“Rhiannon!” Goose’s hoarse cry was the only thing that had the power to tear my eyes away from the blood splatters and fleshy pieces of skin and fur scattered all around. He leapt from the passenger side of a truck as Bells climbed from the driver’s seat.
When I tried to rise, a sharp pain in my side stopped me short. I glanced down and cringed when I saw the bone protruding from my side. A whispery wheeze accompanied my effort to gasp.
Had it been this difficult to breathe before?
I lifted my hand to my mouth and brushed my knuckles against the wetness seeping past my lips. They came away bloodied, the red liquid bright against my pale skin. I remembered what it felt like to suffocate with a punctured lung, and I didn’t want a repeat of the experience.
“Rhiannon.” Paine’s soft timbre caressed my ears, and I turned to look at him.
Unlike Goose, he’d not changed at all.
His face was as gorgeous as I remembered, and his voice just as alluring. In reality, I’d seen him days before in Disco’s family home when he’d stopped by the kitchen to talk to me while I ate peanut butter toast. It was a rare occasion, since Paine was hardly around following the scuffle that nearly ended my life. I wasn’t sure why, but that shared moment between us felt like it had happened a long time ago.
“I went and got myself broken.” I hissed as I moved my hand away and allowed him to get a look at the wound. “I’m not sure if it’s fixable.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He reached out to touch my face and hesitated, as if uncertain. After a moment he brushed the pads of his fingers against my cheek and kept them there. His features relaxed and he gave me with one of his rare, heart-stopping grins.
Goose knelt in front of me, forcing Paine to move away. “I need to see.”
He pulled at the shirt obscuring the wound and ripped the thin material away until he had a clear view. The skin along my ribcage was torn unevenly, and the puncture around the bone was oozing blood.
He frowned at what he saw. “The bone will have to be realigned or it won’t heal properly.”
“Move,” Bells ordered and knelt beside me. She didn’t make contact with my skin as she splayed her hand over the gory mess, her palm hovering just over the bone. “You’d better brace yourself,” she cautioned me, “this is going to hurt.”
That was the only warning I got before fire radiated from the injury, as if she were cauterizing the wound with a fiery poker. It was impossible not to wail, but fortunately the sound didn’t last long as my breath caught in my throat. The light shining from her palm was white, reminding me of the rays I’d basked in when I almost crossed over into the glory of the ever-after.
Caught in the throes of misery, I peered into Bells’s face and noted an unwavering attentiveness to her task but nothing more. There was no preternatural gleam in her eye, nothing to indicate she was anything other than a normal girl. But normal girls didn’t go around with mystical power of some sort that could return bones to their proper location inside a body courtesy of the light emitting from their palms.
What the fuck was she?
A hand grasped mine, fingers cool, skin smooth.
Paine.
I squeezed his fingers, grinding my teeth as the rib was forced into the skin and shifted back into place.
“It’s done.” Bells rocked back on her heels as I bit out a curse.
Paine released my hand, pulled the sleeve of his jacket back, and bit his wrist. As he lifted the offering to my lips—presenting me with matching, circular wounds dripping the crimson liquid that would heal me within minutes—I hesitated. Although Paine had taken my blood as the second of Disco’s home, I hadn’t taken his. That only occurred when the head of the house had passed away or left the home.
My heart contracted, compressed by a phantom hand that continued to squeeze the piss out of it like a disposable squeaky toy. Fuck, if the reminder of Disco’s death didn’t hurt. It felt as if a clenched fist was obliterating my heart, bearing down until I couldn’t breathe.