Liam and Dox carried Pamela and me out to Dox’s oversized bright red pickup truck. The back seat was big enough for a twin bed and had leather seats that matched the exterior paint, which would at least make for an easy cleanup. Pamela came around as Liam laid her on the seat. She sat up fast, her eyes wide and hands up in prep for a spell, aiming straight for Liam. I reached over and grabbed her hands, my wayward rib wriggling closer to my heart.
“Stop,” I gasped out, blood trickling down the edge of my mouth. Crap, if she let loose on Liam, there was no guarantee I could convince him not to take her out.
There was a split second where I wasn’t sure she heard me, and then she lowered her hands. “Sorry, I thought we were still in the castle.” She turned to look at me. A large gash over her right eye seemed to be the cause of all the blood. Dox leaned in and pressed a wad of cloth against her wound.
He introduced himself to her, and when he stepped out to get into the drivers side, her eyes widened even more.
“I’ve never met an ogre.”
I didn’t answer her, just focused on sitting still. Liam slid into the passenger side of the truck and the engine choked, then died.
Just brilliant. What else could go wrong?
“Alex and I will run, we’ll meet you there,” Liam said, and before I could protest, he’d stepped out of the truck and slammed the door. Dox turned the key in the ignition and the engine rolled over without a hiccup.
Dox didn’t take us back to his place, but to Louisa’s. He pulled in as the sun climbed the rest of the way up over the edge of the horizon. Her house, built in a classic southwest style, hadn’t changed since we’d last been there. Dox parked the truck, and then slid out, reaching for Pamela first. She turned her head to me, and I gave her a nod. If I couldn’t trust her with Dox, I couldn’t trust her with anyone.
Louisa met Dox on the front porch and ran her hand over Pamela’s head, then pointed into the house. Without waiting for the ogre to come and get me, she instead climbed into the back seat of the truck beside me.
Her hair was cropped short, still growing back after her time spent with a Daywalker who’d used her as bait for me.
“Rylee, do you want to call in your favor to me?”
“Heal us both,” I said, the rib digging in hard. I wanted to cough, fought the urge and held my breath against it.
She put her hands to my ribcage, clucking her tongue as her fingers prodded at me. “The girl I can heal; you are going to need more help than I can give. I will need to call in another Shaman.”
“Do it.” They all owed me a favor, so if I had to cash in two favors to save both our lives, I would do it.
Would I heal on my own, without her help? Possibly. But with my rib so far out of place, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Even supernaturals healed wrong if the bones were broken too badly, or too displaced. Made for some seriously ugly and misshaped bodies.
She left me there, her beaded necklace and bracelets jangling with each step as she walked away. I leaned my head back. Right there, in that position, I didn’t hurt too badly. The pain still hummed under my skin, but with my eyes closed, I could believe that I was suffering from nothing more than a bad fall.
A whisper of wolf musk curled into the truck and then Liam was there, staring up at me. He didn’t shift back into human form, which worried me. I reached out to him.
“Liam.”
He whined and licked my fingers, shaking his head afterward. Louisa came out, and shooed him away as if he were a wayward mutt, and then she stilled, her eyes widening as she took him in. “I’d heard a rumor that a great wolf had been born. But I didn’t truly believe it.”
“Later,” I whispered.
She pointed at me. “You stay there. We aren’t moving you again; the rib is too close to your heart. But you knew that, didn’t you?” Her shrewd eyes snared mine, and I couldn’t look away. I also couldn’t get enough breath to answer her so I just nodded.
“And you continued on anyway?” Her hands were working fast now, a sharp knife in one as she cut away my shirt.#p#分页标题#e#
I wanted to slap her hands away, but even if I could have lifted my arms, I knew she was helping me.
She peeled off my shirt and cut through my sports bra to reveal not only my shattered rib cage, which had some really interesting points pushing up against my skin from the inside, but the black snowflake that had been permanently etched into my breast bone.
“Well, if you can survive a Hoarfrost demon, you can survive this,” she said. The cool air ghosted across my skin and an involuntary shiver grabbed me. Locking my jaw, I could only just stop myself from arching my back against the pain. Louisa shouted for Dox, and the rib shifted, slicing through what was left of my lung—and my world went black.