Page 31 of The Grip of Death
“It’s nice to be alive,” he said, smiling.
My lips pursed. “Don’t talk like that. You’re gonna make me cry.”
His hands were already healing, but half of his hair would always be white.
Xander chuckled. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we? Big, strong guild master has a reputation to uphold. Good thing we’re alone.”
Everyone had left not long after Xander woke up, the boys coupling off to go home, Beatrice heading back to her boutique to finish some work. That was why I loved my buddies so much. We might bicker, argue, and butt heads, but we all understood each other at the end of the day. And they knew well enough that I needed time alone with Xander.
“Yeah. Good thing we’re alone. Listen — I don’t know how else to say it. I’ve turned it over in my head so many times now. I’m so, so sorry for what happened.”
He shook his head. “You say that like it was your fault. Accidents happen. Maybe something in the arcane engine got knocked loose. Maybe I overloaded the machine. Iamsuper strong in addition to being super handsome, Jack.”
I laughed softly. Burned, electrocuted, and potentially frostbitten alive, but here he was making light of what very well could have been a near-death experience. It was Xander’s training, talent, and conditioning that had helped him survive, I was sure of it. Most any other mage would have perished under the flow of so much raw magic.
“And that’s the other thing. I wasn’t around the whole time you were passed out, and I’m sorry for that. I ran into Reza and thought I could — I don’t know. Sherlock Holmes over here. I didn’t get anything done, probably just embarrassed myself in the process.”
The creases in Xander’s forehead deepened. Like his white hair, the lines in his brow only seemed to enhance his youthful features. There was such a paradoxical beauty to Xander Wright, his black and his white, all these intermingling forces that made him the wonderful man he was.
And I’d almost lost him. I swallowed back a terrified sob, afraid that I would break down crying. I owed Hecate a fruit basket, too. Hell, I was going to owe a ton of fruit baskets by the end of all this.
“Hold on,” Xander said. “Why are you apologizing? You’re not a healer and you’re not a doctor, unless you’ve somehow been sneaking off to med school behind my back. What were you supposed to do here?”
I shrugged, which must have looked funny while lying on my back. “That’s what I said. I dunno what else I could have doneeither, but I kind of got shit for it. Add to that the fact that I didn’t really find anything while I was away and it really makes me feel like I let you down.”
Xander squeezed my hand tighter. The bedsheets shifted as he slid closer, linking his ankle with mine. He was so warm.
“You didn’t let me down. You have never let me down. Our friends have a weird way of caring sometimes, but it’s only because they care at all. That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah,” I said, holding my pout for a little longer than necessary. “I guess you’re right.”
He moved even closer, his forehead almost pressed against mine. “And think about this for a minute. Imagine if we switched places, gods forbid. Do you think I’d be sitting by your bedside waiting for the exact moment you opened your eyes?”
“No. You’d be out there tearing the Black Market apart.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “Understatement of the century. I’d be out there tracking down the person who did this to you. I’d burn this dimension down to smoke them out, then cast a fireball straight up their ass.”
It was terrifying, but also oddly charming in Xander’s own way. “You’d roast someone alive from the inside out for me? Xander, that’s so sweet.”
“Hah. I’d do so much worse and you know it. But now you’ve got me wondering. Why are you so sure that someone else is responsible for what happened with the machine?”
I sat up straight, still never letting go of his hand. “I was going to save this for until after you’d rested up a little more. It’s a long story and I really think you should have some soup in you first.”
The blankets shifted again, tangling between Xander’s feet as he pushed himself up to lean against the headboard. “Okay, fine. Soup me.”
Finally, an appetite. I practically flew across the room, throwing the door open only to find a piping-hot bowl of soup already floating in my face. Suspended by one of Lore’s tentacles, in fact, and accompanied by Lore himself in his tiny crystal body.
“Oh, good,” Lore chirped. “I know that Xander said he wasn’t hungry yet, but I was going to insist. He absolutely must get his strength back, Jackson. And if it’s because he isn’t in the mood for soup, then I also have a fresh loaf of bread baking in the oven, and a batch of cookies, and a large pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade, and — ”
“He’s ready,” I told him, beaming. “We’ll have a little of everything,” I added, because nothing pleased Lore more than when his organic charges used their tastebuds to appreciate the fruits of his labor.
“Say no more,” Lore pronounced. A thunderous clatter of activity boomed from the ground floor as his appendages sprang into action. The bowl of soup, buoyed by a tentacle, zoomed straight into the room and toward Xander’s side of the bed. A second tentacle zoomed past me, daintily wielding a single spoon.
Even more tentacles snaked up the stairway, each bearing another gift for our newly arisen hungry prince. The bread and cookies and beverages that Lore had promised were all delivered promptly and without spilling a single drop or crumb.
Even better, Lore had brought up plenty of servings for me as well. What a bro. One tentacle paused long enough after its delivery to muss up Xander’s hair, very much like a parent rubbing a beloved child on the head. Xander laughed, trying to swat away the tentacle with a spoon.
“Hey, Lore. Quit it.”
