Page 113 of Reaper’s Curse

I bit my lower lip. The how to heal had finally been determined. Now to stop any more afflicted from being created.

Valen folded his hands behind his back. “The key turned out to be your blood. You must bleed to heal, Ms. Gunn. Bleed to heal.”

I blinked. Double blinked. Thought of the first woman I had healed. Recalled my blood that had vanished from her skin. Still… I can heal the afflicted!

All I had to do was bleed.

Only, with the number of afflicted dwelling in the citadel, they would bleed me dry long before I could complete the task. A likely way for a reaper to die, being emptied of all their blood.

Could it be that was to be my curse?

Maybe instead of stepping into death, a drained reaper would become a wraith or something similar. I didn’t rightly know. All I really knew was that my thoughts were out of control, a chaos of worry and excitement, jumping from one concern to another in a single breath.

I could save the citizens, but at what cost to myself?

Was that the reason the Killian wanted me dead?

29

Valen motioned me to follow and proceeded to lead me past a silent, and apparently irritated, Lucas and Neive in the outer hall, then down a corridor I’d not yet seen. “We’ll start with only one. Will that help alleviate some of your fear?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to be stable enough for confident use. After General Beckett’s men pushed me into the pit of afflicteds and I had unintentionally healed six, I had slept for two days and remained exhausted on the third.

Granted, I’d taken a beating, and my body was trying to heal, but I suspected a lot of my fatigue could be contributed to the healing…the return of life energy to those in an undead state.

“You’re going to be fine.” Valen patted my back. “And I’ll be there this time to run interference. If you look like you’re straining too much, I’ll shut the test down.”

“Okay.” My voice croaked as Valen ushered me onward.

I wanted to say no but…I’d signed a contract with the queen.

Plus, few in my circle―Neive, Lucas, myself―could pull rank over the royal healer, and Winter… He wasn’t present.

Reaping hell.

Winter would be livid when he found out.

Valen opened a door on our left, and with a sweep of his arm, offered me entrance. “Stop stressing,” he said. “You’re going to be magnificent.”

A nervous chuckle slipped through my lips. Not do magnificently but be magnificent. What did that mean, and was I reading too much into the simple statement? I really needed to calm my irrational mind.

Our destination wasn’t much larger than my receiving room, sparsely furnished. Table with chairs set center stage. A line of chairs along one wall. A chalkboard filled much of the next. A door on the opposite side of the place, and that was about it. Valen closed the door and offered me a seat.

If Lucas and/or Neive managed to get word to Winter, would he come storming in to retrieve me?

I took a seat, and Valen settled into the chair beside me. “Because of the nature of what we’ll be doing, I chose a room where there wasn’t much one could hurt themselves with.”

His explanation made sense, but of the two afflicteds I’d spent time with, Earl and Myla, I hadn’t noticed them having many issues traversing a space or the obstacles within.

Valen shifted our chairs until we sat knee to knee. “I heard your concerns, how exhausted you were after Beckett’s experiment.”

He placed his hands on my thighs and stared intently into my eyes. I stiffened.

“That’s why we’re taking this at a much slower pace. Understand?”

He talked to me like I were a child. I was far past puberty, and yet I couldn’t muster the energy to get upset or even correct him, much less slap his hands away from my thighs.

“Understood,” I said.