Was I really letting her help? I didn’t really have a choice in the matter when Delphine’s poison rendered me immobile. Now that I could move again, I wanted nothing more than to get this over so that I could start the dreaded healing process. Ripping it out was going to hurt, and healing was going to take forever.
Surely, Cerri had to understand that. I didn’t know why she insisted on dragging this out when I could take care of it on my own. Did she not want to see me suffer? It was going to happen eventually. Hell, the woman had seen me suffer every day since we met. This couldn’t be any different than any other time.
I groaned when I realized that I was being stubborn. I had to admit that I wasn’t used to having people around to take care of me. Even back when the court had been at its best, I’d always had to bandage my own wounds. There’d never been a pretty lady around to help me patch myself up. Putting myself back together had always been my own duty.
Not even Delphine helped while we’d been working together. She’d refused to touch me. In fact, the woman had told me to man-up more than once.
Cerri rose onto her tiptoes to peer into the back of her cabinet. She muttered curses under her breath as she shoved bottles aside and found the back empty. When she dropped back, flat on her feet again, she rolled her shoulders back and grabbed another pot.
I watched her brew two potions at the same time. When I was sure that she was distracted, I went to pull the bolt out. Cerri flicked a hand in my direction. The sensation of warm sunlight washed over my skin right before a tendril of wood wrapped around my wrist and yanked my arm back.
“Bitch,” I muttered, frustrated.
“Idiot,” she fired back without hesitation.
I couldn’t help the dumb smile that reached my lips. Sure, I felt bad about calling my princess abitch, but the casual air between us set me at ease. She wasn’t just a pretty noble who thought she was above me. Cerri was a person and possibly…a friend.
Finally, she grabbed a pair of tongs and used them to hold a jar under the spout of her cauldron. She held her breath as a glimmering red potion filled the bottle. A timer went off and startled her. She slammed a cork into the mouth of the first jar and raced towards the second pot on the stove so she could pour the surprisingly cum-like substance into another bottle.
I pointed at it and said, “You’re not getting that one anywhere near my mouth.”
Cerri paused and took in the jar. “I don’t get—oh, now I understand.”
She shook her head, grabbed the red potion, and slowly dropped to her knees in front of me. When she gave the red potion a dubious, slightly terrified look, my heart thumped around the accursed bolt.
“What are you planning on doing with that? Is that the potion with demon blood? I’m not looking to mess around with infernal powers beyond our understanding.” I wasn’t afraid so much as I really didn’t want another monster roaming around inside me.
There wasn’t room inside me for a demon when I had my own beast taking up way too much space in there already. The feathered creature snarled and gnashed its great fangs. It was a chimera of sorts, though its visage had been scrubbed from my memory with too much whiskey. I could remember it’s crow-black wings and long teeth because that’s what it showed me often, but the rest of it I’d chosen to forget.
I didn’t want to remember what fae magic had turned me into.
Cerri clicked her tongue. “I just explained that this blood didn’t come from a real demon. It belongs to Vi. The woman has a small, nuclear-powered incinerator inside her. This potion, if I made it correctly, should burn away the bolt without harming you. That way we don’t cause more damage by ripping it out like a barbarian.”
“This is metal, woman!” I tilted my head back and rolled my eyes at the ceiling.
A simple fire potion wasn’t going to burn away a solid metal rod. She was out of her mind if she thought that this was going to help. All she was doing was dragging this out. I had become tired of this act.
I started to rise. Cerri snapped at me, and another wave of her arcana filled the room. She strapped me down with a number of wood tendrils. I struggled against them with a growl ripping from my lips. They held on tight and kept me stationary while she stuck a little glass dropper into the bottle.
A droplet of the red potion fell from the dropper onto the bolt. Heat flared in the room. It bloomed like a small explosion and made my hair curl and burn. I watched in awe as the bolt turned to smoldering ash and disintegrated. The little cinders hit the floor and burned tiny holes through the wood.
I sucked in a breath. Shock didn’t last long. That’d been impressive and unexpected, but now there was a hole in my heart.
Cerri reached for the white potion and gave me an apologetic smile. “This will heal the physical wound. You’re just going to have to pretend that it’s…yogurt.”
She jammed the mouth of the bottle against my lips.
15
CERRI
Isat between the bound man’s legs and got comfortable while the healing potion worked its way through his system. Rhoan refused to look me in the eye after that, but I understood. The healing potion looked interesting, to say the least.
But Rhoan was healing, and that was all that mattered. I leaned into his now-healed chest and rested my head over his heart. I claimed it was so that I could make sure his heart was mending correctly, but I just wanted to relax into him. Releasing the wooden tendrils that I’d used to hold him still while I burned away the bolt, I waited for Rhoan to push me away.
Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and sighed. We sat there, together, for a long while. Tears slowly started to build in my eyes. They made my chest tight. I pulled them back, but only barely.
“I’m…” Rhoan started and stopped. He groaned which pulled my attention upwards. He stared at the ceiling while thought after thought careened across his face. “I’m not used to people taking care of me.”