Page 293 of Halfblood Deceived

He had to find her.

He needed to find her.

He would find her.

Aella needed him, and he couldn’t fail her. He wouldn’t.

Please hold on, Aella; he mentally urged, hoping against hope the message would reach her. Please hold on.

CHAPTER 57

Aella woke up to someone touching her face.

Someone with small, gentle hands.

There wasn’t a single part of her body that didn’t ache like mad.

Only one of her nostrils was functional because her nose was broken. Which, added to the broken ribs, made it hard to breathe.

One of her ribs snapped back into place with an audible pop sound.

A low groan left Aella’s mouth.

“Shh, it’s okay,” said a familiar feminine voice. “You’re okay.”

Am not; Aella wanted to argue.

She opened her eyes. Well, one eye—the other was sealed shut with swelling—and found a delicately beautiful feminine face haloed by dark hair.

“Claudia,” Aella croaked.

Claudia smiled, but her brow was tight with pained worry. “Yes. It’s me, Aella. How are you feeling?” She placed a bloody white towel in a basin full of water, rinsed it, squeezed it, and gently cleaned Aella’s face.

“Like a fucking lunatic broke my ribs and knocked out a few of my teeth,” Aella said. Her voice sounded alien to her ears. Idly, she touched the inside of her sore mouth with her tongue, finding four missing molars, and a gap in her front teeth, too.

Her eyes stung.

It was stupid to mourn her once-perfect teeth, considering she was going to be tortured to death. But she’d never been the most logical person, so why start now?

Claudia looked at her as if she were a stranger.

“What?” Aella asked.

“You just cursed,” she said in a whisper.

Aella’s rueful laugh turned into a fit of bloody coughing. “Oh, no. The horror!” She managed after a minute.

Claudia pursed her lips in disapproval. “Can you sit?”

“I can try,” Aella said.

Claudia gripped Aella’s shoulders and helped her push herself into a sitting position. Aella held back a whimper through sheer stubbornness. But…

She wasn’t as sore as she thought she’d be.

Micah had hit her harder than he ever had before. Much harder.

Aella thought she’d die. And that, if she woke up, she’d be unable to move even a finger. That her jaw would be cracked and her lungs punctured. And while she didn’t feel capable of withstanding round two just yet, and she was wheezing and coughing blood, she wasn’t as broken and sore as she expected.

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