Page 94 of A Bond in Flames

Color drained from his face. “You’re injured. Sit. I’ll return momentarily.”

Sitting heavily on the bed, I rubbed my hand over my face. I needed rest for the fight ahead. I would bring him back one battle at a time until I won the war. I had to; anything else was unacceptable.

Egon rushed back in with his basket of healing supplies, and I carefully unwrapped my hand.

The demon gasped. “What happened?”

“I cut it off. It was the only way to get back to him,” I said, pain radiating up my entire arm. “There’s some balm in my pack. Use it after you sew it up.”

Egon nodded, mixing a tincture with a sedative and antibiotic herbs to prevent infection. He handed it to me, and I gulped it back, then lay down and gave in to the tiredness. I was back. I’d made it back to him.

I woke in the early hours of the morning drenched in sweat and shivering. The tincture hadn’t worked. Egon had sewn me up and used the balm, but my hand was tight, obviously swollen. Infection had set in, and I had a fever. I struggled to regain consciousness, but it was impossible.

“My lady?” Egon was sitting beside the bed. He quickly got up and lifted my head, spooning a tonic into my mouth. I felt him unwrap my hand, checking it; then the scent of Else’s healing balm reached me, and I instantly missed her again. Tears welled in my eyes before the tiredness took over again.

* * *

Death

Noises were coming from downstairs. Banging and crashing and talking. Shoving myself up off the bed, I strode to the door and flung it open. Whoever the fuck was disturbing my peace would pay with their head.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, surprised at what I saw.

Egon had ignored my order to leave the castle as it was and to remove himself and leave me here alone to rot.

Instead, he’d allowed more people into my home, and they were cleaning the destruction I’d caused in the main room and, by the sounds of it, in several other parts of the castle as well. “Egon,” I roared.

Egon rushed by, ignoring me, carrying a bowl full of something strong smelling.

I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him, fighting back the savage rage that lived inside me now, that had returned stronger than ever before. “What the fuck are you still doing here? And why are all these people in my home? I want everyone gone.” I wanted to be left alone.

He looked up at me stubbornly. The demon had been with me for centuries, and never once in all that time had he given me so much as a look of defiance, but that was what I was looking at now. “Do not test me, demon. You will do as you are told.”

Egon squared his shoulders. “I will not. Her ladyship is unwell. I won’t leave her in that state, and I will not allow her to live in squalor.”

Every muscle in my body seized, razor blades eviscerating my insides.Her ladyship?A snarl was torn from me. “Do not mention her in my presence again. She made her choice. You are delusional. That female is never returning, now leave.”

Egon blinked up at me several times. “Are you so deep in darkness that you do not know a dream from reality? She has returned. She returned last night.” He rushed past. “Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

He was wrong. It was only a dream. She came home in my dreams, in my fucking nightmares. I had them every night. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Was I still asleep? Was this some sick trick of my warped mind? I shook my head again, forcefully, but I didn’t wake, because I already was. And even though I tried to resist because what he said wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, I stormed after Egon, up the stairs and to her old room—where I’d thrown her last night,in a fucking dream.

The door was open, and Egon was murmuring softly. “Please swallow, my lady. You need to drink this.”

I rounded the door—and an invisible fist slammed into my chest. “No… it was a dream,” I choked. “I’m still dreaming.”

“It is not,” Egon said. “Now help me. She’s fighting an infection, and she’s far too hot. I need you to hold her up so I can feed her some of my tonic.”

I grabbed for the door as my legs buckled beneath me. She was here. She was in her bed, in my castle.

I didn’t trust this. How could I trust this? “What the fuck is this? Why is she here now?”

“You will have to ask her that yourself, but if you don’t help me now, she may die. She’s strong, but we could still lose her. So either stand there and stare and let her die, or get over here and help me.”

I lurched forward, and my throat grew so fucking tight, I was struggling to breathe. “Where is she hurt?”

Egon motioned her bandaged hand. “She lost a finger,” he said as I carefully lifted her head for Egon to spoon some of his tonic into her mouth.

“How?”

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