Page 64 of Wings of Lies
“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding almost concerned. He had to be mocking me.
“I saidleave!” I screamed, purple flame spiking through the material.
Holding in a gasp of pain, I rolled onto my side, forcing his hands off me. The bed moved under his weight, and his sword scraped against the floor and slid back into its sheath. Once he shut the door, I let out the strangled gasp. The physical pain was just as bad as the emotional pain. Tears fell without the audience, rolling down the side of my cheek and over my nose, soothing the haunting melody and itch. My purple flames dimmed beneath the cloak, sinking back to where they came.
I shifted, thinking it’d help the painful heartbeat in my sides. With my clothing burned to nothing, the sticky honey slid against the heavy fabric of the prince’s cloak. The throbbing worsened.
My fingers lifted the fabric, and I winced. It was stuck, possibly to the honey. Taking a deep breath, cringing, I jerked it off like a band-aid.
Blood seeped down my ribs and around my back.
The fabric had slowed the bleeding, but now my open wounds were exposed. My stomach turned.
“Shit,” I said. Not only were my cuts freely bleeding down my side, but I had to find help, and I was naked.
I searched the room for something to wrap around my wounds, finding no extra supplies.What kind of healer didn’t have extra supplies?Muffling my cry, I swung my legs off the bed. My handspressed into my sides, trying to stop the bleeding. It barely helped, but it was better than nothing. My legs, though—there was nothing I could do for them. They throbbed with the same fiery pain my sides did and bled.
Working up the courage, I stood. The floor swirled before I gained my bearings and shuffled toward the door. Trickles of blood slid down the backs of my thighs. With slick fingers, it took two tries before the knob turned, and he was already there.
“Aspen?” I whispered, voice hitching. A sudden chill overwhelmed my body, and my knees buckled.
Without a word, he had me in his arms. My sides burned as he jostled me. I hadn’t expected him to pick me up but was grateful even if it was agonizing, and the room swirled.
“Hana!” he called, laying me in bed.
“Why didn’t you say something immediately?” he demanded, touching the opening of the cloak.
“I didn’t know.” I rested my head back against the soft pillow, my mind loopy.
What was he doing?
“Hey!” My vision blinked out, then back in, and my cloak opened. I was bare in front of him. “Stop!” Anxiety seized me as I felt pressure. I slapped his hands and whatever he was doing to me.
“Lucille, you’re bleeding out. I’m trying to help. Please.” The glacial hard tone he usually used melted into something soft and resigned.
He knew my name.How? And why was he looking at me like that?
Two beautiful mountain lakes glistened at me with concern—not hate, not the arrogant sneer or cold mask he wore, but genuine concern, like he had a heart.
I was hallucinating.
Stunned and dizzy, wanting Aspen to stop vanishing behind a black cloud, I stopped slapping him.
At one moment of clarity, I wondered if he sneaked a peek at my pebbled breasts.
“You’re hurting my sides,” I said weakly. “And my legs hurt, Aspen. They hurt so much,” I cried.Why did I keep saying his name?“I hate his name.”
“Whose name?”
“Your name. It’s nice. But you’re an ass. You shouldn’t have your name.”
Did I say that out loud?
“Hana!” Aspen’s voice had to have carried through the whole house. The sword at his hip flashed along with his distorted eyes.
Down the hall, footsteps pattered. A lady barged into the room, frantic, holding a black bag. “What? I was stitching another patient. What’s wrong?”
My muddled brain decided to hallucinate green skin onto the lady and shrink her down to the size of a dwarf. Odd.
