Without saying anything, he pulled a black band down over his wrist and turned to face me.
"Christ, you're in bad shape," he said, the look of concern on his face tugging at the ache in my chest. It was too far away for me to really care. "She must have hit one of the bleeders," he added, but again, his words came from afar.
Though there was a part of me that knew I should have been worried, I just wasn't.
"Drink this," he said, holding out the glass of silvery liquid in my direction.
I shook my head and started to lie down. "I'm tired, don't need a drink..." I said, the words sounding weird and off-key to my own ears. My eyes felt heavy and the urge to lay back among my soft warm pillows was overwhelming.
"You can sleep as soon as you've drunk this," he urged, pressing the glass to my lips and tipping the drink into my mouth, leaving me with no choice but to swallow or let it overflow.
I swallowed, the taste bitter on my tongue. I tried to turn my head away, but Nic kept a firm grip on my neck, keeping me in place as he poured the rest of it into my mouth.
The moment I swallowed it, I felt its heat spreading through my chest, the way a good whiskey from back home might. It tingled and spread its warmth through my limbs, making them heavy as exhaustion washed over me.
"Sleep, Amber. I'll be here when you wake," he whispered, helping me to lie down.
"You won't leave me, will you?" I asked, the question coming from the broken part of my heart.
"Never," he said.
I believed him. Nic wasn't a liar, and if he said he would never leave, then it was the truth. But I was in shock, possibly dying, so it made sense that he could make promises. If I didn't wake up then he wouldn't have to keep them anyway, so what did it matter?
I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth of his body. The heat from whatever he had made me drink was rapidly fading and a bone-deep chill that threatened to steal my breath away was settling across me like a cloak.
Nic sighed, the gentle rise and fall of his chest bringing me a type of peace I hadn't felt in months. If this was dying, it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be.
There was just one problem with it all. I didn't want to die.
20
The rich smell of coffee tickled my nose. The second I was aware of the coffee smell, I felt the heat of the sun across my face.
Opening my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling. The mark of my black magic was little more than a grey outline beneath the white paint I'd used to cover it. But then, that was the issue with black magic: it was almost impossible to cover it up and keep covered. It was definitely going to need another coat.
Pushing up into a sitting position, I brushed my hair back from my face, but it was stuck to my neck in places, making the motion utterly pointless. A flash of red caught my eye and I glanced down at my arm.
The blood had dried to a rusty brown. It was everywhere.
The lemon sheets I'd bought for the bed were completely destroyed, rusty coloured splotches decorating most of the bed. Turning my head, I stared down at the pillows—the lemon pillow cases weren't lemon anymore.
Grabbing the nearest pillow, I ripped the cover off it and stared down at the blood-soaked cushion.
How much blood had I lost?
Tentatively, I reached up with my hand and pressed it softly to my shoulder. My expectations were quickly shattered when all I could feel beneath my fingers was the smooth, unbitten skin of my shoulder and neck.
The night came rushing back to me. The feel of Tess's body on top of mine, her teeth tearing and ripping away at my flesh; the press of her tongue as she probed at the wound, spreading it wider before tearing away another chunk of flesh so that her teeth grazed bone.
My eyes travelled up over the bed, to the cracked and broken plaster above my headboard.
Nic had shot her. And when she'd returned, I'd shot her. The part that didn't make any sense to me was how, if she was nothing more than a ghost, had she been corporeal enough to try and eat me alive? Hell, she hadn’t just tried; if Nic hadn't come along, she'd have succeeded.
Closing my eyes, I tried to remember the moments after I'd shot her, but the memories were little more than a jumbled mess of images and feelings. Staring down at the bed once more, it suddenly became clear why I couldn’t remember.
Losing so much blood wasn't normal. Well … it was perfectly normal for dead people, but as far as I could tell, I wasn't dead.
Climbing out of the bed, I stood on the floor. Feeling the solid wood beneath my feet gave me a feeling of clarity that I hadn't felt in the bed. The sound of cups clinking in the kitchen had me moving toward the bedside locker. Grabbing my gun, feeling it in my hand, brought me security. I slowly let out a long breath before I moved toward the bedroom door.
Sunlight spilled into the hallway from the window that led out onto the fire escape, but it was shut and from where I stood it seemed to still be bolted shut. Creeping down the hall, I stepped into the living room, casting my eyes around the room. It was empty.
Something shuffled in the kitchen and I readjusted my grip on the gun, exhaling slowly as I advanced on the kitchen.
Nic stood at the coffeemaker, the slight tension in his shoulders telling me he already knew I was behind him.
I lowered my gun and stared at his broad shoulders. He had saved me. And it hadn't been the first time. Fionn had made me feel helpless; I'd sworn I would never let anyone ever make me feel like that again, but Tess had done just that.
She'd broken in, if you could call waking up to find a ghost trying to eat you a break-in. She'd violated me in my home, holding me against my will while she....
I cut my thoughts dead. They weren't going to help me. Reliving the night wouldn't make it any better. Setting the gun on the counter top, I watched Nic's shoulders sag slightly. He turned to me with the same crooked smile I'd always found irresistible on him.
"Coffee?" he asked, holding a mug out to me. I took it gratefully.
I wasn't a great coffee drinker, but I was trying to get into it in an attempt to increase the number of hours I had in a day. After my mother's death, during my time off, I'd found the simple act of getting out of bed nearly impossible. And now I didn't want to sleep, because that only brought dreams and nightmares that I wanted no part in. I was a veritable shit show of issues. No doubt the behavioural unit would find me fascinating if they ever got their hands on me.
"How am I alive?" I asked, ignoring common etiquette in favour of the direct approach.
"I gave you something to help you heal," Nic said, deliberately keeping his tone light and noncommittal.
Rolling my shoulder, I was acutely aware of the lack of pain in it—from Tess's attack or the fight I'd had with Jasper. I checked the arm where he'd stabbed me, only to find the stitched wound gone; the only indication it had been there in the first place was the faint red line on my skin.
"Nic, I've seen the bed. I know how much blood I lost, and it was more than enough that I shouldn't be standing here right now. So you better tell me how I can be here, drinking coffee, instead of lying in the bed, cold and rotting." My words were harsh. I knew he'd saved my life, and I was grateful, but it was damn powerful magic. I was a shadow sorceress, and while I'd brought Mia back to life, I hadn't been able to save my mother. Yet Nic, without any of my power, had brought me back from the brink of destruction.
He winced and lifted his own cup to his lips, sipping at the liquid thoughtfully before finally meeting my gaze. "It's a Saga thing. We can revive those near to death," he said, shrugging. His noncommittal tone was really starting to bug me … it told me that he wasn't being particularly honest with me.
"Fine. If you won't tell me, I'll ask Jason." The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Nic's face darkened and he replaced the mug on the countertop with a thud. "I have told you," he said.
"No. You haven't. We both know it, Nic, but for some ungodly reason, you keep pretending as though I can't r
ead you," I said, letting out a sigh.
"I'm not lying when I say it's a Saga thing," he answered.
"Fine, but that still doesn't mean it's the truth either. A lie by omission is still a lie."
He dropped his gaze to his hands. "I thought I'd lost you last night, thought I was too late...."
"Why didn't you use your power on Tess?" I asked, suddenly curious about his sudden use of hardware over his metaphysical abilities.
"Because the only way you'll ever trust me is if I keep clean," he said, raising his fact to mine once more, "and I want to earn your trust, Amber."
He sounded so utterly sincere that I found myself hesitating. If I just told him that would never happen, that there truly was no hope for us whatsoever, then maybe we could both just move on with our lives. But as much as I wanted the words to leave my mouth, needed them to leave my mouth, I just couldn't bring myself to say it to him.
"She could have killed you," I said instead.
"She nearly killed you," he quipped back.
Replacing my cup on the counter, I met his gaze head on. "Fine … if there's going to be no lies between us, if you really expect me to consider trusting you again, then you're going to have to tell me the truth about how you brought me back."
He folded his arms across his chest, a defensive move if ever I saw one. "I shared some of my essence with you. The Saga Venatione have extraordinary healing abilities and we can, if needed, use our own essence to bring a fallen comrade back from the maws of death.” There was no art to his words, no pretending like what he was telling me was no big deal. I guess that was the difference between a lie and the truth. Because it was a big deal—a hell of a big deal.
"What exactly does that mean, Nic?" I asked quietly, as I began to do a mental check-up through my body.
I didn't feel any different, and yet according to him, I, a living shadow sorceress, had shared life essence with a Saga Venatione and I wasn't writhing in agony. I wasn't dead, or dying—as far as I could tell, anyway.
"Your own essence will simply absorb it as your body recovers," he said.
"But I already feel recovered...."
"Physically, yes, you are. But your soul bears the marks of what happened—the scars, so to speak—and they take longer to heal. Once they do, then my essence will no longer run in your veins...."
"And your essence is?"
When he said it, it sounded so intimate. His essence was running in my veins. I felt the words out in my head but it was still a hard one to wrap my mind around.
"A piece of my soul, Amber. I gave you a piece of my soul."
Definitely intimate. The man I loved. It was as close as two souls could get. It was as close as two anything could get. Rather than see me die, he'd given me a piece of his soul....
"And when it fades, where does it go?" I asked.
"Back to me," he said, but there was something slightly off in his voice that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Was he disappointed that I wasn't more excited about the idea?
"Okay, good," I said, awkwardness causing heat to flood into my face.
For crying out loud. We'd had sex, and yet here I was, acting like a giddy school girl. But then, sex was different. I loved Nic, but what he'd just admitted felt a lot like commitment, and not just the easy-to-wriggle-out-of kind. It felt like the real deal, and while there had been a time when I'd have given anything to have that with him, now I wasn't so sure it was a good idea. Especially when I'd made such a big deal out of wanting to distance myself from him.
The doorbell rang and I jumped, the eye contact I'd been having with Nic suddenly broken.
"I'll get that," I said, scrambling out of the kitchen as fast as my legs would take me.
"Maybe you should let me. I'm not sure—" He cut off as I reached the door.
Popping the bolt, I tugged the door open before Nic could cross the living room.
Victoria stood in the hall, her body propped against the far wall, her arms crossed nonchalantly. Marcel stood next to her, the bandage across one side of his face reminding me of the showdown with Jasper in the graveyard.
"Shit, I was going to ring to—" I cut off as Victoria charged past me into the apartment, pushing me out of the way as she drew her gun and aimed it squarely at Nic's chest.
"What the fuck did you do?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes as her finger sat on the trigger.
"It wasn't me," Nic said, raising his hands calmly, as though staring down the barrel of a gun was nothing at all.
"Witch-hunter," Victoria growled, her finger depressing the trigger.
The shot rang in the apartment and time slowed to a crawl as the bullet tore through the air towards Nic.
21
Nic's eyes widened in surprise as the bullet bore down on him.
Panic welled in my chest. I'd just gotten him back—I couldn't lose him again.
A scream built in my throat, a scream made of pure power; a primal cry that came from the very centre of my being. It fell from my lips, the sound ripping the air as I raised my arms. There was a moment of nothing but complete and utter silence, and then time returned to normal and the bullet grazed Victoria's shoulder before embedding itself harmlessly in the wall.
I stared at Victoria, her black eyes meeting mine from across the room. How the hell had she gotten over there? When had she crossed the space?
"What did you do, Amber?" Nic asked, touching my shoulder gently. Without thinking about it, I leaned into his touch.
He had been across the room, next to where Victoria stood, directly in the path of the bullet, and now he was here next to me.
"Your power will be the end of you, Bokor," Marcel said, the tremor in his voice betraying his fear.
"You protected him? After everything?" Victoria accused as she shook her arm, spraying tiny droplets of blood across the carpet. She didn't seem to know or care. And anyway, being a changeling meant she would heal in a couple of minutes. No doubt, for her, it was more a mere irritation.
"You tried to kill him! You wouldn't stop and listen," I said, sucking in a deep breath. My core felt empty, as though whatever in heck I'd just done had drained me completely. And maybe it had? The only other time I'd felt like this had been after bringing Mia back from the dead. Messing with the passage of souls through life and death … I could understand that leaving me tired, but this.... Whatever this was seemed minor in comparison.
"You're covered in blood, Amber—what did you expect me to do?" Victoria asked, anger causing her black changeling eyes to glitter in the light.
"Fine, I get that, but I was also standing right in front of you, without a scratch on me," I said, raising my hands in a placating manner.
I'd seen what Victoria's anger could do, and there had been enough destruction and magic within the apartment to last me a lifetime.
She ran her gaze over me and then paused. I watched as the rage in her eyes was replaced with confusion. I could practically see the cogs in her mind turning over.
"Before you ask, no, I didn't heal myself," I said.
"Then—" She cut off and gave Nic a sideways considering look. "You healed her?"
"Yes," Nic said.
I watched as Victoria's eyes widened a little, but she didn't push it any further. Finally, she dropped her gaze to the floor, and I watched her shoulders go up as she drew in a deep breath. Once they dropped, she glanced back at me.
"The fae do not apologise; it would mean I was in your debt," she said, addressing Nic.
"Consider the matter closed," he said, but his tight-lipped expression left me feeling suddenly uneasy. I hated feeling as though I was the only one in the room who didn't know what was going on. And in this instance, I clearly didn't. Victoria knew something about Nic's healing of me but wasn't sharing. That alone was enough to set alarm bells off in my head.
There was a moment of awkward silence as Nic and Victoria appeared to be waiting for the other to say something else.
"Is that fresh coffee I
can smell?" Marcel asked, breaking the moment. I felt the tension flow out of Nic as Victoria replaced her gun in the holster beneath the dark grey blazer she wore.
"It sure is," Nic said, his forced pleasantness making me uncomfortable.
Marcel headed for the kitchen and Victoria went with him, leaving me alone with Nic.
"What's going on? Victoria clearly knows something that I'm pretty sure I should know, too," I said, turning to face him.
"She doesn't know anything, Amber. She's a changeling who thinks she understands the order, but she doesn't. Changelings see things in black and white and life just isn't like that."
"Please don't give me a shades-of-grey speech, Nic. They made a movie about that and there were fifty of them. I don't have the time to stand here and listen to you reel them off. But if there's something about you healing me that I should know, now is the time to tell me."
He hesitated for a second before shaking his head. When he lifted his hand to my face and cupped my cheek with his palm, I didn't move away from him, despite the voice in the back of my head telling me to do just that. I had moved away from him yesterday. When he touched me, it made everything harder, less clear. But now....
Pressing into his touch was the only thing that made me feel better.
"I felt your magic, Amber..." he said, stepping closer.
I jerked my head up and searched his face, searched his eyes for any sign of what he was, what the witch hunter side of him wanted to do to me. But there was nothing. He stared back at me with the eyes of the man I'd fallen in love with.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"I don't know..." he said. "All I know for certain is that every time I've felt your power in the past, I haven't been able to control my instincts."
"The witch hunter within," I said. "It wants me dead, I've seen it in your eyes. I saw it in your eyes yesterday."
Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5) Page 16