Page 5 of Veradel
A miniature Healing Center. An ancient one, judging by the musty smell, but a Healing Center all the same. Did there used to be more than one back before the vampires took over and trapped us all within the Wall? How long has it been since this one was used?
As if he can sense all the questions stirring within me, Taika shrugs off his coat and drapes it over the nearest armchair.
“Before we were exiled from our kingdom, I was the king’s physician, so I found this an… appropriate home for me after the war,” he explains. “I’ve kept all the medical equipment as sharp and clean as I can, and I try to keep our medicine cabinets well-stocked with herbs and oils I can find in the forest.” He chuckles. “No more antibiotics, not that we need them that often, but I do have plenty of garlic, ginger, and honey.”
I cock my head, all the adrenaline and fight within me giving way to excitement, curiosity, and maybe even awe. Back during my healing apprenticeships, our instructors touched lightly on the science behind medications, but I was never chosen to be one of those who actually invented or created them. I could learn so much from Taika, if he’d teach me.
Lucan clears his throat. “Less talking, please. More examination.”
“This way, then,” Taika sighs, but shoots me a small smile.
He leads us out of the waiting room, down a hall, past a patient-room-turned-bedroom, from the looks of it, and into an office lined with cabinets and a counter cluttered with supplies. He gestures for me to sit on the ripped padded recliner, while he lowers himself carefully into a metal swivel chair with squeaky wheels.
Lucan himself just crosses his arms over his chest in the corner, his attention drilling holes into the room with its intensity. It takes everything in me to look away from him and focus on the medic in front of me.
“Arm, please,” Taika says gently, grabbing a handheld blood pressure monitor from the counter. This one isn’t hooked up to a machine like I’m used to but made of a leather strap and strange rubber bulb. When I stick out my arm, he wraps the cuff around me and pumps the bulb several times until it tightens just like the ones at the Healing Center do.
“Interesting,” he muses, squinting at the needle on the attached dial.
“What?” Lucan asks sharply. It’s so strange to hear his voice, not in my head, but out loud. In person. A physical sound that grazes against my skin.
“Lower blood pressure than I’d expect.”
My heart drops, and I can practically feel Lucan’s fury sizzle outward, washing the room with white-hot energy. The venom is already at work, then, slowly fossilizing my insides. Will my transformation to stone take longer than the other Chosen Ones, now that there aren’t any vampires around to continue biting me? Will I have more than ten years left? Or will I still find myself bedridden before I know it, even though I don’t feel lightheaded or dizzy like Odette did?
“Nothing to be too concerned about though,” Taika says, sitting back.
A rumble stirs in Lucan’s chest. “Check it again.”
His tone leaves no room for debate, and Taika takes one glance at him seething in the corner before he nods.
The silence stretches as the cuff tightens around my biceps and Taika listens and times my pulse again. “Still the same,” he says, talking to Lucan with his eyes trained softly on me.
“What about her heart—” Lucan says impatiently, but Taika’s already reaching for a stethoscope, shaking his head and clearly trying to hide his amusement.
Like the blood pressure cuff, this one looks slightly different than the instrument I’m used to: made of wood and rubber rather than plastic and metal. But it must do the trick, because when Taika presses it to my chest, he nods.
“Well?” Lucan demands.
“No stutters. A strong heart. On the slower end again, but strong.”
That’s funny. I feel like my heart has done nothing but race since I laid eyes on Lucan. But the venom must be slowly hardening that organ as well. Great. By the tic of Lucan’s jaw, I’m guessing he thinks the same. Slow heartbeat be damned, my pulse seems to thrum at the sight of that stormy expression. Not being able to read his thoughts makes my toes tingle in anticipation.
Lucan crosses the room in two long strides. “I want to hear.”
Taika looks to me for permission, and I laugh.
“Like you said earlier, I’m alive,” I assure Lucan, “but feel free.”
Now my heart decides to gallop as Lucan, whose eyes latch onto mine intensely, takes the stethoscope from Taika and inserts the earpieces into his own ears.
“See?” I joke. “Not dead yet.”
Lucan ignores me and asks Taika gruffly, “What about internal injuries?”
Taika clears his throat. “Would you feel comfortable lifting your dress so I can check your abdomen, Saskia?”
“Oh, of course.”
