Page 78 of Beast and Remedy
I close my eyes as his offered tenderness seeks to envelop me and bite my lip, smothering my emotions. “I’m a little under the weather. Marian is going to help me to my rooms.”
Beau cannot see Marian’s arched brow, nor my squeeze for her to go with it.
“Please, I can’t let them see me again,” I whisper.
Beau says, “Surely, one of us can help escort you, or I can heal—”
“Save your energy,” Marian rushes out as she peers over her shoulder. “We know our own home.”
Her attitude matches mine, and it’s enough. Marian grips my forearm as a growl vibrates low in my sternum. The magic thrums, a beat increasing my heart rate and altering my breathing.
I fasten my hold on my sister, and the two of us scurry from the library. The doors close behind us, and Marian asks, “What do you need?”
“There’s no time,” I tell her, veering us toward the back entrance of the castle. “It’s coming faster than I anticipated.”
A spasm explodes in my calf, and I hiss, my knees buckling and pitching us forward.
“Whoa,” Marian grunts. “Try to keep it together.”
“I can’t control it,” I grit under my breath as she takes on more of my weight. “Am I hurting you? Is this doing anything to your—”
“I’mfine, Vi.”
But the venom in her voice doesn’t make me feel much better.
We barely pass through the clearing and make it a few steps into the plains surrounding the perimeter of our home—
POP!
My wrist snaps out of place.
I gasp and muffle my scream. I can’t cause a scene, and I don’t want to alert any of the nearby guards.
“We’re almost there. Come on,” Marian reassures me as I stumble when my hip moves from its socket.
I yelp, tears stinging my eyes as agony explodes up my arm, and the edges of my vision turn black from the fiery heat coursing down my thigh.
“I can’t,” I pant through pained breaths. “I can’t go through this.”
Tremors rack through me as Marian refuses to leave my side, dragging me into Haliver Woods.
“You can, Vi. And I’ll be with you.”
I shake my head, not wanting her to see it. “No, you can’t! The wolves—”
“I’m already infected!” she snaps, her eyes lit with fury and resentment.
I shrink, the fault being mine.
Marian rolls her eyes as she braces me against a tree, holding my shoulders and forcing me to look at her. “I don’t blame you. But you can’t keep me from helping you through this.”
I sigh. “Marian—”
“You don’t have anything to help you!” She shakes me in place, and it triggers my magic, careening down my leg and breaking one of my bones.
I cry out, pinching my eyes shut and slumping to the forest’s floor.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Marian lowers. “Vi, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know what came over me. I was so mad you were—”
