Page 160 of Living Legend

A grunt sounded from inside the room and then a relieved sigh. “Ah, if it isn’t the angel with the big fucking mouth.”

I stepped into the room and was overwhelmed with the settling scent of peppermint. It was enough to cause me to take another whiff and let the tension in my shoulders start to release. I heard a breath catch behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see two healers slowing as they passed the door. I was about to tell them I was handling it when Elise decided to speak instead.

“There is nothing to fucking see here! If you are going to stand there, can you please get someone to spray this room? It smells like shit in here!”

I closed my eyes the minute the young healers scurried away and took a long inhale in and a long exhale out. “I happen to think it smells just fine.”

I caught her mid eye roll when I opened my eyes. “You would. Smells so fucking minty in here, I want to vomit.”

“Maybe that’s because you aren’t letting yourself actually relax. You ever consider that? It’s a healing building for a reason.” I took in the room. There was a plush bed in the corner and a little table to eat near the middle. A light fixture made of tree vines adorned the ceiling, creating light. A few metal bits and pieces of glass were all over the floor and scattered along the top of the table. The two windows in the room were slightly cracked, and I didn't know if that was from Elise or had always been there.

Elise snorted. “Right. These people wouldn’t know how to heal someone if it bit them in the ass.” She sat in one of the velvet armchairs against the wall across from the door. Elise adjusted herself and then winced, grabbing at her shoulder.

I walked further into the room and shut the door behind me. “It wouldn’t bother you so much if you just let them help you.”

She rolled her gray eyes. “I let them patch up my leg and make the scars on my face disappear, but whatever Blondie did to my shoulder is clearly too much for their pea brains.”

I looked at where Dani had stabbed her thigh, the blood and the scabbed wound, and then moved up to her face, where her pale cheeks were ripped from Dani’s nails. Now, her face was just as porcelain as it once was. That wound on her shoulder though…that festering and bubbling I’d seen had gone away, but it was still red.

“I can practically taste the magic from that fucking arrow. It tastes like pure fire. A demon gets hit by enough of those things and they would probably explode. I would actually love to fucking see that.” Elise tried to roll her shoulder, but it was no good.

“Just let them put that shit on your shoulder so we can go,” I said, trying to make my voice as authoritative as possible.

Elise peered up at me from where I stood in front of her. She placed her arms on top of the chair’s armrests and dug her nails into the fabric. Her eyes were dancing in a playful manner, as if I was amusing. “Oh, Nicholas, you forget that I’m not Dani, so this whole dominating tone of yours really does nothing for me. Now, if you want to get on your knees and ask me nicely, then I might consider it.”

I pulled my sword from its holster along my back and laid it gently on the small dining table. I turned around, leaning back against the table, placing my hands behind me on the edge to brace myself against it. "Youreallylike to make shit difficult, don't you?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Keeps things interesting, don't you think?"

"No, not really."

"Well, that's because you are no fun, Nicholas."

I let out a soft sigh and lifted myself up onto the table, shoving my sword back. "Why did you let her do that to you?"

Elise tapped the top of her shoulder wound with her index finger, scrunching up her face at each small touch. "What do you mean?"

"You could have just told her everything before she had you pinned to a tree and plunging a shadowy dagger into your thigh, but you didn't. You let her do all that, for what?"

"You just love to pry open doors you have no business opening, don't you?"

"I only do it when it pertains to the situation." Her eyes were practically burning a hole into the side of my face when I turned to look at her. "Did you really mean it?"

"You are going to have to be more specific."

"When you said that you should have just let Lilith kill her? Did you mean it? Is everything you said true? Lilith threatening to kill her if she didn't fall in line?"

Elise relaxed back into the chair and closed her eyes. "I don't know, I like feeling like a frustrating mystery."

"Elise, fucking come on! You can't say something like that and then just treat it like some big joke. It's not a mystery, it's stalling, and I'm done with it! We all are." I sighed loudly and then snuck a peek at her, her eyes closed. She was blatantly ignoring me, and it was irritating, to say the least. With her eyes closed, it gave me a moment to really look at her and think. I thought back to everything she had said to Dani before the healers had taken her away. I thought about everything from the very moment I met her. She had come with Dani all on her own and if I was thinking differently, I would believe that she did that for Lilith's sake, to be in her favor. Now I knew that was wrong. Elise said that Lilith wanted Dani to comply and become a host for so much darkness, that her light was covered by it and if she didn't, she'd get rid of her. Elise had done her job and she had done it well, but it wasn't about doing it for Lilith.

Elise didn't want Dani to die by Lilith's hand. She didn't do any of this for Lilith's sake. She did it for–

"Dani."

She hummed as she tapped her fingernails against the velvet armrests.

A small smile ticked at the corner of my mouth. "You care about her."

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