Page 19 of The Fae King's Labyrinth

“Merow?”

“She’s a cat,” the pooka declared abruptly.

Startling at the sudden voice, Calypso’s back arched, her tail puffed, and her ears pinned back into her thick fur so hard they almost disappeared. With a hiss at the pooka, who was still in his horse form, she crab-walked back toward me.

Instinctively, I reached for her.

“Good to know some animal self-preservation instincts are instilled in shifters despite their mostly human tendencies.” The pooka transformed back into a man, watching Calypso with interest.

Pulling Calypso into my arms, I isolated her back paw. Drawing the injured paw away so that it wouldn’t bump anything and hurt worse, I set to soothing her, smoothing down the ruffled fur along her back. To my surprise, she immediately started purring. It probably startled Calypso too because the noise immediately halted.

“You should try to transform back,” the pooka told her. “The more you practice, the smoother the transformations will become.”

Calypso closed her eyes and then suddenly my arms were filled with rumpled, human woman. Not that I minded. She was a delightful shape and weight.

She squeaked and immediately attempted to move off my lap, elbowing my chest in the process. Her mad scramble ended with a harsh yelp of pain when she tried to use her injured foot. She finally stilled, huddled on the floor between us. Her luxuriously chaotic hair cascaded down her back as she hunched over her injured foot.

Six

Calypso

Embarrassed tears burned my cheeks as I hunched over my throbbing foot. I had been in Azulin’s lap. Closing my eyes, I focused on getting the panicked sensation in my chest under control.

I had shifted. My eyes popped open. I could shift!

Testing out my senses, I felt the same as I always did—well, except for my throbbing ankle.

“Can I check your ankle?” Azulin’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Does it hurt?”

“It throbs,” I admitted.

“If you let me check the spelled bandage, I can adjust it to help with the pain. May I?”

Mentally chastising myself for my foolish reaction, I nodded. Straightening, I began smoothing my hair back from my face, winding it into a twist, and pulling it over my shoulder and out of the way.

Azulin moved closer, rising and resettling on the ground with uncanny grace and speed. I grimaced. In my few moments as a cat, I had been so clumsy. I knew cats could be graceful and elegant creatures, thanks to growing up in a village full of feline shapeshifters. My ungainly, graceless form was a shame to feline kind.

My foot warmed even before Azulin touched it. A strange mixture of magic and a tension I dared not name welled up inside me when his cool fingers touched the skin above the bandage. The vines on my arm heated and tightened, and I tensed in response. What was going on between our magics?

“This is going to hurt.” Azulin lifted his attention from my foot to my face. His eyes—strangely bright for such a dark color—glinted as they studied my features. “I need to unbind it to check the damage and reset the spell to fit the new situation.”

“What new situation?”

“I drew out all the venom I found,” he said as he set to work. His fingers moved efficiently. My pain ramped up as he released the bandage and began unwinding it. “With the venom gone, you should be feeling back to your normal self. However, I am unable to repair the physical damage the nathair did to your foot. That process will take time. I am hoping my spell bandage can help speed up the healing process. But at the very least, I can set the spell to dull the pain.”

He shook the unwrapped bandage out like one would shake out a rolled-up sock. The action did something because the magic in the bandage neutralized.

Then, winding the bandage into a ball, Azulin did something new to it, initializing the spell possibly. When he began rewrapping my abused ankle, the material hummed with a warm magical sensation that soaked into my skin and immediately eased my discomfort.

“You will still need to stay off of your foot,” he said as he tucked the last bit of the bandage in on itself. The end of the cloth melted in to join the rest and hardened into a plasterlike shell.

“Does it hurt less?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “How am I going to keep up with you if I can’t walk?”

“One of us will carry you.”

“Or you can shapeshift again,” the pooka suggested.

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