Page 42 of Mortal Heart

He should have been angrier that she’d seen his scars, but the tea she’d given him muted everything, even his fury. He blinked slowly, and time seemed to jump ahead a bit before he opened his eyes again.

He managed to focus on Arkady’s face. “Go to another room,” he rasped.

She brushed hair back from his face. “Don’t worry about me. Like Carly said, your secrets are safe with us.”

“I don’t want you to see.” The tea had made him even more honest, or perhaps he’d run out of gentler ways to say it. “Turn your back.” He coughed thickly and tasted blood.

“Arkady, we are running out of time.” Carly’s firm voice cut into their argument. “Tell him and let’s move on.”

Ronan sensed sudden tension in Arkady’s grip on his hand. For the first time all night, she avoided his gaze. “Tell me what?” he demanded.

“Damn it, fine.” She cursed under her breath. “I’ve already seen your scars, Ronan. I saw them the day you showed up at Alice’s house.”

Despite the effects of the sedative tea, he went cold with anger. She’d had every chance to tell him she’d seen his scars, but she hadn’t, even after he’d made it clear how heavily they weighed on his mind. That she’d chosen to pretend she hadn’t seen them felt like a far worse betrayal than the fact she’d seen them at all.

When he’d asked Michael to return him to Alice’s house, he’d resigned himself to the fact Alice and Sean would see his wounds. He’d had every intention of keeping them hidden from every other living thing. Carly had seen them, but in her capacity as a healer, so he couldn’t hold it against her.

He pulled his hand out of Arkady’s and turned his attention to Carly. “Do what you need to do,” he said curtly. “I’m grateful for your help, as well as your respect for my person.”

Without a word, Carly cut through Ronan’s bloody vest. He kept his gaze on Carly’s face and didn’t look at Arkady. Arkady, for her part, went silent except for quiet, raspy breathing.

She didn’t angrily defend herself or even offer excuses or explanations—not that he would have been particularly interested in hearing them. That was, he reflected, possibly why she didn’t offer any.

Carly finished cutting through his vest and peeled it back, baring his bloody chest. He wanted to cover the scars with his hand, but her touch on his arm dissuaded him from moving.

With her fingertips, her brow furrowed in concentration, she pressed lightly on his chest in a spiral pattern until she found where the bullet had lodged. “It’s not too deep, for which we should all be grateful,” she said. “I’ll have to cut it out.”

“Not the first time someone has cut a bullet out of me.” He managed a bitter smile. “Do you have tequila?”

“No, but we have this.” She picked up a small bowl filled with a foul-smelling paste. “Katy’s special anesthetic. It won’t knock you out, but it’ll make this process easier to bear.”

“What’s in it?”

“Never ask a black witch what’s in her potions.” Katy appeared in the living room with a teapot and a ceramic cup covered with runes. “It does the job, and that’s all you need to know.”

He blinked slowly and lost track of time again, this time for much longer. When he woke, Carly was bent over him, focused on her work. He felt strange pulls and tugs in his chest. She must still be trying to extract the bullet.

Rather than look at what she was doing, he glanced to his left and was surprised to find Arkady had vanished. His stomach lurched. “Where—” he mumbled.

“Don’t talk while I’m working on you,” Carly said sharply. “She’s ridding herself of the demon poison.”

He stared at the ceiling. From another room, he heard someone chanting—presumably Katy—and someone else vomiting violently. Despite his anger, he flinched at the sound.

“It’s worse than you’re imagining.” Carly went back to digging out the bullet. “You’re lucky you’ll only need a small dose. And you’reverylucky you got here when you did. Neither of you would have made it another hour.”

Finally, she squinted, leaned closer, and did something that caused a dull pain despite Katy’s anesthetic. “Got you, you little bugger.” She held up the bullet in a large pair of tweezers. Though the slug was deformed by its travel through his back and getting lodged in his rib, he saw the black magic spellwork cut into its nose, where its trip through the gun barrel wouldn’t mar it.

Carly placed the bullet in a saucer with her own spellwork carved into it and draped a cloth over it. “Done. No one will be tracking you now.” She wiped her gloved hands with a rag, which she put in a bucket. “I’ll burn everything with your blood on it,” she said in response to his unspoken question. “Now, a healing spell will get you closed up, but you’ve lost a lot of blood, so I don’t want you to move or talk right now. Blink once for yes. Do you have access to a blood transfusion?”

He blinked.

“Good.” She held up a purple crystal. “Alice gave me a couple of these strong healing spells for emergencies. I figured you’d be more comfortable with her magic than anyone else’s. I’m assuming you’ve used one before and you know it hurts.”

Again, he blinked. From a back room, he could still hear Arkady being sick. She must have gotten a much larger dose of the demon poison than he’d realized. The fact she’d survived long enough to get to Carly’s house seemed something close to a miracle now. Her dishonesty still angered him, but he’d take her place in a heartbeat to save her from this much suffering, not to mention the indignity.

When Carly’s voice drew his attention back to his own condition, he focused on her face. “You want something to bite on?” she asked.

He blinked a third time. She pulled his belt from its loops, folded it in half, and put it carefully between his teeth as if she’d done this before. She probably had, he reflected. A coven High Priestess would not be a stranger to painful healings.

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