Page 154 of Fractured Fates
“He’ll be back,” he says, his jaw tightening.
I consider these words for a moment. I’ve had this price on my head all this time. Hanging there. But I never knew who was coming for me, how they’d strike. Now I have a name and a face. Somehow it makes me feel less afraid.
“Good,” I say firmly, “because I want my knife back.”
The man in black opens his mouth to respond, but the curtain, drawn around my bed, rattles and then swings back. A young doctor steps through, a nurse following behind her.
“Azlan, a word please,” the doctor says, motioning her blonde head towards the gap in the curtain. She’s beautiful, her long blonde hair tied back in a bun, her eyes a bright green.
And she knows his name.
Azlan.
Is that it? His name?
Azlan. The name hums around my ears.
“Is it necessary, Lucinda?”
“Yes,” she says, their eyes connecting in a way that makes me uneasy, my skin pricking and bile sloshing in the back of my throat.
She doesn’t just know his name. She knows him.
The man in black stands, leaning forward to kiss the crown of my head. The press of his lips is brief, lasting barely a second, and yet it sets butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Which is stupid. Really stupid. He’s only showing fatherly concern. Nothing more.
And as for that kiss … kiss? Did he kiss me? Or was I dreaming?
His hand slips from mine and he disappears after the doctor, her hips swaying seductively.
A growl rips from my throat as all the pain that had been colliding through my body out there on the sidewalk slams back into me.
I writhe on the bed, clutching my stomach, my eyes screwed shut against the agony.
A cool hand rests on my forehead and a voice floats in the air.
“What’s wrong?”
“No!” I gasp, “no, please.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“My stomach!” I cry out, forcing open my eyes to stare up at the nurse.
She peers down at me with compassion. “Your stomach?”
Sweat runs down my neck, I clench my teeth together moaning.
“Please, please,” I beg her. “It hurts.” It hurts like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
“Oh gosh!” she says, her hands flying to her mouth, “he didn’t say … we didn’t realize … but with the transfer of magic we should have … gosh we shouldn’t be separating you like this right now. I’ll go fetch him right away,” she says, patting my arm, “it’s okay, I’ll go get your mate.”
I catch her hand, her face swims through my tears.
“Mate?” I croak out, her words making no sense.
“Yes, it’s okay, I’ll go fetch your fated mate right back here. We should never have separated you.”
I release her fingers and she pulls her arm free, scurrying away through the curtains.
