Page 38 of Rekindled Prophecy

“Greylyn, you are seriously injured. Better let me check it out and bandage you up. Do you want to bleed out here in the foyer for Maureen to find you before breakfast?”

Attempting to laugh off his concern caused the pain in her side to flare and she doubled over. “In case you have forgotten, I heal rather quickly without medical attention. Thanks, Doctor, but I’ll be fine.”

Still, it was curious that the wound was still bleeding so profusely. And the pain!

Eyes that shimmered like two tiger’s eye gems fixated on her face, questioned if she really believed that statement. His voice was laden with tension, and something else – concern. “Apparently, you don’t heal as quickly as you think you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be covered in so much blood. It’s not even dried blood. It’s still flowing freely. Don’t you find that odd? Think maybe you should have it checked out?”

“So what? You think I should go to the emergency room?”

His eyes narrowed and he ignored her statement. “Now, we both know your room is warded so I can’t help you in there. You will have to come to my suite. Don’t even think of arguing with me on this.”

Instead of waiting for a reply, he scooped her in his arms to carry her up the stairs. Shocked, she found she could not even scream.

He pushed against the door to his suite with his foot, walked into the room, and deposited her unceremoniously onto the queen-sized bed.

“Ouch! Do you mind? That hurt!”

Without a word he went to the bathroom and brought back several towels. He grabbed an open bottle of bourbon from a small nightstand on the far side of the bed. Any other time, she would have bolted out of the door as soon as he stepped away, or grabbed the lamp on the nightstand to bash his head in.

Handing her the bottle, he knelt beside her. Gingerly this time, he lifted her shirt to investigate the source of the bleeding. A shockwave of warmth radiated along her skin everywhere his fingers touched, followed by renewed pain.

She was dumbfounded. Why would he want to help her at all? This was just too bizarre. The loss of blood and the closeness of his body had her paralyzed by shock. All she could do was stare.

It was nice to be taken care of, she thought guiltily. She remembered Isabel’s body, broken and bloody on the street. She had died alone, in pain and terror. Greylyn was being ministered to by a dark guardian. The world made no sense. But she could do nothing but hope and pray Kael really did mean to help her; otherwise, she was lost. All he had to do was extract her own weapon from its holster at the base of her spine and drive it into her heart. There was nothing she could do to stop him.

“What’s gotten into you? Turning into a regular Nurse Nightingale, aren’t you? Or are you more the Doctor Kevorkian type?”

He ignored the comment. After a few moments, Kael ripped her shirt from its hem upward to move the material away from the open cut. Sitting there, with most of her top gone, she suddenly became shy. She crossed her arms over her chest to cover herself.

“Stop being such a prude, I’m not going to ravish you,” he muttered irritably. Strangely enough, Greylyn realized she was disappointed that he did not have other ideas.

“Maybe you should take a swig or two of the bourbon. I need to probe the wound. Seems like there’s something still in there that is not allowing it to heal. This could hurt…a lot,” he said, almost tenderly.

She looked up, surprised to see worry written on his beautiful face. His usual happy-go- lucky and sarcastic demeanor had vanished. Too fatigued to fight, she acquiesced. The dark amber liquid burned down her throat and lit a fire in her belly immediately, but it did little to reduce the pain when Kael started feeling around in the cut. Greylyn had been injured many times before. Injuries that would have killed anyone else. She had even had bullets dug out of her body, but this onslaught of pain pulsated outward like an explosion.

In desperation, she fought not to scream, knowing the ruckus it would cause if someone in the main house heard her. He stopped long enough for her to swig more of the bourbon. He then rolled a small hand towel and gave it to her to bite on. It was better than nothing. Would not stop the pain but at least her screams would be muffled. Before returning to poke around the inside of her waist and lower back, he gave her a look of sympathy.

He stroked her cheek softly and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

Subconsciously, her fingers reached up to grasp an old iron ring hanging from a platinum chain around her neck while her other held tightly onto the towel. She had found it in a pocket of the dress she was wearing when she had been resurrected. It was the only remnant of her past life, one that she did not remember, but it always gave her a sense of comfort when she needed it. Greylyn clutched the ring like it was her last chance of survival.

Kael’s gaze lifted from her injured side and locked onto the tiny trinket. She saw something flash behind his eyes, something…but another shock of excruciating pain from her side blurred her vision, erasing all other conscious thought.

“Definitely not the diamonds and pearls type of girl, are you?” One corner of his mouth curled up with amusement.

Incapable of speaking, Greylyn rolled her eyes as if to say, “Not now.”

As he continued to poke and prod her side, the severity of the situation hit her. Normally, she could go nine rounds with Mike Tyson and look like a model off the cover ofCosmoin less than an hour. Something was not right here. Quite frankly, it frightened her. What if she was not as immortal as she thought?

Another burst of blistering pain and the bourbon was not enough anymore. Without the strength to maintain the fight, Greylyn allowed the darkness to overwhelm her and carry her away into the comforting abyss.

***

Luckily, it was at that moment that Kael fished out the jagged tip of a black claw from her side. He took the bourbon from her now limp hand and poured some of the brown liquid into the gash in lieu of alcohol for sterilizing.

With a smile of satisfaction, he noticed that the wound immediately started to heal. The torn skin melded back together. An angry red puckering scar appeared, then faded almost to nothing. Within an hour or two, Greylyn should be perfectly fine without so much as a scar to mark the ordeal. In the meantime, he would allow his little patient to rest and recover.

Kael cleaned up the bloodied towels. He was even so bold as to remove her ruined shirt and redress her in one of his own button-down flannel shirts. His fingers yearned to linger on her soft skin, but even he would not take advantage of an unconscious woman.

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