Page 216 of Halfblood Deceived

“Tell them that yourself as soon as you can,” Mac said. “They’ve refused to listen to us these past two days.”

“I’ve been unconscious for two days?” Aella asked.

“Fifty-one hours, to be exact,” Mari said. She straightened in her chair and cast a spell under her breath that created a green hologram of Aella’s inner organs over her body. “How are you feeling?”

Aella took stock of herself, squeezing Diana’s and Zeydan’s hands and wiggling her toes. The pain on the left side of her body was dull and intense but by far not unbearable. “Fine, I’ve been much worse.”

Mac and Lupita looked at her with almost identical expressions of surprise.

“You’ve gone through something worse than getting shot twice?” Lupita asked.

Aella bit her lip, flicking a glance at the others, who looked just as uncomfortable as she suddenly felt. “Um, yes, actually. I’ll tell you about it one day.”

“Dammit, chica,” Lupita said, brow furrowed.

Mari hummed, waving a hand to dispel her magic. “No inner scarring remains and your newly regrown kidney is working beautifully.”

Aella’s eyes went round. “My kidney grew back? I can grow back my kidneys?”

“Not without the help of vampire blood,” Mari said, her green eyes landing on Zeydan.

Aella groaned. “Will somebody please tell me what the Hell happened?”

Lupita opened her mouth, but Mac placed a hand over it. “Nope. You would confuse her even more.”

Lupita rolled her eyes but didn’t argue.

“He shot you twice,” Diana said, throat bobbing. “I managed to stop him from doing it again and then rushed toward you. There was so much blood…” Her eyes turned glassy with tears.

Aella squeezed her hand harder.

Kamilla rubbed her forehead. “I heard the gunshots and rushed downstairs. By then you were on the floor and Diana was screaming as she tried to stop the bleeding.” She shook her head. “I poured my blood on the wound, but it didn’t help you heal. You were going to die on us if we didn’t get you to the hospital in two minutes, so Vaz portalled you directly into the OR. I called Aroth and asked him to help us. He knocked everyone in Hecate unconscious except for the staff and the security team, then portalled Diana and me to the hospital before leaving.”

“The scary idiot appeared directly inside my lab,” Mari continued. “‘Aella needs you,’ he said, grabbing my wrist and portalling me right beside you. And he was right.” She scoffed. “The surgeons and nurses were doing it all wrong. I kicked most of them out and then Kamilla helped me fix you up.”

“Kam told me to call Kerian and let him know what happened,” Diana told Aella. “I did. He was at Kali. So he called Aroth too and asked him for help.”

“I was helping Kerian with some administrative things when he got the call, so I overheard Diana,” Zeydan said. His voice was tinged with anguish, brow furrowed even as he drew idle, soothing circles over Aella’s knuckles. “Aroth appeared in Kerian’s office in a matter of seconds. I asked him to take me to the hospital after dropping Kerian off at Hecate. He reminded us both that he wasn’t a taxi, but portalled us anyway. Then he went back to Hecate to help Kerian clean up the mess.”

“Aroth is very industrious,” Aella idly commented, processing the whirlwind her friends had lived through.

“And fucking terrifying,” Mari commented. “I know he’s on our side and all but gods, he scares the shit out of me.”

“It’s a normal reaction in fey, I believe,” Mac said, lips pursed in contemplation. “It took me days to stop flinching inwardly at Vaz’s presence. And he’s not even half as powerful as Aroth.”

Mari sighed. “Yeah.”

“You chickens might think Aroth is scary, but I wish I were like him,” Lupita added. “I’ve never seen someone hypnotize humans so fast and so carefully, not even you, Lady Kamilla.” Kam half shrugged in acknowledgment. Lupita continued. “We helped Lord Kerian and Aroth to herd out the slightly hypnotized patrons, claiming there was a gas leak. Then Mac, Trin, Rod, Becca, Reese, and I came here.” Her words took speed. “They didn’t let us see you, of course. So all we could do was angst, drink coffee—which mixes horribly with angst, by the way—and watch Zeydan pace so much it made us dizzy. We might have also planned a discreet murder. Oh, and we half-watched reruns of this sitcom I used to love when I was little, but that has definitely not aged well and makes me want to kick younger me for pendeja and not realizing it was full of misogyny because I was too distracted drooling for the hot blonde protagonist.”

Everyone stared at Lupita.

“What?” she asked.

Aella laughed. It made her side hurt but felt good, cleansing. The others smiled at her.

Mac gave Lupita a weary look, but she was holding back a smile. “No more coffee for you for at least a full week, Speedy. I’m pretty sure poor Aella didn’t understand half of what you just said.”

Lupita pouted. “That’s an exaggeration.”

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