Page 53 of What Whispers in the Dark
This is a deletedscene from Chapter Twenty-six after Garrik, Thalon, and Aiden “interrogated” the Raven prisoners, and is set before Alora woke in her tent with Garrik at her bedside.
Garrik bit back the nausea boiling up his throat. His bones turned molten with rage as his skin paled and eyes swirled with darkness.
He turned, growling through gritted teeth, barely able to articulate the words through his snarling lips. Barely sounding like himself, asking, “Did … they…” He could not finish the vilesentence. Could not search the Raven’s minds for the answers, afraid of what he would witness.
Afraid of what he would become because of it.
Of the animal he would claim inside himself for what they might have done to Alora, as what his master would have done to him.
Threatening to explode, Garrik’s grip tightened against the headrest of Alora’s emerald and golden celestial embroidered reading chair. The blackwood cracked and splintered. He could dawn her a new one later. He needed this …thisviolence brimming to find an outlet.
And based on Ozrin’s next response, he might need a whole new camp.
His healer—Ozrin—stood between the bed and the chair. The long navy robe touched the rugs above the wooden floor as a tickle of silvering long hair disturbed his wrinkled face. Dark circles under the elder male’s brown orbs revealed a morning of strenuous surgery. He deepened a long, careful breath and answered, “No, sire.”
Garrik interpreted what he did not say.They did not touch her.
He could not feel his body. It had completely frozen over as he warred off tears of wrath and relief. There would be time for that later.
Ozrin continued, “It’s by some miracle she walked back, sire. Let alone dragged someone with her.”
Suppressing the urge to smile at Alora’s incredible strength, Garrik growled, “Explain.”
“I found a puncture wound on her neck. Judging by the information you relayed, they did indeed use Valeidrin to drug her. And if it were not for the adrenaline coursing through her system, she wouldn’t have made it ten feet. Truly, it is incredible.”
Garrik paced forward, never removing his gaze from the white hair splayed on the pillow. He curled his fingers into the blanket at the foot of her bed, surveying her bloody body covered in bandages, not daring to touch her.
“How is she?” She looked—no. He would not think of it. How gray her skin was. The shallow breaths. The enchanting glow that normally surrounded her … how it was gone.
Warmth, unlike Alora’s, drifted beside him as Ozrin stepped near the bed. “The effects of the drug will last for some time today. She is fevered, likely to shake. Vomit. But once out of her system, the effects are minor. She’ll be tired. The adrenaline and use of her magic will cause her body to crash. She will need a few days to rest before being expected to continue any duties.”
“Scars?” Garrik winced at the thought, but he should have known the answer?—
“No, Your Highness.” Ozrin’s eyes flashed to Garrik’s wrists with something akin to soft affection. The soothing look he imagined a fathershouldoffer an injured youngling, but Garrik could not know for certain—Magnelis would never be considered a true example of one. Then Ozrin went on, “The shackle that had been on her right wrist left a wound, and with a lack of evidence of any other drug in her blood, it joys me to say her blood will heal it entirely.”
Garrik nodded, grateful they had not injected her with the venom he wassofamiliar with.
Ozrin turned and ambled to the bedside table, taking care to pack away discarded bloody cloth and empty vials. “The branch in her side wasn’t deep, either. It missed vital organs, and the stitches should heal well. The shoulder puncture was not as serious as I had anticipated originally. Everything else is superficial.” Silver hair shifted as he turned over his shoulder and met Garrik’s stare. “Allow her to recover the rest of the week. Let her blood and these”—he riffled through his bag on Alora’sreading chair, producing two bottles of clear liquid—“finish the healing.”
Stiffening upright, Garrik stepped forward before he took the vials in hand and stood by Alora’s pillow. Still, his eyes returned to her for fear her steadily rising chest would fall and never rise again. “Thank you, Ozrin. You may go.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I will send someone to attend to her washing. Jade, perhaps?”
“That will not be necessary.”
Ozrin dipped his head, lifted his black leather bag from the bedside table, and turned toward the canvas door. “Send for me if you require assistance tonight. That goes for you as well, son.”
Garrik did not need to turn. He could feel Ozrin’s gaze on his hand, which had fallen to Alora’s forehead as his thumb brushed back the white hair that rested there, still covered in Raven’s blood.
And his own.
The knuckles split from numerous bone-cracking impacts.
He felt the corner of his mouth twitch at the word,son, which carried too many painful memories. Not even Magnelis called him that; for him, it was onlyprinceorGarrikor a slew of profanities and insults. But Ozrin … made to be a loving father; blessed with none. He was the only healer whom Brennus and Malik had allowed to attend to his wounds after his brutal treatments in his dungeon.
After all, someone had to keep him alive until the serpent returned and struck him with mortal blows.
Thousands of times, Ozrin’s hands were there, soothing his body and stopping his blood from rushing from his wounds. And if his hands were not soothing enough, Ozrin’s heart was.
