The Adversary by Thea Harrison

Chapter Eleven

Once Pia was absolutely fucking certain that yes indeed Liam was healing, and her baby was breathing on his own, she left his side to race to where Dragos half-sat, half-lay hunched over, one arm wrapped protectively around his middle.

He looked ashen, wrung out, one leg twisted awkwardly. She eyed with dread the foamy red vomit nearby. “How bad is it?”

Glancing at her and then at the vomit, he shook his head. “That looks worse than it is. I accidentally swallowed some of Liam’s blood. My right leg is fractured in a few places, and there’s this.”

When he lifted his arm, she stared at the deep gaping wounds that scored his washboard stomach. Wet exposed muscle glinted in the sunlight.

She couldn’t take her eyes from it. “Bayne? I need help here!”

A shadow fell over her, and Morgan crouched beside her. “Bayne and the other sentinels are inspecting Liam’s wings to make sure the bones healed properly. Will I do?”

She gave him a wild-eyed look. Morgan stared at her, his own eyes wide with wonder. He had already proven that he was a very smart man. Realization was another sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Oh gods, not another one. The more things happened and the more she healed others, the more people came to know the secret of her Wyr form. At the rate they were going they might as well post an announcement in The New York Times.

Despite the pain he was in, Dragos must have realized it too. He turned his killer look onto Morgan. She gripped his shoulder, digging her fingers into the hard muscled flesh. “Don’t do anything rash. He has helped us every step of the way.”

“I understand now why your Wyr form is such a mystery.” Not very many people could stare their own death in the face with as much calm as Morgan showed. He said steadily, hazel gaze fixed on Dragos, “I swear by the life of my own young king, dead now for so many years and whom I loved like a son, that I will never betray your secret.”

The truth rang in his words like a clarion. Pia heard it plain as day, and if she had, Dragos must have too. But it was still a long taut moment before he gave a small, grim nod of assent.

Immediately she slipped an arm around his neck and helped to ease him onto his back while Morgan turned his attention to Dragos’s twisted leg. “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

“Do it.” Dragos’s mouth was white. He stared up at the sky. “Pia, if you’re going to heal me, you need to do it fast.”

She had seen enough battle wounds to know that his, while difficult and painful, were not life threatening. “What do you mean, if I’m going to heal you….” Her voice died away as she noticed the direction of his attention and twisted to look up.

In the distance, a rapidly growing cloud of avian Wyr winged toward them. Oh, shit. The good, loyal Wyr who had followed them to battle were about to arrive. There must be a hundred or more.

Morgan looked too, briefly, then turned back to Dragos’s leg. Bracing one hand on Dragos’s hip, he asked, “Ready?”

“Yes,” Dragos bit out.

With a powerful flex of his shoulders, Morgan pulled the leg straight and aligned the broken fractures. Dragos grunted and closed his eyes. The pain had to have been excruciating. Frantic to finish the job, Pia asked, “Is it good now?”

“He’s ready.”

She placed her bleeding palm over the wounds on Dragos’s stomach, and she and Morgan watched in silence as the wounds knit together into a seamless whole.

Dragos grabbed her wrist. He said to Morgan, “I need your shirt.”

Morgan didn’t waste time questioning him. Instead, he stripped it off and handed it over. Long fingers flashing rapidly, Dragos wiped Pia’s hand and bound it, then tried to cast his own healing spell over her.

Goddammit. It didn’t take.

“Take off the backpack!”

Eyes flaring with realization, she stripped off the pack and dropped it to the ground. Dragos tried a healing spell again, and her cut smoothed over.

Once he was sure that she was no longer bleeding, he scrubbed her palm, then his own abdomen, and asked her, “What about Liam’s throat?”

She looked at the white dragon where the sentinels had swarmed over his giant form. “I don’t see any blood. I think someone washed him.”

“I took care of it. He’s clean,” Rune called out without looking up from his inspection of one massive wing that Aryal, Quentin, Bayne, and Graydon moved carefully back and forth, extending it out and folding it back into place. Avian Wyr typically did not survive irreparable damage to their wings. Liam’s broken wings had healed when Pia had healed his throat, but they hadn’t set the bones first and they were taking no chances.

Dragos put pressure on Pia’s wrist. Obeying the wordless prompt, she sat back. He held his fist with the bloodied shirt away from her, and his Power flashed. The shirt caught fire. He, Pia, and Morgan watched as the flames engulfed Dragos’s fist. The fire did not die down until the shirt had fallen into ash.

Pia said to Dragos, “I need you to be okay now, baby.”

“I’m okay.” Propping himself up on one elbow, he gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Go check on Liam.”

Leaping to her feet, she raced over to the white dragon. Part of her sensed the seraphim, one on either side, who came with her. In those few brief seconds, her racing thoughts gave her all kinds of doom-filled scenarios.

Kathryn Shaw, the talented surgeon who had saved Aryal’s wings, had mated with Oberon, the King of the Dark Fae, and now lived two Other lands away.

When Kathryn had worked on Aryal, she’d had to rebreak the malformed injury, and Pia had helped to heal the harpy afterward. Even if they could get Kathryn here as quickly as possible, how on earth could she do surgery on such a giant patient? Pia’s imagination stuttered. It would take cranes or something to lift those giant wings and hold them stationary.

She skidded to a stop by Rune, who had placed both his hands on the juncture where one of Liam’s wings met his shoulder. “How bad is it?”

He shook his head slowly. “His wings are quite perfect.” He looked up and met her gaze. “He was lying on one of them while it was broken, out of alignment, and then healed. I don’t think this is scientifically possible.”

She stood still, staring at Liam, while her ragged breathing gradually slowed.

Hop. Ta-da. Jazz hands.

The seraphim had caught Liam’s soul and given her not only one miracle, but two.

She whispered, “Thank you for the life of my son.”

Something faint and gentle brushed along her arm.

A few momentslater the avian Wyr arrived, and they had come prepared for the possibility of a protracted battle. That meant, along with carrying all their weapons, the larger ones had also brought snacks.

They passed canteens of water and jerky around, which Dragos, Eva, Morgan, and the sentinels consumed hungrily. Pia didn’t begrudge them any of it, but avian Wyr were meat eaters and there wasn’t anything suitable for her to eat so she had to content herself with drinking her fill of water. As refreshing as it was, she’d only had a few bites of food before Senusret had grabbed her, and hunger was beginning to make her feel hollow and lightheaded.

She settled in a sitting crouch, leaning against the unconscious white dragon’s cheek, and dozed in the hot sunshine while the others milled about, talked together, slapped each other on the back, and said congratulatory things. Dragos was off somewhere doing whatever Dragos did after battles.

Darkness fell over her. Rousing, she opened her eyes. Dragos knelt and held out his hands. He had borrowed someone else’s shirt—the scent told her it was Graydon’s—and it was filled with wild berries and edible greens: dandelion, chickweed, and fennel.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave him. This is the best I could forage on short notice.”

It looked like a banquet to her. “Oh, thank you.” She fell on the food and ate every piece of green, every berry.

It wasn’t enough, just like the jerky wasn’t enough for the others, but it would do for now. She felt her energy return. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll eat properly when we get back.”

She nodded. Just then, the white dragon shimmered and disappeared into Liam’s human form. Rolling to her knees, she leaned over him and stroked the blond hair back from his strong face. “Open your eyes, honey. Everything’s okay now.”

Raising one hand, Liam groped for hers while he opened his eyes and stared at the sky. Like his father, he didn’t need to squint when he looked at the sun.

When he didn’t say anything, she asked, “What do you remember of what happened?”

His gaze shifted to hers. “I remember fighting him and Dad pinning me down. And I remember my wings hurt.”

His expression was so empty. She had never seen him looking quite so fragile. “Your wings are fine,” she told him strongly. “You’re perfect in every way. You will fly again just as soon as you feel up to it.” She wasn’t sure how seraphim miracles worked, and their dragon bodies were so heavy, so she added, “We’ll get you examined by a proper Wyr doctor, because you might need to wait a month or so like Aryal did. But there’s nothing wrong with them that time won’t heal.”

His gaze clung to hers as his lips shaped one silent word. Promise?

Bracing one hand on the ground, she leaned down to press her lips to his forehead. “You, Dragos, and Niall are my heart. Would I ever lie to you?”

A sigh shook out of him, and he relaxed. “Never.”

As she straightened, she caught sight of Dragos watching them. The bitter self-recrimination in his expression jolted her. He strode away. The open, affectionate love that shone between father and son was missing.

Frowning, she fell into troubled thought.

People began to head back to the settlement. They left in twos and threes, then in greater groups, until finally there was no one left except Morgan, Eva, the sentinels, and Pia, Dragos, and Liam.

As tired as Pia was, she had a debt to repay and a promise to fulfill. With a sigh of relief, she strode over to Graydon and finally relinquished control of the backpack with the null spell shackles. “Don’t let Aryal have these again.”

“Oh, I won’t. I guaran-damn-tee you that,” he promised with feeling. The last time Aryal had control of them she had lied and said she had dropped them in a volcano. While that had worked out to their advantage, nobody was about to trust her with them again.

Pia looked around. Dragos was talking to Grym and Quentin, and Rune and Bayne squatted by Liam, who had sat up and was stretching his shoulders. She was painfully aware that Liam and Dragos had not spoken directly to each other since Liam had regained consciousness.

She could only fix one thing at a time. And right now, there was no time like the present for evening the scoreboard.

She pulled Morgan aside. “I need the scepter now, please.”

He raised his eyebrows, but obligingly opened up his pack. “I was hoping to study it. It’s imbued with a magnificently unique Power. What are you going to do with it?”

Reverently she gathered it up and held it in the crook of her arm like it was a baby. “I need to take it back where it belongs. If Dragos asks where I’ve gone, tell him I needed a private moment in the woods and I’ll be right back.”

Speculation filled the sorcerer’s narrowed gaze. “Are you sure you don’t need some company for…wherever it is you’re going?”

He was too smart, that one. She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’ll be perfectly safe. And I also don’t need to have a long, drawn-out argument with Dragos over this.”

The corners of Morgan’s eyes crinkled. “I’ll tell him you needed a private moment. If he asks.”

“Thank you.”

As she walked away, Eva fell into step beside her. “Where are we going?”

Mentally she rolled her eyes. She couldn’t even pretend to take a pee by herself when her warrior Wyr got riled up. “Just keep quiet and follow me.”

They walked until the voices in the clearing faded away. Then Pia paused, set the scepter on the ground and shapeshifted into her Wyr form.

Waiting seraphim surrounded them, shining like stars in the woods. By the mystified look on Eva’s face, Pia could tell that the other woman couldn’t see them.

None of them stepped forward. Changing into her Wyr form had taken her part of the way, but not far enough. She told Eva, Don’t call for help. Just wait here.

Bending her neck, she picked the scepter up with her mouth and walked forward. The forest scene around her shimmered and faded.

Rhyacia disappeared, and she stood again in the seraphim’s realm. Saw again the Tree, and the Dancer.

One seraph approached. Gently, she laid the scepter in its waiting arms. Then she turned to bend one knee in homage to Taliesin. As the Dancer whirled, she could have sworn she saw them smile.

Her promise was fulfilled, the debt for the life of her son repaid.

She turned and headed back home.