Page 61 of Taken By Raider Kings
“She’ll be all right.”Big and gruff, a man, somehow familiar.He smelled of fur and honey, ice and silver light.“Don’t worry.Themajirsay she’ll be just fine.”
“She’d better be.”Julia, sharp white toothsnap edging every word.“She’s our shaman.”
“Nobody’s disputing that.”Cullen,that was his name.She could see him now, standing near a window, rain-washed winterlight filtering through.The feathers in his hair fluttered; his breath fogged the glass.
Julia was next to a bed where a small pale shape lay.Sophie saw the tangled mop of dark, limp curls, and she knew they were hers.Invisible, her essential self stood at the foot of a single bed, watching the brightly colored quilt covering her body’s slowly rising and falling chest.
The face under the limp, unwashed hair was thin and terribly bruised.Themajircovered the bed-bound body in a fine network of ghostly silver light, their faces turned inward, long insubstantial fingers stroking.They were coaxing something from inside the body, a kind of light and heat, encouraging the glow to grow across the skin, bind everything together.
A shadow fell across the door, and Julia glanced up, dark rings under her eyes and the pale streak in her hair glaring.“How is he?”
“Hard to tell.”Eric hunched almost-defensively, touching the door frame with two fingers.“He doesn’t shift back, even while tranquilized.It takes two shamans and Brenn to hold him down.Brenn’s the only one he won’t kill.”
“I wish she’d wake up.”Julia sighed.“She could bring him out.”
“I dunno.”Eric peered at the bed, the quilt, Sophie’s slow-breathing body.“I haven’t seen anything go throughupirlike that since…”
“Since Dad.”Julia’s tone softened.“He still thinks it’s his fault.”
“It’s Zach.Of course he does.”Eric’s gaze rose, touched Cullen’s broad back.“How much longer?”
“As long as it takes.”The other shaman turned away from the window.“She had six broken ribs, a shattered arm, a concussion, skull fractures—should I go on?She’s shaman, so themajirare healing her directly.It takes time.”
“He doesn’t have much left.”Eric sighed, slumping wearily against the doorframe.
Itching spread along Sophie’s not-body.She was standingoutsideherself, yes, and she realized she should be faintly alarmed by this.
“I know.”Cullen’s broad face set, the feathers in his hair fluttering afresh.“But if it comes down to losing him or losing a shaman…”
“Stop it.”Julia touched Sophie’s slack senseless hand, and the not-Sophie standing at the end of the bed felt a faint tingling warmth in her not-fingers.“Just get better, Sophie.We need you.”
“They’re doing all they can.”Eric turned away, sharply.“I’m going back down.Maybe if I cook something, he’ll eat.”
Sophie watched as the bruising on her colorless, unconscious face retreated, the swelling easing as if by magic.
Maybe it was, she thought, slowly.With werewolves, vampires, spirits, shaman—magic couldn’t be far behind, could it?
Zach.Something had happened to him.She strained to remember, the room going fuzzy and distant.
It was an Unpleasant Thing.She waited for themajirto tell her she didn’t want to see, waited for her own brain to shiver away from a bad memory.
It didn’t happen.
He’d found her somehow.It was funny, the memory kept slipping and sliding inside her, as if it hadn’t found its proper place yet—Zach crouching before the vampires, snarling.It probably hadn’t occurred to him to leave her to Marc’s tender mercies.
No.She knew it hadn’t.
Had he gotten her out of there?How?
Now he was in trouble.Something was wrong with him.
Themajircrowded close.
We cannot force you, they said.You can accept our help, and be truly a shaman.We will aid you, and you will hear us.You will be part of the Tribes.There is no going back.
Well, that was a laugh, wasn’t it?There had never been any return, for her.Not since she’d married Marc, thinking he was Prince Charming instead of a beast.Everything followed from that one horrible, inevitable, irreversible mistake.
The room solidified.The spirits had stilled, their quicksilver smoke hanging over her body, oddly frozen.Bruises retreated visibly, the swelling receded, and the body on the bed stirred.
