Page 14 of Their War

Her Consorts turned, sensing our presence, their sudden movements briefly distracting Genevieve from her assault. Shock lit all their faces as she hissed, “You shouldn't be here.”

“Well, we are, and you're about to pay for messing with my Chosen,” Lennox snapped back at her.

A nod from Arryn was my signal, and I lunged forward, shifting into my wolf, no longer caring who was destroyed in the process as I sought to return the favor to this bitch.

Chapter Eight: Rhowyn

A sharp pain in my side had me startling awake, groaning in pain at the movement, my body protesting even the effort to breathe. There was a rattle in my lungs, and I knew that it had been punctured; that I was slowly drowning in my own blood.

“You always manage to ruin everything, you stupid piece of shit,” Genevieve's voice hissed at me as she twisted a blade that was protruding from my abdomen. Fuck, that hurts.

Sounds of fighting reached my ears, and I couldn't figure out why I was even still here. I gasped in pain, my lungs filling up quickly, as she pulled the blade from me and struck me again in the stomach. I cried out this time, a sob breaking from me, but I refused to beg her to stop. She might end me, but she would never break me.

A surge of energy pulsed down my bond, giving me strength, but it was still just a trickle. I tried to send it through my body, intent on healing some of the damage, but it was to no avail. It wasn’t enough. My hands clenched into fists as I prayed for something, anything, that would allow me to fight back, to give this bitch the payback she so desperately deserved.

“Just as weak as I always knew you were. You don't belong here. It's time to meet Avalonia. Maybe she'll accept you because we fae don't.” Genevieve continued taunting me, a look of manic desperation on her face. A tremor of fear passed over her face as she glanced back at her men.

She pulled back to stab me again when Arryn's magic surged through me, and instinctively, I unraveled the vines from where they held me at her mercy, a blade meeting my palm. The connection, that of a long-lost friend, indicated that it was my dagger. I closed my fingers around the hilt of the enchanted dagger even though my grip was weak. I had lost too much already. Too much blood, too much magic, too much energy. The small burst I had received had already been spent, leaving me depleted.

At the sudden retreat of her vines, she rocked back in shock. “That shouldn't be possible.”

“I'll show you what’s possible,” I said, pushing up in one final move, agony shooting through my body like fire as I swiped my blade at her, glad to have the weapon back in my possession. It barely drew blood from her cheek, my body failing despite the enchantments on the dagger, but it was enough to have her retreating like the coward she was.

I tried to hold myself up on one elbow to watch her scurry away, but I was too fatigued to maintain the position and collapsed onto my back. Fuck. I hurt so bad. I thought I'd known pain before, but I'd never been subjected to anything quite this extensive. By all rights, I should have been dead already. My breaths became shallow as my lungs reached their capacity, and I recognized the death rattle that blocked out all other sounds from my ears. For a moment, I thought I heard growls, but it was more likely that I was hallucinating again as my body continued to shut down.

Familiar scents reached me through the copper and iron that tainted the air that indicated that I was bleeding profusely. I sobbed, wishing my men were here with me now as my vision darkened again. This time though, I feared that I wouldn't wake up. That this was much more than simply passing out.

“Don't you dare,” a male voice hissed at me, but I couldn't see anything through the darkness. I recognized it, though. I'd recognize it anywhere. Hands tore my clothes from me as warm fingers touched my freezing skin, almost painful in the temperature difference. “Fuck, she's so cold.”

“Fuck, Killer, what did this bitch do to you?” Baer's shaky hand caressed the cheek that wasn't shattered.

A tingle rushed through me, Arryn's familiar healing magic checking me over as it desperately tried to knit all my injuries together. I sobbed in relief as my lungs were healed, allowing air back in. Instinctively, I sucked in gulps of that blessed oxygen, finally able to get what I had so desperately needed.

“She's got so many injuries. I'm not sure I can heal them all.” Arryn's worry reached through the fog, my vision returning enough for me to see his green eyes, the color of summer grass, which were furrowed in fear.

“Just heal what you can. Why didn't she heal herself?” Baer said.

“Because of the iron,” Brannoc answered him. “It's the same reason I couldn't get in. Between the iron in the dungeon and the necklace that had already been draining her, she's practically magicless.”

“So, what do we do? We can't sit here and wait for her to be fully healed and recovered. We need to get her out of here now,” Lennox said to an answering snarl.

My wolf. They were all here for me. They'd saved me. I smiled as I reached up a weak hand to caress Baer's face, wanting to feel him. Arryn's magic was working, but I didn't know if it would be fast enough. I was bleeding from so many different places, too many life-threatening injuries to heal in such a short amount of time.

Baer's eyes met my gaze, his hand closing around mine and holding it in place. “I love you,” I whispered to him. If this was to be the last time I saw him, I wanted him to know that.

It wasn't until this moment that I realized that was the emotion that had been building in me. Funny how death could make things so clear. At least I had this chance to tell him. To tell them. “I love all of you,” I said, meeting their gazes, too weak to even turn my head to find them, but they were all standing around, fear and worry tinging their expressions. Arryn froze at my confession.

“Don't fucking talk like that, Princess. Arryn's going to heal you, and we're going to get you out of here. Just keep fighting. Do what you do best,” Lennox pleaded with me, his voice cracking with emotion.

I just smiled at him, ready to succumb to the peaceful numbness that was encroaching again. In life, you could rage against your circumstances, rant about the unfairness of it, but in the end, the only certainty was that we would all eventually die when it was our time. In that, everyone was powerless. But at least I could let go knowing that I had finally learned what it was like to be a family, to have those who’d willingly sacrifice themselves for me, to know love. And wasn’t that something? A blessing that not everyone could claim.

A surge of magic hit me hard, causing me to bow my back and arch upward in pain, gasping. The pain was so far beyond anything I'd ever felt before. Beyond the pain that Genevieve had inflicted upon me, beyond what the Queen’s lashes had tortured me with, and beyond the agony of my memories of my time on Earth. If I could imagine what being shocked by cardiac hospital pads felt like, this was what I thought it would feel like, only a thousand times worse.

My body protested the surge as it overwhelmed me, my chest cracking hard until blessed relief filled me. I inhaled deeply and collapsed back to the ground pain free. Arryn's weight settled harshly on top of me, knocking the wind from my lungs as I finally succumbed to the darkness again.

Chapter Nine: Lennox

“What the fuck just happened?” I exclaimed as I watched both Rhowyn and Arryn collapse, completely out of it.

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