Page 46 of Oracle of Ruin

“I want to go home.” I hate the way my voice cracks. Not with remorse for what I’ve done, but anger that I didn’t do it until it was too late. “Please, just take me home.”

For Tanja, I would have killed however many men I had to. I would’ve stained my hands beyond repair. For Blaine, Torin, Rowan, and the Nightwalkers, I would do anything.

I will become a monster so they never have to meet one.

Mavis opens her mouth as if to argue, but one glare has her closing it. She flicks an invisible piece of lint from her shoulder, though completely ignores the mud caked to the lower half of her body. “Well, at least we got what we needed before you killed him. I suppose we could stand to gain a bit more though.”

Mavis fishes a tongue from her pouch, and even I squirm at the sight when she crushes it in her hands. She snaps and a dark blade flies from behind us. A few seconds later, she opens her pouch again before ten new fingers and other body parts are deposited in by a dark breeze.

“Twenty or so for the price of one,” she says with a wink.

“That’s sick.” Even as I say the words, I can’t help the way the corners of my mouth begin to lift. My dried tears disappear on my bloody and crusted lips.

It isn’t until we have been walking for a good fifteen minutes that Neris’s gaze drops to my bloody hand and she swears under her breath. The careful fingers of a soldier who knows the delicacy of a hundred weapons lift my damaged hand by the wrist. Her callouses brush against the joint, the ensuing shivers sending a spark of pain through the still-raw skin. “This needs medical attention.”

“I’m sure she knows that, Neris.” Emi rolls her eyes. I purposely ignore the way her face pales and she glances nervously at the wound, even while the sarcasm drips from her lips.

My own gaze trails theirs. My hand should have at least started to heal by now. Generally, I hate these types of wounds because the skin heals before the muscle and tissue, causing all sorts of internal damage. Usually, it appears healed, then someone well-meaning pokes or grabs the wrong spot and the process starts all over again. But not now. Now, the wound is still as raw as it was a few moments ago when it happened, the only difference being some dried flecks of blood amidst the new running stream.

“Don’t you have healing powers?” Emi’s voice rises an octave. “Heal it!”

“I should.” My brows pinch together and my forehead creases. “But I’ve had some sort of damper on my power since I met Mavis. I guess I haven’t gotten injured enough to notice. Small cuts heal slowly but fine. I guess this wound is too much.”

“Or the dark magic is suppressing it,” Neris hisses under her breath, turning her face from Mavis’s disapproving glare.

The notion takes me aback for a moment, the only time I’ve seen her unflinching loyalty waver. The thought is pushed to the back of my mind as she reaches into the sack that hangs by her side, rummaging through it until her fingers wrap around the neck of a bottle. She pulls it from the damp and molded cloth and uncorks it with her teeth.

I raise a single brow. “You didn’t pack any medical supplies?”

Neris cringes and opens her mouth, but Emi cuts her off, her features narrowing in warning. “We figured with a pureblood who can heal herself, we wouldn’t need any. The rest of us are competent enough to not get injured, or at least smart enough to not punch a fucking tree.”

“Language,” Neris warns. “This is going to sting.”

The words barely register before pain sluices through my mangled hand. Red blurs the corners of my vision and a strangled cry tears through my throat and burns my vocal cords until nothing comes out but hoarse wind. Stars spot across Neris’s concerned face. Emi’s already pale face turns a horrid shade of green as she spots the white bone peeking out behind my ruined flesh. Mavis slings an arm around her shoulder and ushers her away while her general finishes bandaging my wound.

“You’ll need to see a real medic as soon as we get back. Pureblood or not, I don’t want you doing anything with that hand, you hear me?”

Emi murmurs something like, “Okay, Mom,” under her breath and Neris shoots the teen a playful glare. My heart swells in my chest and fills just a fraction of that ever-growing ache.

Even if Irene was never what one would consider a good mother, I know what a real mom should act like. I have read of the warmth and love in the books I so cherish. I would hole myself up in the library, my calves still bleeding over the fine rugs and a book tucked to my chest with another stack beside me. I always sat on the floor, the cool stone grounding me just enough that I never drifted too far into fantasy. The return to reality was always worse than whatever drove me to books and the lives I could live through them.

Aiko was a better mother to me in the few times I met her than Irene was her whole life. Aiko didn’t need to know I really am her daughter, she just saw someone who needed love and gave it freely.

Neris certainly isn’t the mother of the trio, more like the older sister. She affectionately buries her fist in Emi’s fiery red hair. The child hisses—actually hisses—at the grown woman, who only lets out a hearty laugh while Mavis swats at them both. I can see Mavis being the father.

My heart weeps only for a moment. Emi is truly cherished. No, theyallcherish each other. All broken rejects from a world that turned their back on them, the perfect pieces for their puzzle of a family.

They aren’t so unlike my Nightwalkers.

The bond in my blood tugs me towards Mavis as I fall too far behind. She glances over her shoulder as I stumble, then slows her pace to extend her arm. “A dead pureblood is no good to me.” She juts out her lower lip. “And knowing you, you’ll trip over a tree root and snap your neck.”

“Just admit you like me already and get on with it.”

Neris barks out another laugh from behind us, while Emi grumbles jealously. I extend a hand her way, but the teen only bats it away, an embarrassed blush coating her freckled face. The mercenary queen, her wolf, and lamb—then there’s me. I know I am not meant to fit in here, nor should I want to. My home is somewhere out there, searching for me, trying to bring me home. Rowan is out there. My parents are out there. And somewhere, Torin lives, and I will find him. I will bring him home. I won’t lose anyone else.

But for now, it cannot be too wrong to wish to be loved by these three. It can’t possibly be wrong to find that I am enjoying my time with them as if they didn’t kidnap me.

Gods, maybe there is something seriously wrong with me, I think with a wicked smile. And maybe I like it.

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