by Calista Fox
“That should work.” Schaeffer gently placed the satin case over her back, and Darien eased her down to the mattress, pressing a towel over her breasts.
As the doctor prepped the syringe, Darien said, “Not too much. She has to be able to feel something specific beyond the combination of all her wounds, but be sedated just enough to reach past the pain to heal.”
“Yes,” she said, though her eyes were closed and her voice was barely audible.
Darien delicately removed her pants and Morgan handed him another towel so he could dry her wet skin. Then he pulled the sheet and comforter over her, up to her waist, trying to help warm her.
“I’ll tend to the fires,” Morgan said. “Then I’ll alert Sheena.”
Schaeffer told him, “I’ve never taken care of Jade before. Or her father. He’d never been sick a day in his life, nor has she.”
“She possesses some exceptional gifts. Her secrets must stay within these walls.”
The physician’s chest puffed. “I’ve been practicing medicine for nearly fifty years, your Majesty. I value doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“Good, because you’re going to get an eyeful this evening.” He dragged a chair over to the bed for the doctor. “Just be extremely gentle with her,” he warned.
Schaeffer looked duly advised and suddenly a bit unnerved.
Darien sighed. Bring it down a notch. Don’t scare the hell out of someone who can help Jade.
But he was on edge. So much so, he paced the foot of the bed as the doctor tightened a leather strip around her upper arm and then rubbed alcohol on the inner crook of her elbow. Locating the vein he wanted, he pricked her with the needle.
Jade screamed bloody murder.
Darien pinched the bridge of his nose. The physician did not give up his post, but administered the drug, tidied up and then stood. That was when Darien saw how pale he’d turned.
“It was just a needle,” Schaeffer said in his defense.
Darien fought back the wave of protectiveness that made him want to strangle anyone who hurt Jade.
“She feels sensations acutely,” he explained between clenched teeth. “Probably more so tonight because of the multitude and severity of her wounds.”
“I had no idea.”
“I know.” He waved a hand dismissively, more so to help calm himself than the doctor. “I should have told you. Or thought about…a liquid form?”
“I’ll leave some with you. In the meantime, I have to stitch the cut on her chest. Immediately.”
Darien could see by the look in Schaeffer’s eyes that he was reluctant to cause more pain for Jade—especially when it might set Darien off—but that he ultimately refused to be sent away before he’d finished what he’d started.
Darien continued his pacing. Then he made a decision. “Give me a couple of minutes.”
He toed off his boots and then reached for the towel he’d discarded. After drying his pants, he whisked off his drenched shirt so he didn’t soak the linens. He climbed into bed next to Jade, on the opposite side of where the doctor prepared to work on her.
The prospect of tapping into her mind wasn’t an appealing one at this point. Already knowing she was in extreme pain, he didn’t relish the idea of experiencing exactly how much pain she was in.
He stretched alongside her, careful to neither jar her nor touch her. His eyes closed and he pushed past her suffering, which clouded his own mind. Her agony was nearly debilitating for him. Quickly conjuring a mental image, he had to put some effort into engaging Jade. The key was to occupy her subconscious and create some sort of peaceful state for her.
Choosing a beautiful locale, he envisioned them in a lush, tropical hideaway. A tepid, turquoise-colored pool at the bottom of a tall waterfall, surrounded by rich foliage. She swam toward him, though the pool was shallow enough for her to stand in it when she reached him, the water rib-high for her.
He visualized her with her face completely healed, not a scratch on it. Her long hair was wet and slicked back. Droplets rolled down her throat and between the valley of her bare breasts. The cut on the left side of her chest had vanished and her skin was flawless. He reached a hand out to her and lightly trailed his fingers along her collarbone and then down to the inner swell of her breast.
“You’re perfect,” he told her.
She smiled at him.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. A long, slow, deep kiss. Her body melded to his and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Darien let the kiss go on and on. His hands roamed her backside, along her spine and down to her ass. He kneaded the soft flesh, while keeping her tight against him. His erection pressed to her belly, but he was in no hurry. He enjoyed the feel of her body against his and the taste of her kiss.
When she jerked in his arms, Darien knew the doctor had started stitching her up. In his fantasy, he ended the kiss and floated on his back to a smaller waterfall. Her arms were still around his neck and she drifted with him. He sat on a flat, smooth rock with the water flowing behind him, breaking over his shoulders. She straddled his lap, her palms splaying over his pectoral muscles.
“You’re more beautiful than ever,” he said, willing her to see herself healed. “I can’t take my eyes off you.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. His hands cupped her breasts and he tenderly squeezed them before sweeping his thumbs over her puckered nipples. She sighed lustily and sank onto his hard cock, taking him deep inside her.
Darien groaned. “I love how you feel. So tight and wet. So warm.”
Moving with him, her hips undulated and her head fell back. He kissed her neck. Having her in his arms was pleasure enough, but with her pussy contracting around him, his arousal soared. His lips skimmed over her skin, just below her ear.
“I meant what I said at the church, Jade. I do love you.”
She ran her fingers through his hair and clutched his cock tighter. He wasn’t experienced enough with using a fantasy to calm her mind to fully understand the nuances, but he suspected that if she spoke, it would pull her attention away from her other efforts, so he didn’t expect her to answer him.
Though she was clearly capable of responding to him with her body. She rode him slowly as the water cascaded over them, the gentle flow creating a soothing sound. The sky above was cloudless and a vibrant blue. The rustling of leaves from a summer breeze and the chirping of birds surrounded them.
The environment was serene and sensuous and he would have prolonged their time there as long as possible, but she gasped and his eyes flew open.
“I’m finished,” Schaeffer said.
Darien glanced down at the stitches over Jade’s left breast. The physician had apparently dabbed the wound with iodine, which was likely what had caught her off guard.
Her eyes were closed and her breaths were still shallow. Schaeffer checked her pulse and recorded it on a sheet of paper.
“A little better,” he said. “It should continue to get stronger. Some of the cuts on her face have already healed.” He stared at her in awe.
“Michael?” she whispered.
Darien’s jaw clenched at the other man’s name.
“He’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “He has a dislocated shoulder, but I’ve already seen to it. Walker brought him to me earlier.”
Darien asked, “What happened to him?”
“Wraith’s horse,” Jade said, her voice weak.
He didn’t have to ask her why Michael had been at the cottage earlier. It was Jade’s birthday, after all. And they were friends. Darien himself had been on the way to the village to see her for the same reason when he’d heard her screaming.
He told her, “Dr. Schaeffer says Michael is fine. Now you’ve got to help yourself along.”
She swallowed hard. “I need to sleep.”
Not exactly what Darien wanted to hear, since it slowed the healing process. But he could understand how exhausted she’d be.
The physician left a small bottle of morphine
on the nightstand and packed up. Then he said, “Check her pulse regularly. She’s improving, but should be monitored closely for the next twenty-four hours.” He studied her a moment longer before adding, “I don’t understand how the blood soaks into her skin.”
“It’s a strange phenomenon for a human, obviously. But she can repair herself if she has the energy—and needs the blood to do it.”
“This is…extraordinary.”
“Yes, she is.” Darien glanced down at her again. “She just needs to believe it.”
“Well. There’s clearly nothing else I can do for her right now. I’ll check by in the morning, but if anything happens this evening, send for me.”
“Thank you. I’ll be sure to have my assistant pay your bill immediately.”
The doctor spared one more look at Jade. “I’d like to continue to follow her progress, if you wouldn’t mind, your Highness. And tend to her back as soon as it’s safe to move her.”
“I’d prefer that, in fact. But she does seem to require lengthy sleeping periods when she’s injured.”
“I’ll leave my visits to your discretion then.”
The doctor collected his bag. Darien experienced a moment of hesitancy as his concern for Jade’s condition caused him to wonder whether he and Sheena could help nurse her back to health this time. Her wounds were much greater this evening than with the broken hand and wrist.
But as her breathing turned steady with sleep, and was not as labored as it had been previously, he said, “Please come by late morning. That should give her some time.”
“Very good.”
Darien saw Schaeffer out of the cottage and then noticed the bottle of wine on the end table in the living room. He found a collection of small juice glasses in her tiny kitchen and poured a healthy amount of the merlot into one. He sat bedside, trying to gauge Jade’s progress.
The laceration on her chest still appeared angry and red, despite the stitches. He couldn’t see if she’d made any headway with her back, since she lay propped against the pillows. From the way she occasionally squirmed on the bed, he deduced not.
He sipped his wine and tried to get his anxiety under control. When he felt he could speak calmly and rationally—without his deepest fears of whether she’d live or die lacing his tone—he leaned close to her and spoke. It was a gamble when trying to help her recover, like every other chance he’d taken along that vein. But perhaps his voice might keep her fighting…
“I told you I’ve regretted the result of the wars,” he said in a low tone. “But I didn’t tell you why.”
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “My grandfather attempted to rally the first revolution against the humans in the late 1300s. His reign, however, eventually passed without any success toward his mission. Centuries later, my father felt he was in the position to take up the quest, when settlers came to North America and the continent wasn’t so heavily populated with humans.”
He sipped before continuing.
“Unfortunately, transporting demons from other continents to this one in order to build an army proved challenging back then. The vampires couldn’t resist the human blood on the ships that crossed the ocean. The shifters couldn’t survive the captivity. And other demons had difficulty going undetected. There were many demonic possessions during those times and most of the passenger ships eventually carried priests on board to perform exorcisms.”
Coming across the Atlantic from Europe in the mid-1800s had been difficult for him as well.
“The demon world hadn’t been able to form a war strategy with all the disjointed factions and their idiosyncrasies. Not to mention their various politics that couldn’t be reconciled or coalesced. Each group had their own idea of the power they purportedly possessed and how significant they thought their kind was. Unity had been impossible.”
With a low groan over the demon drama, he told her, “Then I came of age, so to speak, around my two-hundredth birthday. I studied the potential of the demon community for a long time and it suddenly clicked into place for me. I realized that every type of demon also requires what humans thrive upon—leadership. Whether the dominant political stance is fully agreed upon or not, every species looks to a leader to guide them. I merely had to find common ground to band them all together.”
Jade stirred and her head rolled toward him. She didn’t open her eyes, but she said in a quiet voice, “You told me you didn’t agree with any of this.”
He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “I didn’t. Yet it was my destiny, according to my father, to discover the key to unleashing the demons on the human world in order to conquer it.”
“What was the common ground?”
“You’ll cringe at the irony of this.”
She licked her dry lips, reminding him to dab balm on them, which the doctor had also left. “Tell me.”
When he was done with the balm, he let out a hollow laugh and said, “Freedom.”
That one word had innumerous connotations.
“For the demons,” he continued, “if we usurped human power, the various species wouldn’t have to hide in the woods or attempt to conceal their true identities to avoid being hunted by slayers. They could roam the lands and take advantage of everyday life without always looking over their shoulder. They only had to follow a few simple rules when the wars were over, and I found a vast portion of them in agreement with my laws, because they no longer felt threatened by the human populace.”
She was clearly groggy, but asked, “Why destroy all the cities? Burn the buildings?”
With a sigh, Darien said, “I never advocated that sort of mass destruction, but it went well beyond my control. Demons are simple creatures. We don’t care for modern technology or advancements. Most of my kind hoped to restore the continent to the way it had been even before Columbus arrived. We like nature, not skyscrapers. Fresh air, not smog.”
“Pictures,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of the brown layer along the horizon. It’s kind of disgusting.”
“Doesn’t exist anymore. But then again,” he said, reflective, “neither do a lot of the comforts your kind was used to.”
“Hard to miss what you never had.”
He tried to take solace in that statement, but it didn’t fully register. What about the humans who had experienced those comforts? What about medical equipment that would outfit a hospital capable of taking care of someone like her at a time such as this?
Obviously, he could drive himself mad pondering these things. Instead, he said, “Back to sleep.”
“Okay. But…keep talking. Please. Even if you’re just reading to me. Your voice is soothing.”
After retrieving Alice in Wonderland from the living room, he settled next to her again. She was soundly out, but he did as she asked anyway.
Several days passed, with Sheena helping to serve Jade water and broth when she was awake and him carrying her to a cool bath to help relieve some of the sting of her burns, which she hadn’t yet been able to heal—and they didn’t seem to be improving on their own.
The doctor advised him not to disturb the blisters or peel the dead skin away, reiterating the layer beneath would still be too vulnerable to infection. Unfortunately, it was difficult trying to keep her back cool and the rest of her warm.
Darien was vigilant though. And Sheena was no less supportive. Sometimes, she even sent him away when he was wound too tight with emotion. He went, not because he’d ever taken orders from anyone other than his father, but because he knew it was best for his own sanity. Sheena never wavered in taking his place in the chair next to Jade’s bed, reading to her as he’d done.
A week after the attack, Jade’s pulse was strong and steady, satisfactory to Schaeffer. Her stitches had dissolved into her skin and there wasn’t a trace of the scar. The cuts on her face and arms had also disappeared, and her cracked rib seemed to be only mildly tender. Yet her back was still a mess, because it didn’t heal at the accelerated rate.
In fact
, both the physician and Darien noted the injury seemed barely to heal at all. The doctor eventually cut away the skin from the popped blisters, but the raw layer beneath continued to bleed. He gave Darien a heavy antibiotic cream to slather on her skin, now that Jade was able to lie on her stomach.
Another week went by. Darien stretched alongside her on the bed one afternoon. Sheena always returned to the castle before dawn and then came to the cottage after dusk, usually with a fresh set of sheets and another clean comforter for Jade.
The house was quiet, save for Jade’s breathing and the snap of the fire. He’d finished Alice in Wonderland and three other books Lisette had sent over with one of the slayers, since they’d informed the villagers Jade needed to recover without interruptions.
Darien could only imagine how agitated that made Michael. Were he in the other man’s shoes, he’d be desperate to see her. He could empathize with Jade’s friends, though he didn’t want anyone to become suspicious of her healing powers.
“Your back is finally looking better.” He was able to put aloe on it now, since the threat of infection had lessened.
“What a nightmare,” she said. “I could tell by everyone’s face how horrible the wounds appeared.”
“We were more concerned about how painful they were for you.”
She sighed. “Once I separated the burns from the cut on my chest, I really didn’t want to deal with the scorched skin.”
“You tried to let it heal on its own.”
“Ordinary people survive burns.”
“Yes, well…” He brushed strands of hair from her face. She’d folded her arms over a pillow and her cheek rested on her stacked hands as she gazed at him. The doctor recommended that she stretch regularly to keep the new layer of skin from healing too tight and this seemed to be a comfortable position for her. “You’re not ordinary, so stop pretending to be.”
A sharp laugh fell from her lips. “I’m not complaining about my ability to quickly heal. The agony level, however, could be reduced by several notches and I’d be happier for it.”