Page 12 of Their Queen

“It’s a shame we can’t break your glamor. I assume that’s also slowing your healing?” she asked, supporting me with an arm around the waist. My arm went around her shoulders as we slowly ambled down the plain stone hallway.

Come to think of it, I had yet to see any decorations of any kind. The room had been plain, the furniture and bedding perfunctory at best. “Yeah,” I answered Cyerra’s question. “Everyone’s tried, but it seems my dad did a great job of locking it down. Although, the barrier has been weakening the more I use my powers,” I told her.

“Hmm…” she said, pondering the issue. “Maybe there’s a way we can speed up that process.” She paused in front of another plain door, knocking.

The door swung open, and she helped me to another hospital type bed as a severe looking woman with her hair tied back into a smooth bun watched us. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet,” she chastised me.

Cyerra laughed. “Yeah, you try telling Her Majesty to do as the healer says.”

This earned me a hard scowl from the woman. “Queen or not, you’re still vulnerable.” She put her hands on her hips. “Lie back, and let me take a look at the damage you did to yourself.”

Cyerra helped me do as the woman instructed, and once I was in position, she said, “I’m going to head to the library here and see what I can find about glamors.” I widened my eyes at her pronouncement that she was going to leave me here with the harsh woman. In response, she just laughed. She waved her fingers at me as she left, calling out, “Have fun.”

I didn’t have much time to think about what was in store for me as the woman shoved my shirt up, her cold hands causing me to tense and hiss. “Don’t be such a baby,” she chided me.

“I just wasn’t expecting that,” I explained to her. “Your hands are like ice.”

“Hmmm…” She ignored my comment, her eyes closing as her magic entered my skin and warmed her icy touch somewhat. “Seems you didn’t hurt yourself too much.” Her magic focused on the stab wound, and from where I was lying, I could see the pink skin start to lessen.

She exhaled, wiping her brow after only a few minutes, not having left me much better off than I had been before. “You must take it easy over the next few days. Come to me every morning and I’ll heal more as I can, though my limits are not what you have access to, I’m sure,” she admitted.

The edges were puckered and still angry, but I wasn’t quite as sore as I’d been before, able to find my way to a sitting position on my own. The healer turned around and grabbed a wooden cup, thrusting it at me. “Here, drink this. It’ll help with magic replenishment.”

I took the cup from her as she turned back to her worktable, no longer concerned with me, picking up a pestle and grinding some kind of herb. I eyed the contents of the cup, sniffing it with instant regret. Yup, this shit smelled nasty.

Pinching my nose, I choked down the chunky liquid, fighting the urge to vomit, my mind calling up images of those game shows that made their contestants eat and drink the most disgusting concoctions. I shuddered as I forced the last bit down. Surprisingly enough, by the time I finished, I was already starting to feel better. A buzz under my skin made my fingers and toes tingle slightly.

Welp, no time like the present to go figure out why Avalonia dragged my ass all the way out to BFE, I thought, jumping down from the table. The nurse scowled as I did so, but I just smiled and offered her a thanks as I left the room in search of the library or a priest or anyone who could give me answers.

Chapter Ten: Brannoc

I was going absolutely crazy, my bond straining and testing me. All I wanted to do was turn into my shadow form and search for my mate, but without even having a general idea of where she was, I was stuck here. Thankfully, Baer was now awake. However, he still wasn’t one hundred percent, and we needed to wait for him to heal. Pacing the living room, I ran my hands through my hair again, hating the waste of time. The longer we were away from her, the higher the chance that something could go wrong, especially after the way we’d left off our last conversation. This suspension was killing me.

Before Rhowyn, I’d honed my patience over my long life as an assassin, taking as much time as I needed to get the job done right. You’d think that with all my training and skills, I’d be in a better position than I was now, but I wasn’t. Everything had gone out the window when I’d woken to find her missing from my home.

Now, she was out there, goddess knew where, and I was stuck here waiting. Thankfully, I’d gotten enough to find out she was in Autumn territory before she’d pushed me out of the connection again, but that still would leave us looking for a needle in a haystack. It was the largest of the territories, what with their need for plenty of space to grow the crops that fed all of Avalon. We could search for weeks and still have only covered a portion of the area.

Ugh! I groaned in frustration, hating the thought of her out there, basically alone and in trouble. That woman had a way of finding it like no one I had ever met before. Callum smashed his fist into the stone again. “That damned woman! I’m going to wring her neck when I finally get my hands on her again.”

Lennox chuckled sharply. “I could think of better things to do with my hands once she’s back with us. Maybe punish her by denying her orgasms?”

“It’s not funny, Nox,” Callum grumbled, trying to fight off a smile at the idea of doing just that. Thinking about it, I knew immediately that she’d hate it in the best way, which only made the thought more appealing.

“If I have to chain her to me, I will. She won’t ever leave us again if I have anything to say about it,” Callum grumbled with a shake of his head. Turning to me, he asked, “What made you think she was in Autumn territory?”

“I got a brief glimpse of her surroundings when she connected with me the first time. I saw the orange leaves and wide-open fields ready for harvest. The second time, she was in a cave, but it was dark. I was able to make out that she was in a forest and there was a stream nearby,” I answered him for what felt like the fiftieth time.

“Anything else?”

I sighed, tossing back the human whiskey, relishing the burn and brief relief it offered me. I needed to sleep, and it seemed that the only way to succeed at that was to get roaring drunk. “Nothing that I can remember since the last time you asked.”

“Fuck!” He punched the wall again, storming off to his room.

Arryn sighed, rising from his chair and moving to heal Callum’s no doubt broken knuckles. Bags circled his eyes, an indication that he was more stressed than he was letting on. That, and he’d been expending any healing magic he could to heal Baer as quickly as possible. Rhowyn had given him back enough to heal the stump but not the resulting blood loss and sore muscles.

Lennox rose, too, to follow them both. “That bastard needs to quit hurting himself. Arryn needs to replenish his magic too, but he can’t if he keeps injuring himself,” I groused to Lennox.

He paused, nodding in understanding. “I’ll talk to him.” Somehow, I got the sense that their talking would also involve a physical outlet for them both. Whatever got them through this mess. I couldn’t blame them for needing it, as long as it wasn’t destructive. Jude and Jonathan had been buried in my library, searching for a way for us to either find Rhowyn, break her glamor, or a way to weaken the Queen. I had tried to help them, having a better idea about what books would be the most helpful, but I couldn’t sit still long enough to scan the pages. My mind wouldn’t allow me to focus. Which left me sitting here, draining my dwindling stock of whiskey.

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