the spear that impaled her. Blood oozed from the wound that could prove fatal. Something took hold of his tongue and wouldn’t let him speak. He was in shock. Fear wound itself tightly around him like an anaconda readying him for a snack.
“How bad?” After several seconds of his lips moving and no words coming out Phaedra shoved him out of the way and started to tend to Willow. He landed on his ass in the dirt and watched in terror.
“Sana.” Phaedra tried to heal her with her magic, but it was the same effect. Nothing.
Mathilda, Zoriana, Morgana and Max all crowded around, trying to help save Willow’s life. They talked around him, but he couldn’t have told you what was spoken. The last words he’d said to her played on a loop inside his head. He’d fed her a bunch of lies and hid behind his duty, instead of telling her how he felt. Now he may never get to tell her. If she died, she’d never know. All she would have would be his righteous honor he’d shoved down her throat.
Max was already off and moving when Phaedra’s voice penetrated his thoughts. “Her being half faery is what’s keeping her alive right now. I need you to pull your head from your ass and get it together. We’re all too weak to use magic to save her after expending a ton of magic during that battle. We have to do this the old-fashioned way.” She snapped off the back end of the spear. “Whatever you have to say to her you can say once we save her life, but right now we need you.” She never spared a glance in his direction the whole time she chastised him for losing his shit. “Go strip the bed of sheets and bring them back here. I already have Max boiling water.” She placed her hand on the spear that still protruded from Willow’s side. “Morgana go find the healing salve I made of yarrow, self heal, comfrey and rose. Mathilda make sure nothing will be in our way when we carry her into the RV. Zoriana you’ll stay here with me.”
For a minute, they were all stuck in place. Everyone concerned for Willow and on edge over the lack of being able to use their magic to heal her.
“Move!” The sharp crack of Phaedra’s order sent them scattering in all directions to do her bidding. He was glad to have something to do, to keep his mind occupied.
After finding whatever clean sheets he could he physically tore them to strips while using his magic to tear more. At least it allowed him to do that. When he returned, the rest of the spear lay to the side and they had torn away most of her shirt. More blood was pooled beneath her. Zoriana had her hand pressed into the wound. The blood loss made her beautiful brown skin look nearly as white as the sheets he carried. She still had not regained consciousness and for that he was thankful because she would have been in agonizing pain.
“Give those to me.” When Phaedra barked the order at him he moved closer and handed over the sheets.
Morgana ran up with the salve. “I found it.” She was out of breath.
Max hurried over with the cauldron of boiling water. The iron pot landed with a heavy thud on the ground. Phaedra dipped in some of the sheet. “Did you bring the other thing?” Everyone looked to Max to see what she referred to. He held up the steel tent peg that now glowed an orange-red at one end.
“What are you going to do with that?” In the state he was in, he asked stupid questions he already knew the answer to.
“We have to cauterize the wound.” Her voice was forceful before her eyes swept over Willow’s flushed face. When she turned her eyes back to him, her features softened and her voice was gentler as she gave him yet another explanation why things had to be done this way. “Her wound could be a fatal one and right now our magic isn’t strong enough to heal her. In the morning, after our magic has had time to replenish, we should be able to heal it, but right now we have to stop this bleeding. This is the only way.” Phaedra looked at him with something akin to pity and sympathy. “I need you to hold her down. She’s likely to wake up when that touches her skin.”
His jaw tightened, but he moved to the top of her head and placed his knees firmly in the dirt before placing his hands on her shoulders. Phaedra finished wiping as much blood away as she could so they could have a clear view to the wound. “Now.” Once she gave the word, Max pressed the scorching end of the peg to Willow’s skin. The only sound that could be heard was the sizzling of her flesh before she came to.
She howled and shrieked. On either side of her Zoriana and Mathilda held onto her arms and hands. Her head tilted back, and she stared into his eyes. The wild, tortured look on her face branding itself forever into his brain, much like the red-hot poker was doing to her flesh. Max took the rod away so they could turn her onto her side and he pressed the metal to the back of the wound. Her cries pierced his heart. Seconds later, she passed out again.
When he finished Morgana and Phaedra worked quickly to pack either side of the wound with salve before they began to wrap her midsection with the dried strips he’d brought back. Once they had her bandaged, they put her on a blanket and carried her into the bedroom aboard the RV.
“I’ll start out sitting with her... unless...” Mathilda looked to him.
Now that she was stable he wanted to sit with her, but all he could feel was guilt over not getting to her fast enough or using his magic. He was supposed to protect her. Even though logic and reason told him that either way he wouldn’t have been fast or quick enough he couldn’t stop binging on guilt cookies. “No... you sit with her.” He left the RV. Phaedra followed him.
“We can’t stay here.”
“I know. I’ll drive.” He’d already shoved items into the storage area at the bottom of the RV. As he collected their things, his eyes kept being drawn to the blood-stained grass where her blood began to congeal. The setting sun caught the reflection of something shiny in the grass. He walked over to see what it was and found her dagger. He turned it over in his hands a few times and then wiped the blade off on his pants. When she recovered, he’d return it to her.
No one said anything to him. Everyone else except for Mathilda worked quickly to gather everything up so they could get on the road. Max made quick work of burning any dead vampire bodies left behind. Zoriana cast a spell to change the outside appearance of the mobile home. Thankfully, they could use simple magic such as that. Healing required so much of them, especially with a wound like Willow’s. It angered him there was nothing they could do for her until later. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
Within thirty minutes they were pulling out of the clearing and onto the dirt road that led back out to the main road. Unlike the times before where they traveled with the sounds of talking, laughter, music playing or a card game filling the space, there was complete silence.
> Eli had put his torn shirt over his grime-covered body before he took his seat behind the wheel. Everyone still wore battle stained clothes. The metallic smell of blood hung in the air, but no one said anything. It wasn’t just the blood of the fallen vampires that left an odor. The stench reminded them that Willow lay wounded, unconscious and clinging to life in the bedroom, because they failed to protect her. He failed to protect her.
After hours of aimless driving, Phaedra touched his shoulder. “Instead of camping, we need to find a motel.” She must have seen that he meant to keep driving if it meant driving to the ends of the earth to keep Willow safe. “She needs to rest if she’s going to get better and the constant jostling from this vehicle will not help her.” She knew what to say to appeal to his logic and reason. Once she used Willow, he would comply.
He pulled onto the next off-ramp and they found a fleabag motel. Zoriana used magic to make the RV invisible once they parked it at the back of the parking lot. After they paid for the rooms, Morgana and Mathilda went inside to once again use magic to sanitize and sterilize the room that Willow would occupy, then they carried her in and lay her on the bed.
Blood stained her cheek and mud matted her hair. She looked feverish. Fear knotted his gut and twisted around it like barbed wire.
What if she gets worse? What if she doesn’t survive the night?
“I’ll clean and redress her wound tonight. In the morning we’ll be recovered enough to heal her and then give her a bath.” Phaedra spoke to everyone, but he was sure she was saying those things to ease his mind.
“I’ll stay with her tonight.” Max spoke up.
“Get some sleep.” This time Phaedra spoke directly to him. “There is nothing more you can do for her right now.”
He left the room with Mathilda, Morgana and Zoriana who each tried to console and comfort him, but he shook them off and headed to his motel room. His restless mind was too wound up for sleep. Once he pulled the curtains and shut off the lights, he dragged a chair towards the window to wait for Phaedra to pass. He knew her room was further down and she had to walk past his to get there. Once she was inside, he would go to her. Twenty minutes later, Phaedra walked by his room, but not without stopping at the door. The complete silence and darkness must have stopped her from knocking. Even if she had knocked, he would have pretended to be asleep and not answered.
The click of her room door let him know when she went inside. Like a soldier biding his time before his mission began, he waited and waited and waited some more before he finally slipped from his room; secure in the thought everyone had gone to bed and wouldn’t hear him. When he exited, he turned the knob to make sure the door wouldn’t squeak and give him away. He walked back down to Willow’s room and placed his hand on the locked door. “Recludo.” The door swung open slightly.
When he stepped inside, he saw Max sleeping in dog form at the end of her bed. He looked over at him. Eli was afraid he’d bark and put his pointer finger against his lips in a request for silence. Max’s head dropped and he whined.
He sat on the side of the bed and gazed at her. Even though the room was only bathed in the moonlight that streamed from the windows he could see her skin was flushed. When he placed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, she burned like she had a furnace living inside of her. She appeared to be having a fever dream. Her eyes moved restlessly beneath her eyelids and her body twitched and spasmed from whatever craziness her mind conjured up in its delirium. It pained him to think of her dreaming with no escape from whatever hellish world her mind imagined that could include Killian. He had to make her better.
“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.” He whispered to her.
Moving his body closer, he placed his hands over the newly bandaged wound and shut his eyes. “Sana.” A faint white light glowed beneath his hands, but instantly he felt an intense pressure in his skull. His nose bled, ruining the white sheets that covered her. It was too much, but he had to try. He tried to push the limits of his powers past what he was physically capable of in his sleep deprived, weakened physical and mental state. The pain in his head increased.
“I knew you wouldn’t listen.” When Phaedra had entered the room, he didn’t know. “Addormio.”
The next thing he saw was only blackness.
If you plan to continue with this series, there’s an epilogue...but I suggest you stop here if you don’t like cliffhangers and don’t plan to continue. Thanks for reading!
CHAPTER 27
Willow
While her body fought off the infection that happened after being wounded she’d fallen in and out of restless, frenzied nightmarish dreams. Flashes and snippets of noise and sound permeated her unconscious mind, but she couldn’t make sense of anything. It reminded her of scenes ripped out of the film Jacob’s Ladder. Unfortunately, she couldn’t wake herself. For a moment she wondered if she was dead, then she heard Eli’s voice talking to her. Maybe she imagined it.
Morgana and Zoriana had been by her bedside when she opened her eyes. They mentioned they healed her, but she would have a scar. She’d been groggy and fatigued down to her bones.
For the first few days after she woke up, despite only having the scar where the spear had ripped through muscle and flesh, her body was severely weak.
Phaedra had been the ringleader in confining her to bed so she would heal and recover quickly. They each took turns sitting with her and sleeping in her room each night. One day in her recovery saw her battling an intense migraine, but thankfully by the next day it was gone.
It was now six days since she awakened and she hadn’t seen him once. Where was Eli? Why hadn’t he come to see her? Even though their last conversation had left her hurt and angry, it didn’t mean she didn’t want to see him. When she asked about him, no one would answer her questions. She’d seen him right before she passed out from her wound. He hadn’t been killed had he? If he was dead, why didn’t they just tell her instead of drawing out her worry? A part of her was tempted to force her way from the room and go in search of him.
Now she was growing angry he hadn’t come to see her. If he were alive why hadn’t he visited to at least tell her he was glad she recovered? Did he care so little for her? It pricked her heart and her pride he possibly roamed around outside the four walls she occupied for nearly a week and he hadn’t set foot inside once.
When she wasn’t spending every waking minute thinking about him, she enjoyed Max’s company and the nights he slept next to her in his dog form like he used to. It was a huge comfort to her to reach out and feel his smooth black fur beneath her palm.
On the night of that sixth day, she lay in bed waiting for whoever was staying with her. She was feeling ninety percent stronger and healthier and was sure she could get out of bed, but Phaedra insisted she wait one more day so she appeased her.
She leaned against the headboard flipping channels when the door opened. “Well, it’s about time. I was getting restless.” Her voice tapered off when she lifted her eyes and found Eli standing in the doorway.
He’s alive.
She’d never seen him look the way he did. The only word she could use to describe his appearance was scruffy. If she was honest she kind of liked it. He’d been clean-shaven before, but now he sported a heavy five o’clock shadow. Gone were the button-down shirts and slacks. He wore jeans and a t-shirt and still made it look sexy. She became fully aware at the moment she only wore a tank top, bra and panties. The thin sheet that draped over her lower half was the only thing that covered her near nakedness.
For a while, neither of them said a word. They just stared at each other. She finally broke the silence. “Why haven’t you come before now? I... I was thinking you died, and they just didn’t know how to tell me.” She looked him up and down once more and she became incensed over his callousness. He knew the way she felt, but let her lay here day after day thinking something had happened to him. “Now that I see you’re alive and well you can leave.” Her eyes flicked back t
o the TV, and she resumed channel surfing.
Instead of leaving like she expected, he stepped inside and closed the door. She let out an exasperated huff. Why was he still here? Even when he sat on the edge of the bed, she continued to ignore him. Several minutes passed, and he said nothing, just watched her. She couldn’t take anymore. “Why are you here? What do you want?” The words came out through clenched teeth. The anger coursing through her body was like a tightly coiled spring. She was ready to explode at him.
Still, he only stared and for a moment it reminded her of the Eli she knew at work, the one that had only been her disdainful co-worker; not the witch, the teacher, the protector and friend she cared for deeply. She couldn’t stop the angry tears forming in her eyes that threatened to undo her carefully contained volatile emotions. “What do you want?” The raw torture and pain she felt were on display and no longer concealed. The question was asking more than just what he wanted this minute or why he was here.
For the space of a heartbeat they stared into each other’s eyes and then the impassive expression he wore transformed to something beatific. “I want you.”
They reached for each other at the same time. With the press of his warm lips against hers, her anger melted away, replaced by a blissfulness that made her replete and settled into her bones. They were both on their knees in the middle of the bed, kissing with abandon. His tongue was exploring every crevice, every nook and cranny of her mouth like it might unearth some secret he didn’t know about her. It made her body ache. For a second he leaned away from her. “I’m not hurting you am I?”
“No.” Impatient to be in his arms again, she pulled him back to her and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth before she bit it. He grunted.
