Page 39 of Love the Way You Lion
“I came here on request, not by command, Talia. Free will—woohoo! If I do it, you’ll heal faster and without major intervention. It won’t hurt, and it won’t take days or weeks. I promised I would, and even if I hadn’t, I’d do it because you’re important to them. Plus, I’m a bleeding heart milk dud with no ability to not take in strays—everyone knows that.”
She keeps looking at me and I get more nervous, more flustered, wondering if she’s worried what else she’ll get from me. It’s my self-conscious bullshit, but even broken and bleeding, she’s strong and feminine and ethical and intelligent. I’m many things, but somehow, she’s making me feel like a tiny speck in the universe’s eye. It’snot on purpose. But I’m sitting here in my robe and Taurus’ shirt, trying to finish healing a warrior who’s looking at me funny despite being ripped open and half naked. I feel ridiculously small. “I don’t—I don’t have to.”
She nods and lets go of my hand, her eyes closing. “Do it anyway; it doesn’t matter.”
I nod, doing my best to keep my expression as blank as possible. The hanging moments of her indecision tell me all I need to know about who I will be in everyone’s eyes forever. My voice is soft and my eyes stay on my extended claw as I force myself to ask again.
“What I need to know is—shall I cut or do you want to take a bite and go from there? It’s more for your comfort because either way, it’ll work. Either way is fine with me.” I don’t look up, but I’m sure the looks are passing between them and I close my eyes, trying to stave off the sensation of unworthiness. It happened with Taurus, too, but for a different reason. I’m paranoid and I don’t know why. Talia’s said nothing bad about me that I know of. She’s never shown that she thinks I’m less than, but that’s what I’m feeling and it’s getting worse by the minute.
“Whatever you need, baby,” Rafe whispers.
The discomfort of the situation is eating at me and I can’t take it anymore. “No, no. It’s my bad. I didn’t think. Here, let me do this.” I pull my arm away and slice it from wrist to elbow, not even batting a lash at the sting.
My poker face for pain matches my primary’s—skills we honed at the feet of the dearly departed. No one can see you flinch; no one can know you cry. Keep it all inside and you survive another day. The pain distracts me, makes me focus on that rather than the emotions making my heart hurt. I squeeze it hard, dripping it over the wound and the poultice, keeping the pressure so it gets everywhere it needs to be.
I murmur under my breath, mixing the paste and the blood, feeling the power flow from my fingertips. Feeling the muscle and tissue knit, I watch inside as nicks, muscles, and organs heal. I make sure every tiny injury—layer by layer, inside to outside—is healing. Mending all the bones and flesh, I reach the outer part of the wound and then let my cut heal. The energy I’m using keeps the pressure, so it gets everywhere it needs to be.
They’re both trying to see into my mind while I do it, I know, as neither of my mates has ever seen me do this in person. But they can’t and I’m sure it’s frustrating them. I’m only able to focus on what I’m doing right now. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, watching me, watching her wound.
Sensing the closing of the gash and the smoothing out of her skin, I hear the pop it makes when the skin seals and let out a breath. It’s fucking draining, and I let go of the tight hold I have on my powers, trying to shake off the tired and the feeling of ick I got from my earlier paranoia.
It hits me like a ton of bricks right in the face. I don’t even have time to speak before I feel myself blink out of the room, falling onto the satin comforter—somewhere—in a heap of arms and legs with a flop.
Jesus Fucking Christ, where am I?
The Bird Has A Rough Night
TAURUS
Everything happened so bloody fast that I barely had time to steady myself before the world lurched beneath my feet. Stone walls quivered with a dull roar, as if the very foundation of the chamber had been shaken loose from its moorings. Somewhere beyond the fraying edges of my senses, my heart hammered so fiercely I thought it might burst. It was only by sheer force of will that I managed to stay on my feet, though my legs felt like jelly and my vision swam at the edges.
My primary is alive and well… but my wife is missing.
Sampson’s feet slap on the wood floor, each step echoing off the floorboards. He wrenches himself around, blond hair whipping unsheathed across his forehead, eyes wide with panic. The sheen of sweat on his brow tells me that he, too, is panicking. “Where the hell did she go? What happened?!” His voice cracks on the last word, a raw edge that betrays his confidence, and for the briefest heartbeat I wonder if this is my fault.
Did my pleas to save Talia encourage her to overdo it with weaving her magic, making her fuck something up she wouldn’t have otherwise?
My goddess, the one whose body my wife just labored to heal—lays on the thick, plush rug in the center of the artist’s room. Her chest rises and falls in slow, even breaths, a stark contrast to the chaos ringing in my ears. Every inhalation is calm; every exhale a gentle sigh of ease. With an almost languid grace, she pushes herself up on trembling arms, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead, and draws a deep, untroubled breath as if nothing at all has gone wrong.
Relief should be washing over me in a flood, but instead there’s only guilt—gnawing, insistent, and gut-twisting. She’s safe, whole, and unbroken once more, but someone else has vanished in her place.
Someone I cannot live without.
“I can’t find her,” Sampson mutters, his voice low but fierce. He pivots, gaze flicking to me as though I alone hold the missing puzzle piece. Concern flits across his unreadable features, as if he’s searching for an answer in the hard lines of my face. My stomach twists with shame—confusion mingled with need as I realize how desperately I crave that flicker of vulnerability I know I shouldn’t take comfort in.
At the foot of the bed, Talia hovers nervously, her blond hair catching the lamp’s soft glow like molten gold. She frowns, her bronze hand slicing through the empty air where my wife was a moment ago. “Is she…?” Her question tapers off, swallowed by the sudden hush. The only response is the echo of her uncertainty bouncing off the walls.
Hell if I know, but I’m doing my best not to lose my shit.
Panic slithers tighter around my ribs, constricting breath and bone alike. I force my eyes shut, trying to still the chaos of my thoughts and reach out through the bond I share with my minx. Lines of energy from our bond—faint, trembling filaments of light and color—snake from my mind toward where Deli should be. I send them out further, tentative and desperate, seeking even the faintest spark of recognition. “Minx? Where are you?” I whisper, the voice in my mind so quiet it feels like a secret.
No answer comes, only empty echoes of my own words. Every comforting vibration in that psychic link—the small flutter of her heartbeat against mine, the sound of her thoughts whispered through memory—has been snuffed out. I feel as if I’ve stepped off a precipice and hit rock bottom in the dark.
I can always feel her since we mated, but now there’s nothing.
Sampson grinds his teeth. The low growl he lets out reverberates across the room. “I can’t evenfeelher,” he says. His lithe shoulders tense as he flexes his arms, as though trying to will her presence back into being. I want to scream—at fate, at magic, at whatever unknown force has spirited her away, and most of all at myself for letting this happen.
Talia draws in a trembling breath and closes her eyes. Her hands lift, obviously looking for her blade as she sifts through the web of emotions that must be swamping her. There’s no tremor of her energy, no hint of her laughter, no echo of the gentle warmth my new mate always brings to my mind. After what seems like an eternity, Talia growls softly. The blue of her eyes is cold and hard as hunted game. She stalks over to the nightstand where her blade is resting to grab it so she can spin it maniacally. “There’s nothing,” she says. “No trace of her as far as I can tell.”
