She thought she saw a faint flicker of understanding. 'You promise to stay?' she pressed. 'You promise not to leave without telling me?'
The nicker died. 'There's nowhere else to go.'
A light breeze. Sunlight warming his hand. Birdsong. Firm comfort under him. Soft cotton over him.
Lucivar slowly opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling and the smooth, exposed beams. Where. .?
Out of habit, he immediately looked for ways out of the room. Two windows covered by white curtains embroidered with morning glories. A door on the wall opposite the bed he was lying on.
Then he noticed the rest of the room. The pine bedside table and dresser. The piece of driftwood turned into a lamp. A cabinet, its top bare except for a simple brass stand for holding music crystals. An open workbasket stuffed with skeins of yarn and floss. A large, worn, forest-green chair and matching hassock. A needlework frame covered with white material. An overstuffed bookcase. Braided, earth-tone rugs. Two framed charcoal sketches – head views of a unicorn and a wolf.
Lucivar's lip curled automatically when he caught the feminine psychic scent that saturated the walls and wood.
Then he frowned. For some reason, that psychic scent didn't repulse him.
He looked around the room again, confused. This was Hell?
A door opened in the room beyond. He heard a woman's voice say, 'All right, go look, but don't wake him.'
He closed his eyes. The door opened. Nails clicked on the wood floor. Something snuffled his shoulder. He kept his muscles relaxed, feigning sleep while his senses strained to identify the thing.
Fur against his bare skin. A cold, wet nose sniffing his ear.
Then a snort that made him twitch, followed by satisfied silence.
Giving in to curiosity and the warrior's need to identify an enemy, Lucivar opened his eyes and returned the wolfs intent gaze for a moment before it let out a pleased whuff and trotted out the door.
He barely had time to gather his wits when the woman pushed the door fully open and leaned against the doorway. 'So you've finally decided to rejoin the living.'
She sounded amused, but if the rest of her was anything to go by, the hoarseness in her voice was caused by strain, fatigue, and overuse. Painfully thin. The way the trousers and shirt hung on her, she'd probably dropped the weight far too fast to be healthy. The long, loose braid of gold hair looked as dull as her skin, and there were dark smudges under those beautiful, ancient sapphire eyes.
Lucivar blinked. Swallowed hard. Finally remembered to breathe. 'Cat?' he whispered. He raised his hand in a mute plea.
She raised one eyebrow and walked toward him. 'I know you said you would find me when I was seventeen, but I had no idea you would do it in such a dramatic fashion.'
The moment she touched his hand, he pulled her down on top of him and wrapped his arms around her squirming body, laughing and crying, ignoring her muffled protests as he said, 'Cat, Cat, Cat, oowww!'
Jaenelle scrambled off the bed and out of reach, breathing hard.
Lucivar rubbed his shoulder. 'You bit me.' He didn't mind the bite – well, yes, he did – but he didn't like her pulling away from him.
'I
'Do we need to?' he asked, still rubbing his shoulder.
Judging by the look in her eyes, if she were actually feline, she'd be puffed to twice her size.
'I don't know, Lucivar,' she said in a voice that could scorch a desert. 'I could always remove your lungs and we'd find out firsthand if breathing is optional.'
The tiny doubt that she might not be kidding was sufficient to make him swallow the flippant remark he was about to make. Besides, he had enough confusing things to think about, not to mention doing something about the urgent, basic message his body was now sending. Hell's fire, he'd never imagined being dead would feel so much like being alive.
He rolled onto his side, wondering if his muscles were always going to feel so limp – weren't there
'Lucivar,' Jaenelle said in a midnight voice.
He gave her a measuring look and decided to ignore the dangerous glitter in her eyes. He levered himself upright, pulled the sheet across his lap, and grinned weakly. 'I've always been proud of my accuracy and aim, Cat, but even I can't water the flowers from here.'
Thankfully, he didn't understand anything she said after the first Eyrien curse she flung at him.
She slung his arm over her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist, and pulled him to his feet. 'Just take it slow. I've got most of your weight.'
'The males who serve here should be doing this, not you,' Lucivar snarled as they shuffled to the door, not sure if he was more embarrassed about being naked or needing her support.
'There aren't any. Hey!'
He almost overbalanced both of them reaching for the door, but he needed to tighten his hand around something. His darling Cat was here alone, unprotected, with no one
but a wolf for company? Taking care of his. . 'You're a young woman,' he said through clenched teeth.
'I'm a fully qualified Healer.' She tugged at his waist. It didn't do any good. 'You were easier to take care of before you woke up.'
He snarled at her. *
'Lucivar,' Jaenelle said in that voice Healers used on irascible patients and idiots, 'you've been in a healing sleep for the past three weeks. Taking that into consideration as well as what it took to put you back together, I think I've seen every inch of you more than once. Now, are you going to dribble on the floor like an untrained puppy or are we going to get to where you wanted to go?'
A fierce desire to get well enough to stand on his own two feet so that he could strangle her got him to the bathroom. Pride made him snarl her out the door. Stubbornness kept him upright long enough to do what was necessary, tie a bath towel around his waist, and reach the bathroom door.
By then his energy and useful emotions were tapped out, so he didn't protest when Jaenelle helped him walk to a stool near a large pine table in the cabin's main room. She moved behind him, her hands firm and gentle as they explored his back. He kept his eyes fixed on the outside door, not ready yet to ask about the healing. Then he felt one of his wings slowly unfurl, guided by those same gentle hands.
The wing closed. The other stretched out. As she came around to the front, he turned his head and stared at a wing that was healthy and whole. Stunned, he bit his lip and blinked back tears.
Jaenelle glanced at his face, then returned her attention to the wing. 'You were lucky,' she said quietly. 'In another week there wouldn't have been enough healthy tissue left to rebuild them.'
Rebuild them? Considering the damage the slime mold and the salt mines had done, even the best Eyrien Healers would have cut off the wings. How could she rebuild them?
Mother Night, he was tired, but there were too many things here that didn't fit his expectations. He desperately needed to understand and didn't know where to begin.
Then Jaenelle bent over to look at the lower part of the wing and the jewelry around her neck swung out of her shirt. Later he'd ask why Witch was wearing a Sapphire Jewel. Right now, all his attention was caught by the hourglass pendant that hung above the Jewel.
The hourglass was the Black Widows' symbol, both a declaration and a warning about the witch who wore it. An apprentice wore a pendant with the gold dust sealed in the top half of the glass. A journey maid’s pendant had the gold dust evenly divided between top and bottom. A fully trained Black Widow wore an hourglass with all the gold dust in the bottom chamber.
'When did you become a fully trained Black Widow?'
The air around him cooled. 'Does it bother you that I am?'
Obviously it bothered some people. 'No, just curious.'
