Page 33 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
Every time he left an opening, I slipped in to take it, and every time my weak side dragged me down, he was there to cover the gap.We moved as if we’d fought together all our lives, and along with my racing heart came a throb in another part of my body.Not even the advancing burn in my veins was enough to distract me from the flood of desire and the rush of battle.
More fae fell, then Cliff was by my side.Blood soaked the side of his face, but he didn’t slow down.Ria slipped in beside Jael, her arms shaking, missing more strikes than she landed.Gradually, the other Coynfare joined us, sliding into the middle of the vampires, and we wiped out the rest of the guards until there were no more guards left to wipe.
My chest heaved, my pulse raced in my ears, and I took in the survivors of our tiny band—even tinier now than we had been.
“Birch?”I asked.
“Here,” he heaved from the ground a few trees away.“Barely.”
Cliff rushed to his side and set to work patching up our friend.Black blood spilled out through a hole in Birch’s side, but it must not have been a fae-made blade that had done the damage.With a wound that severe, I doubted he would have survived this long if it had been.
“Hopefully that was the group Jael and I heard the other night,” I said.“Maybe if we’re lucky, we won’t have anyone else on our heels.”
Jael’s expression was grim.“Or they’ll send more.”
“Can we get moving?”Corban asked, showing not the smallest concern for future threats or his wounded allies.If anything, he looked annoyed as he took in the surrounding carnage.
I found his reaction odd but didn’t have the strength to question him about it.I didn’t have the strength to stand.The numbness branching from my wound had taken over both arms, and its fingers crawled up my neck and down my legs.My heartbeat, which should have been settling now that the battle was over, sped up, and my breaths grew harder to suck in.Black spots danced in my vision, and I stumbled where I stood.
“Fuck.”Jael darted towards me.Cliff grabbed his arm, but Jael shook him off and caught me before I could hit the ground.“She was stabbed by a fae-made blade.They cut sharp and deep, and some guards coat them with poison.Fuck!Kalia, where did he get you?”
“Her name’s Kalla, dickhead,” Cliff snapped, but Jael ignored him.
“Come on, lutrena me.Was it only in your shoulder?”
I managed a nod, my tongue not in the mood to cooperate.
He didn’t hesitate to tear into my armour, paying no attention to Cliff’s attempts to warn him away or Corban complaining about the waste of time.
A groan slipped from between my lips as Jael wrenched my arm out of the stiff leather.Pain squeezed my muscles and hummed under my skin, morphing from a deep, grinding agony to a tickling, buzzing torture in my fingertips.
“Someone hold her,” Jael commanded.
Cliff sputtered at being ordered around by a fae, but Ria shoved him towards us.It took a second for my friend to remove his head from his sphincter, drop behind me, and take my upper body in his arms.“By the blood, Kal, you’re burning up.I don’t think vampires are supposed to run this hot.”
That would explain the uncomfortable sensation running under my collar, like someone had submerged me in a hot spring.
“Hold her arm just like that—perfect.Okay.This will hurt.A lot.”Jael reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloth bag.
“If you kill her…” Cliff warned.
“Cliff, be quiet,” Ria snapped.“If he has a way to save her, let him.”
“He’sfae.”
“He’s with her!”I could barely make out her words as consciousness slipped further out of my grasp.“If you don’t believe he wouldn’t hurt her, then what the fuck are we doing out here?”
Cliff pressed his lips together, then nodded.
“These herbs will counter the toxin,” Jael explained, “but we have to act fast.The more it spreads, the less effective the antidote will be.”
He met my eye, his green stare bright even in the darkness, and the remorse shining through it made my chest clench.
“Hold on tight to something,” he warned.
He tipped the bag towards my wound and tapped out a few grains of powder.For a breath, nothing happened.Two.Three.
I opened my mouth to ask if he needed to use more, if my vampiric nature was getting in the way, when a spark lit.Fire raced through my veins, and my question turned into shrieks of agony as death beckoned.
