Page 10 of Lawful Mate
“Death!”
“Wait,” Ivy shouted, just as Theo was about to deliver the killing blow. “I need her. Please.”
Theo turned to look at her, still pinning Delphine to the wall.
“Invoco ventum. Sile, impotens,” Ivy whispered while looking at Delphine and the whimpering tigers on the ground, the same words she had whispered to the man on the platform about to attack innocent people with a wrench. Delphine and the two tigers stiffened, then went limp. Only then did Theo release the hold he had on Delphine’s neck, letting her fall to the ground.
He ran over to Ivy and cradled her in his arms.
“What did she do to you?” he asked frantically.
Ivy let out a laugh, startling Theo. “She poisoned me.” She didn’t have shifter hearing, but she could hear Theo’s heart racing.
“What can I do?”
“Take me home.” Ivy doubled over in pain in his arms. “Hurry.” She didn’t have much time. Turning to look at Delphine, knowing she could still hear her, Ivy said, “You will tell them where you got the poison, or I will kill you myself.”
Theo stood with her in his arms and ran. Lucky for them, she had called upon her wind when she did, back in the alleyway, effectively shutting out the noise outside of it. It would have been hard to explain a tiger running loose in the city or a storm rooted in one small area.
Theo collected her cell phone and bag on the way at Ivy’s insistence. Breaking her door down would probably draw too much attention from the neighbors.
When he finally got her to her apartment, he laid her on her couch while she directed him to collect several ingredients from her pantry, which couldn’t be mixed together until needed since the antidote would lose its potency after a while. When he was done mixing, he added water and held it to Ivy’s lips for her to drink.
“Ugh. It hurts to swallow,” she croaked after only one sip.
“What is this poison doing to you?”
“It’s shutting down my organs now.” At his horrified expression, she decided to leave out the rest. If she didn’t take the antidote, in about five minutes, she’d become paralyzed, and in another ten or so minutes, she’d be dead. Ivy forced herself to drink every drop.
“What can I do?” Theo held her close as she writhed in pain.
“This will work. I promise. Just stay with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised.
She just needed him to do one more thing for her before she passed out.
“Call your mom… tell her I have proof… Delphine.”
She could feel Theo’s arms wrapped protectively around her as her world went dark.
CHAPTER 6
When Ivy came to, the sun shone into her bedroom. She was lying in her bed in Theo’s arms, her head resting on his chest, clad in one of her oversized sleep shirts she had folded on her bed yesterday. Theo was awake, holding a framed photo. He wore sweatpants and a t-shirt, no longer in the tattered clothes from yesterday.
Her hand instinctively went to her neck, which was now fully healed and clean of any blood and any poison. She looked up at Theo in a panic.
“What is it?” he asked, quickly placing the framed photo on the nightstand to free his hand. “Where does it hurt?” He glided his hand down her neck, her arm.
Pain was definitely not what she was feeling. As much as she wanted him to keep touching her, she couldn’t keep the panic at bay. She had Delphine, but would that be enough without a sample of the poison?
She put her hand to her neck again. “What did you clean this with?”
“Just some gauze. I was going to bandage it up, but I saw it was healing fairly quickly.” Theo cupped her cheek with one of his hands. “My mother stopped by. Don’t worry. She took the gauze. Delphine and the others are in custody.”
Ivy closed her eyes and sighed in relief. She felt Theo’s warm lips against her forehead.
“She’s the one who dressed you, by the way,” he said.
