Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’ve already fucking failed.
“I’m going to rip out your throat,” I gasp.
“Noted.” Siobhan dips beneath the waves again, and then she’s at our side, easily pushing me away from Maeve and wrapping her arm under Maeve’s chest. “I’ve got her.”
I’m having a hard enough time carrying the pelt, weighted down with the water the way it is. And Siobhan is taking obvious care with Maeve, which is all I could ask for. As much as I want to keep her in my arms, to measure the beat of her heart with my arm over her chest, Siobhan is obviously the stronger swimmer. She won’t let Maeve drown. She better fucking not. I clutch the pelt to my chest. “If she dies, you die.”
Siobhan ignores my threat. We swim toward the shore in strained silence as Maeve’s color gets paler and paler. She’s not actively bleeding, but obviously she’s not anywhere close to waking up. To being okay.
I might lose her.
The thought is incomprehensible. Last night we exchanged words of love, and now her heartbeat is slowing to the point that, without my powers, I would think it’s not beating at all. I barely came to terms with the fact that I don’t want to leave, and now she’s leaving me.
It takes far too long to reach the rocky beach near the cave we started the night in. Siobhan touches down first, sweeping Maeve into her arms and whisking her up onto dry land. I follow a few steps behind. My muscles quiver and shake, and the pelt feels approximately five thousand pounds. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my pathetically long life, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Maeve needs me. I won’t falter. I can’t lose her. I fucking refuse.
I reach the cave in time to see Siobhan lay Maeve down carefully on the floor. “Second crate down,” she says without looking up. “There are medical supplies.”
I don’t take the time to argue. I shove the top crate away and rip open the second one. Some of the medical supplies look vaguely familiar, but most of them are completely foreign to me. Whether that means they’re magical or simply a different technology is anyone’s guess. I’ve hardly spent my time worrying about how to heal people when my blood—
My blood.
I grab bandages and rush back to them. “My blood can heal her.” I wasn’t willing to take the chance on the Serpent’s Cry. I had been out of my mind with worry, but it was clear she was recovering. That’s not the case now. I don’t know what happens if a selkie imbibes vampire blood, but if she doesn’t, it’s increasingly looking like she might slip away permanently.
I won’t let her die. No matter what it takes.
Siobhan has been busy in the seconds that I was away, using her claws to cut the suit from Maeve’s body. The wounds revealed make my stomach twist. I’m hardly queasy when it comes to evidence of violence, but this is Maeve. Stab wounds cover her entire body. I have no idea how she fought as long as she did. The bandages in my hands won’t cover half of them. I drop them, my chest so tight, I’m having a hard time drawing breath. “You said no martyrs, Maeve,” I whisper. She should have run. Why didn’t she fucking run?
“If we—”
“Shut up. You’ve done enough.” Any doubt I had about giving her my blood disappears. It’s the only choice we have. “Get out of the way.”
“You don’t know what that blood will do to her. Neither of us do.”
Even with my powers artificially sealing her wounds, they gently ooze blood. She’s going to die if we don’t do something, and out of all the outcomes that I’ve played through my head, different scenarios with varying degrees of heartbreak, her dying is unacceptable. I won’t allow it.
“It’s our only option.” It shouldn’t be enough to change her, but no matter the outcome, at least she’ll be alive to hate me if it comes to that. I drag my nail along the inside of my arm. “Hold her head.”
Siobhan hesitates for the faintest heartbeat, and then she’s moving, shifting behind Maeve to lift her head and shoulders as I press my bleeding arm to her lips. Too cold. She’s too damn cold. I barely even registered how deliciously warm she is all the time until that heat is nowhere in evidence. My blood dribbles into her mouth, but she doesn’t swallow.
“Come on, baby. You have to live.” I gently massage her throat, artificially urging her to swallow. It’s tempting to give her more blood, but a few mouthfuls should heal even the most mortal of wounds. It just takes time.
Siobhan rises and walks deeper into the cave only to return with a stack of blankets. She props a folded one under Maeve’s head and covers her with the other two. “So . . . Now we wait?”