Blind Salvage: A Rylee Adamson Novel(18)

And just like the other witches he’d dealt with, she’d lose.
 


The thing with being unconscious is that your mind can play tricks on you. Nasty ones, as usually is my case.
I could have sworn that there were hands inside of me, moving bits and pieces around. I didn’t feel pain, just pressure and soft voices, then the sound of my skin popping, as a needle and thread sewed me up in layers. But how could that all be when we were in London, at Jack’s place … no, there had been a giant and red caps. The memories slid through me as the last stitch tightened, pulling my wound together. I lay there on my back in the back seat of Dox’s truck, my body slick with sweat and blood, the smell of whatever herbs and poultices the Shamans had used were heavy in the air and gave me a pleasant, tingling numbness all over.
“Good afternoon, Rylee.” Louisa stood hunched over in the backseat of the truck and stared down at me.
I took a shallow breath, noting that the pain had lessened to the point where I could at least breathe without wincing. “I don’t know about the good part.”
She smiled and put her hand above my ribs. “Any day you wake up on this side of the veil is a good day, Tracker. We were able to put you back together, and your ribs are already healing.”
“Point taken.” I itched to sit up, but when I tried to move she tsked at me.
“Give yourself a few hours before you attempt anything even remotely strenuous. I’m going to send you home with Dox. You can recuperate there. Before heading home to Bismarck.”
I didn’t bother to argue with her, what was the point? As a Shaman, she was used to being listened to. But I did have questions, and I needed them answered. Even if I was half-baked on herbs.
My words came out in a slurry jumble. “Louisa, how did you know we were coming through? How did Dox know when we would bust across? Was it you who opened up the block on the veil?”
She tapped her finger against her lips several times before answering me. “Both Dox and I received a phone call, an hour before you came through, that you would need help and that you would be gravely injured. I don’t know who it was, but there was truth in the words I could feel through my bones. So I listened and prepared for your injuries. If I’d have known that they were as bad as they turned out to be, I would have had Crystal come sooner. And yes, I opened the block on the entrance to the veil, but that was some time ago.”
I frowned. This didn’t make any sense. Who could have known? The only person who might have had an inkling that injuries would be involved would be someone who’d known that the giant and the red caps were there. Like someone who’d set the whole damn fiasco up. But that would be ridiculous. Unless whoever set it up had a henchman who wasn’t kosher with the plan to take us out. “Was it a man or a woman?”
“While they tried to disguise their voice, I do believe it was a woman. Now, rest, for whomever it was that made the call surely saved your life.”
Well, shit. To owe someone your life was one thing, but to not even know who it was? That was just damn weird.
I thanked Crystal, who blushed and stammered while she covered my upper body with a blanket and then backed out of the truck. The youngest of the Shamans in the area, she had a lot to learn about keeping her emotions off her face. Pamela wobbled down the porch and pulled herself into the truck, but she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. In her arms, she held clothes that were far too large for her.
Dox followed her out and slid into the driver’s seat. “Alright, ladies. Let’s go. The wolf boys will meet us back at my place.”
Pamela was silent on the drive to Dox’s, though he made every effort to engage her. Finally, I’d had enough of her quiet brooding, the itching feeling in my belly having nothing to do with the fast healing stitches there.
“Pamela, what happened, why are you being so quiet?”
I watched with amusement as her spine stiffened, and her shoulders tightened up. She was so easy to read, not unlike Crystal; Pamela had yet to learn how to hide her emotions.#p#分页标题#e#
“What are you talking about?”
Dox cleared his throat. “I can answer that for you. Liam wanted to rush out and help Louisa with you. I couldn’t let him, so we got in a little tangle, nothing I couldn’t handle mind you.”
Pamela let out soft breath. “And I wrapped him up in a spell so they wouldn’t fight.”
I groaned and closed my eyes. Shit, the last thing we needed was Liam to get worked up about Pamela. His time with Milly had not left him particularly forgiving when it came to witches. To say the least.
“Unless he’s going to kill you, you don’t touch him with a spell. Got it?”