Blind Salvage: A Rylee Adamson Novel(60)

I burst through the barn doors and Alex spun, a snarl on his lips, the fur standing up all over him, teeth snapping at me. “No more hurts Evie!”
Then he saw me, really saw me, and his snarl faded into a set of trembling lips. “Rylee, Evie … .”
Behind him, Eve lay in a slump, her tawny feathers covered in blood, her wings twisted at angles that shouldn’t have been. I fell to my knees, reached out and touched her back. Still warm, but I knew she was gone.
Eve was gone.
 


Head bowed, I didn’t hear Liam bring Calliope in. The filly stumbled up against me, her broken leg healing, but still not strong enough to support her well.
You grieve for your Evening Star as if she were your own.
I reached up and touched the filly’s nose, my voice cracking on the words. “She is a part of my family.”
Calliope said nothing else, just leaned forward, and touched Eve with her muzzle.
My father believes that she will help the other Harpies remember the bonds they once had with us.
“Why then would he let them do this?” I swiped my tears away, angry that I’d let them out, angrier that the Tamoskin Crush would break their word.
This is not my crush’s doing. This is something else. But I think I can help.
I frowned up at her, but it was Liam who caught my eye.
“Peter S. Beagle.” He mouthed to me. And I frowned harder. Then I caught it, but damn, how could I have been so stupid?
Calliope leaned forward, pressing her nubbin of a horn into Eve’s side. A soft shimmer of golden light spread from the young unicorn to the Harpy, travelling over Eve’s feathers, lighting each one up before fading into her body.
That is all I can do. She will still need to be healed.
“All you can do?” I whispered, and then jumped as Eve let out a groan and took a deep breath. Calliope had brought her back to life. Her threads were suddenly there again, and I could grab them. She was alive. But not for long if we didn’t get her healed.
“Liam, stay with Eve!”
I leapt to my feet and ran to the house. Terese, we had to get Terese here.
The back door was locked and I kicked it open, the glass panel shattering. Alex was on my heels howling. “Evie, Evie, Evie!”
“Alex, shut up and watch for the glass!”#p#分页标题#e#
“Okie dokie.”
I grabbed the phone, my hands shaking. We weren’t going to lose her. Terese would get here in time. The leader of the local coven picked up on the first ring. I didn’t give her a chance to speak.
“I need you at the farmhouse to heal someone who is going to die without you.”
“Rylee?”
“Yes, now hurry your witchy ass up.”
Alex bounced at my side whispering, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
“I’m coming, it’ll take me at least a half hour.”
It would have to do. I slammed the phone down, grabbed some towels from the bathroom, and then ran back out the door. “Alex, get some blankets!”
“Going!”
Back in the barn, Liam had set Eve’s head up on a bale of hay. “She’s in and out, but hanging on. The worst injury is there.” He pointed under her left wing at the gaping wound. Blood and bone, torn muscle and the flutter of something moving inside that I suspected was her heart. Whoever did this was going to be wishing their mother never whored herself out to their father. Because I was going to fucking slaughter them. Slowly, and with great amounts of creativity and pain.
I folded the towels and pressed them against the open wound. Eve let out a groan, her eyelids fluttering. “I tried to stop them, there were too many of them.”
“Shhh. Just hold still. Terese is coming and she’ll patch you up,” I said, hoping that Terese would get here in time.
Alex came barreling in, two blankets streaming out behind him like capes. Liam took them and laid them across Eve. Calliope curled up next to Eve, laying her head against the Harpy’s side, mortal enemies no more. Alex shuffled next to me and then wrapped his arms around Eve.
“Evie hang on.”
Liam cleared his throat, and I looked up to see the moisture in his eyes. “She’ll make it. I’ll go wait for Terese.”

Seeing Eve lay out like that … he hadn’t realized how much he had grown to care about Rylee’s ‘crew’, as he called them, until that moment. When he’d thought they’d lost Eve.
Not since he’d had to bury his parents had grief swamped him like that. The bracing cold air outside the barn helped clear his head. What could have taken Eve out? What had the strength to kill a Harpy without leaving any evidence behind?
Had the unicorns gotten fed up with waiting? Somehow, even knowing as little as he did, he doubted it. Something else then. Milly? No, this wasn’t her style, too messy.