Page 101

“They ripped your nails out,” Dom’s voice was hoarse and a bit too raw. “I felt it when it happened. I felt quite a bit of it, through the runes I placed on you. The runes didn’t keep you from harm, but they mitigated it, somewhat.”

I couldn’t look at his face, his eyes were too much to take, but I touched his hand. “I didn’t realize. So many other worse things were going on. I’m surprised they haven’t grown back, though. And my skin doesn’t look so good.”

“The slayer weapons’ effects are still at work. You’re healing human slow. I’ve been able to take most of your pain away, but nothing seems to work towards healing you faster. I’m consulting with every type of supernatural creature with healing powers I can find to speed it up but nothing so far has worked. I had hoped Sven could help, but he has no specialty in the healing arts.”

“How are you taking most of my pain away?” I asked, but I already knew. I was familiar with a lot of druid spells after our years together.

“However I can,” he answered.

“You’re hedging,” I pointed out.

“I take it into myself, as you know. I wish I could take it all.” His voice was full of pain and regret. I could hardly bear to hear him like that.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I do. I need to and I want to.”

He was a lost cause here, but I’d known that the second I opened my mouth. “Lynn could help,” I said. “Is there any way we could get Lynn?”

“I’m working on it. Drake was—” he cleared his throat, but the hoarse quality remained, “displeased by the trick we played on him. Hopefully he will move past it and see reason soon.”

“How’d you do it? Get Lynn’s eyes back to her?”

“Caleb couldn’t fool Lynn or me by mimicking you, but he managed to convince Drake for long enough to hand the eyes off to your sister.”

“Thank you. It brings me a lot of peace knowing she has her eyes back.” Now we just had to get her back.

“Of course.”

“How did you find me? I know they ripped the trackers off as soon as they captured me.” I touched the torn ruins of my earlobes. Even those weren’t fully healed.

I caught him staring at what I was doing and stopped.

I couldn’t take how broken his eyes were, couldn’t look at them directly for even a second.

It was like standing at the edge of a void I couldn’t save myself from, let alone both of us.

“Helen’s geas,” he said, his voice even worse now. He said her name like it was a curse. I could feel him still staring at my mutilated earlobes. “She went on the run not knowing we could find her with it. We were following her, checking every location she visited. It was a few days before she went to the building where they were keeping you. I think she was looking for help with the geas, it was slowly killing her, rotting her from the inside. I assume she learned then that there’s no reversing it, and though she didn’t stay at your location for long, it was enough. You know what happened after that. They’re all dead. Helen’s entire bloodline has been wiped from the face of the earth, and everyone involved, whether they were there or helped plan it. We’ve wiped out a good percentage of the English slayers. Hopefully the rest of them got the message.”

“How was she able to plan it, restricted as she was by the geas?”

“She must have made the plans before she touched down in Vegas, before the geas was placed. It will be my everlasting sorrow that I overlooked such a possibility.”

I reached over and touched his cheek and even that was still a struggle. I studied his face. His eyes were closed so I didn’t have to meet them. It was a mercy. “Not everlasting. No pain lasts forever.”

“Speak for yourself.” His expression didn’t change, but tears were running down his cheeks. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Don’t say that. I forgive you. I survived. I’m here. And I think your runes helped. I think they saved my life. Days with a slayer weapon imbedded in us is not something I think even dragons normally survive.”

He opened his eyes, and I looked down at our hands.

“Don’t let them take more from us than they already have,” I told him.

I was trying to convince myself as much as him, and I think we both knew it. Still, I took the fact that I was even trying as a good sign.

“Was I imagining things or did you storm the place where they were keeping me all by yourself? I know there were a lot of slayers there, but I only saw you coming in.”

“I brought a large force with me. They just couldn’t keep up. I didn’t stick to the plan, stormed the building before they were ready. I was… unruly. I wasn’t entirely myself. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”