Phantom Fae (10 page)

"I have been watching for my people's movement, much more unobtrusive than if I were a large dragon flying overhead. Ravens are abundant. No one knows me from any other." Freya shrugged, then drew close. "How is he?"

"Breathing still. His heartbeat is too weak for my liking."

"I know of a healer nearby. She might be able to take care of him."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Ena suspected the healer would want payment and they may not like the bargain.

"She will not like that she is going against our own people's wishes. She will believe Brett has turned and is working for your side. Maybe even that I have."

"So then she wouldn't aid us."

"I think she still would aid me. I've done a lot for her in the past. Kept her company, too. I think if I ask, she'll do it. She wished the curse on me to be withdrawn. When she learns Brett may be able to help me, she might agree. But, she will probably wish something from you in return."

"But the hawk fae healers couldn't do anything for him."

"He is a phantom fae. She might try to save him for that reason alone. You have nothing to lose. It is not far."

Ena thought Freya was being sincere about the healer wanting to help her, but she still didn't trust that the woman wouldn't turn on Ena and the other dragon shifters.

Still, they could fight a battle. If it meant saving Brett, they had to give it a try.

She glanced at her sleeping brother and Alton, but they weren't sleeping at all. Both were sitting up, Halloran as a fae, and Alton still in his dragon form, waiting for her to decide, she thought.

"What do you think?" she asked them.

"We're with you, whichever way you want to go," Halloran said.

Alton nodded in agreement.

"Let's go then."

Halloran shifted and he and Alton lifted Brett, who groaned slightly.

Ena's heart went out to him. Freya looked just as concerned. "I'll show you the way." She transformed into the raven and flew toward the dragon fae border. Ena shifted and flew after her. Halloran and Alton followed behind them.

In the fading light, they found a small clearing around a thatch-roof cottage, a pine fence surrounding it and a well-tended herb and flower garden next to the side of the building.

"What have we here?" a beautiful young woman asked, coming out of her cottage, not looking like the kind of healers Ena was used to seeing—gray-haired, wrinkled, and ancient.

Freya shifted and stood before her. She motioned to Brett. "He is one of us."

The woman shook her head. "No, he is not. But he is the one?"

"Yes. He promised to make Zane remove the curse. What do you mean that he is not one of us? Of course he is. He…" Freya abruptly quit speaking. "I don't understand."

Neither did Ena, but she didn't care as long as the healer could see to it that Brett lived.

"We must put two tables together so that when we pound the bolts through his body, they will exit freely on the other side."

"What?" Ena said. The woman had to be mad.

"The arrowheads are loosely attached to the rods. They're designed to break away and make it more difficult to extract. If we attempt to pull the bolts out, the arrowheads will remain inside. Even we cannot heal with metal such as that inside us. You know how it is. Archers rest the bolts in the dirt before they fire them, and so the young man will have dirt inside his wounds also. I have herb poultices that will fight any bacteria, but the arrowheads must come out. The way they are shaped, we can't pull them the way they went in. We would have to cut more tissue and through tendons and muscle to extract them. If you have already had a healer see to him, which I can see you have as she packed the wounds with herbs, she knew how difficult this would be. And how risky to the injured young man."

"But he will have more damage to tissue and such as we push the bolts through," Ena said.

"He will die if we do not try."

"All right." Even though Ena had hesitated to agree, her brother and Alton had already set Brett down, shifted, and were moving tables close together, but with a gap so that the bolts would have no blockage as they pushed them through.

Then they lifted Brett on top of the two tables.

"Now, as much as I know this will hurt him, it has to be done. The two of you men will pound the bolts through. I will prepare the herbs medicine, and my needles and thread. I will require more light as the sun fades. So Freya and you must fill all the lamps with oil and light them. When we are done, I'll have one of you offer him something to drink that will help ease his pain."

"He is so still," Ena said, moving to fill the lamps with oil as Freya was doing.

"He is in a catatonic state from the pain. Maybe he called on mage skills to counter the pain. No matter what, if he doesn't stay still, it could be worse than it already is for him, and for us," the healer said.

"All right. Do you have chains?" Ena asked.

"No use for them. But I have vines clinging to the trees out back that are as strong as ten men. Freya can take you to get them. In the meantime, I'll apply some of this medication to his wounds."

"And his blood loss?"

"Only our healing genetics can take care of that. Which may take some time even at that."

Ena didn't like the sound of that. "All right. Let's go, Freya." Ena prayed again that they could save Brett's life and hoped he would want to stay with her after all this was through. Though she loved the hawk fae's generosity, she wanted to go home to the dragon fae kingdom. If they could rid themselves of Prince Grotto, and Princess Alicia took over, maybe they would be able to return home to their own castles.

But first, they needed to save Brett's life.

Chapter 9

The healer was right in thinking Brett had used some kind of mage ability to numb the pain. Maybe some of it was from the severed nerves, the adrenaline rushing through his blood, and the shock of it all. Except for some discomfort, he didn't feel anything but a throbbing ache.

He wished he could have knocked himself out completely. He didn't like the idea that they would have to hammer the bolts clear through him. He was afraid all the magic in the world wouldn't make that much pain go away. But he didn't understand the healer's claim that he wasn't one of them. Why? Because he was a mage? Because he had turned into a dragon?

He couldn't believe Halloran had come to help take him to a healer. Nor that Alton would either. Not after he pummeled him good with his fists. Yet even then, the fight seemed to make Alton see him in a different light. More like he wasn't just a weakling human.

He thought Alton and Ena's brother would not like it that he had turned into a dragon like one of them though. Most of all, what helped him to ignore the pain was concentrating on how Ena had been caressing his head. Even though a dragon was all scales and impervious to heat and cold, to fire and ice, to so much more, he could still feel the tickling warmth of her hand on his head, the way she was so tender with her touch. He had wanted to open his eyes, smile at her for her thoughtfulness, something, but he hadn't been able to manage anything but breathing in and out, the effort taking the greatest of strength beyond keeping himself from feeling the pain.

He was surprised to hear Freya was also at the healer's cottage when he had hoped Elorian would unfreeze Zane and then force him to recant the curse he'd bestowed upon her.

When they began to tie Brett down with vines, he didn't like the confinement one bit and started to move.

"No, Brett, stay still!" Ena called out, and put her hand on his nose.

Instantly, he quieted. Not because he wanted to for anyone other than Ena. He wanted to please her. Had always wanted to please her for the way that she had saved his life. He would be indebted to her always.

"He is aware," the healer said, even though his breath was ragged, and he still couldn't open his eyes. Even though he wished to, just to see Ena and to let her know he had every intention of coming out of this ordeal alive.

"He'll feel the pain," Ena said, worried.

"Keep comforting him. You have helped to calm him," the healer said.

Then she must have motioned to the men because without another word, they began to pound on the bolts. Both of them at the same time! Why couldn't they do one and then let him rest up for the other. He roared in pain and Ena wrapped her arms around his neck, her face against his, her tears dripping onto his cheek. He stilled then, as much as he could, gritted back the pain, tried another spell to numb the agony.

"Almost through," Halloran sounded triumphant, but then there was a crack, and a pause. He swore under his breath.

He'd cracked one of Brett's ribs, but he hadn't broken it clean through. He must have angled the bolt and hammered again, missing the rib.

Brett didn't remember anything after that. He was shrouded in pain and clouds, of floating faces and the smell of antiseptics. Like he was in a hospital room.

He attempted to open his eyes. He couldn't be back home in a human hospital bed. Not as a dragon. Not when he was not human but a fae.

"Brett," Ena said softly, stroking his arm. "The healer said you had lost too much blood. She did what she could, but I had to bring you to a hospital. The same one you were in before."

"Dragon," he said, his mouth feeling as though it was stuffed with cotton and the word sounded foreign to his ears.

"You shifted. I brought you here at once. We heal if we haven't lost too much blood. We don't do transfusions in the fae world. It's too…" She wrinkled her nose. "Just not done. No fae would stand for having blood from another fae running through his veins."

"Transfus…," Brett said, unable to get the rest of the word out. He felt a low throbbing pain from one side of his body all the way through to the other side and every centimeter in between.

"Yes. I gave blood for you. Though it's not normally done. I…I had to do something for you after what you did for me."

"You would have done the same for me," he finally managed to rasp out.

"Don't kid yourself. After seeing what you went through? No way."

He smiled, though he thought if a bolt had nearly killed him, she would have done anything to protect him.

As if she knew what he was thinking, she folded her arms and looked cross at him. "I would have killed the archer, not flown in front of the bolts in flight. What were you thinking, pulling a stupid stunt like that? You could have died!"

"I…I thought I could grab them in my teeth. I flew faster than I thought I would. And got ahead of the bolts when I believed I would have been able to snatch them out of the air."

She laughed, then shook her head. "Okay. I feel better. I was afraid you were insane to have done something so—"

"Heroic?"

She smiled and he felt heartened by it. Then he frowned. "How did you get me here?"

"My brother carried you into the hospital, saying we'd been out playing paintball in the woods and some guy was hunting with a crossbow and shot you. But afraid he'd be charged with a crime, he ran off. After the police questioned Halloran, which thoroughly amused him, my brother left. He decided to help fight against Prince Grotto. The police will be questioning you also."

"Great. I hope different police officers are here this time."

"Might be, but we're in the same police jurisdiction. I'm certain from the last time you were here they probably have a record about you. What was it you said? You were playing some game reenactment the last time you were injured?"

"Yes. How did your brother come up with the idea of a paintball game? That's a good one."

"He's played them here before. He would like to bring the game back to our world, but we fight for real, so those ruling the kingdoms said no."

"How bad are my injuries?" Brett was afraid it would take forever to heal and how was he going to pay for all this?

"Your injuries were bad. Halloran said he was sorry for breaking your rib. He didn't break it clean through, but he really was trying to hammer the bolt as quickly as he could so that it would be out of your body and you could begin to heal. But it wasn't enough. Not with all the blood loss."

"What did the doctor say?"

"I read your chart, but it was a little cryptic, hospital jargon. But I was eavesdropping during your surgery, too. You are lucky to be alive. They cleaned out the debris, sutured you back up, pumped you full of antibiotics, and they said it would still be a miracle for you to live as many organs and muscles were severed as the bolts tore through them. Not to mention the blood loss. The police kept the bolts. I overheard them say they were handmade. The doctors don't know about our healing genetics though and you'll need to leave before they discover you're healing too fast."

"I might be healing fast, but it sure feels slow to me. By the way, what did the healer want in payment for helping me?"

"She didn't save you. The humans did."

"But she risked discovery if anyone investigated what was going on."

"She wants you to undo Freya's curse. That's it. She seems to love her like a sister," Ena said.

"I've already promised to."

"She thinks you'll forget."

"Why?"

"I cannot take you back to the hawk fae kingdom right away where you would be safe. It's too far to travel. We would have to camp out in the phantom fae woods and we would be at risk of capture."

"We stay here then?"

"We can't risk the human staff seeing you heal so quickly. Yet you need several days to be more yourself."

"Where then?"

"It's risky, but my brother and my suitors plan to get rid of whoever has seized my castle. We will use it as a staging ground for battle maneuvers. There, you can heal."

"Will you return to your home if Prince Grotto's reign is ended?"

"Yes. It is home."

"Will you take me back as your gardener?"

Ena let out her breath. She was totally exasperated with her staff. "You may be the only one left in my employ."

"What has happened to your staff?"