“Oh, I thought I woke this morning,” I say, a bit confused. “I must have dreamt it.”
CK is looking at me, unsure of what to say. After a long pause, he says, “Aefre, my sweet. You did wake up, briefly, but it wasn’t this morning. It was three weeks ago.”
“What?” I ask in disbelief. “I have been sleeping for three weeks?” Geez, no wonder I am such a mess, and so bloody hungry.
“Err,” CK says as Cole comes racing into the kitchen and then comes to a dead halt as he sees me sitting on the counter.
“Oh, Christ, Liv. I woke up and you weren’t there. You scared the crap out of me. Again. Oh, God, I love you. I love you so much.” He crushes me to him, and I make a noise of protest as he hurts me, but he doesn’t let me go.
“I love you too,” I say, returning his hug as much as I am able. My arms feel like dead weights.
CK pulls him back and says, “Aefre, you have been in a coma for three months. Remiel dumped you here and took off and we haven’t been able to rouse you.”
“Three months?” I whisper. “How did I lose three months?”
“From what we have gathered, Remiel took you from the library back in June and then brought you back here almost dead a few hours later. We have tried to contact your mother to heal you, but no one can get Her to answer our call. Corinne has worked tirelessly to find a healing spell for you, but nothing has worked. We have tried every spell from every lore, and we couldn’t get you back. We had all but lost hope.” He looks so anguished my heart breaks. I pull them both close to me, knowing how they must have felt.
Three months.
Shit, no wonder Cole looks so worn out and why CK looks like he is still in shock. They had probably come to terms that I wasn’t coming back. Ever.
“Tiamat never came to see me?” I ask then, something not sitting right with that. You would have thought being Her daughter and heir, She might have made a few minutes to pop in to see how I was doing.
“No,” Cole says, shaking his head. “Drake did. He came and sat with you for a few days. He tried everything he could to wake you, but not even Faerie magick worked.”
Oh, well at least my father cares enough. I start to feel sorry for myself, but then I get a whiff of my pits and blanch. “Get me in a bath, will you?” I snap at them. “I am all kinds of disgusting.”
They both scamper off to do my bidding, forgetting that I need assistance in
getting back upstairs. I can barely move my body, so I am certain there is a Power outage going on. CK comes rushing back in apologizing and I just roll my eyes at him as he lifts me up and Teleports us back upstairs.
He sits me on the plush stool in the bathroom while Cole is hastily running the bath. He hesitates over the bubbly stuff and looks to CK, who looks back at me.
“Have at it,” I say, waving my hand at the bottle of Lavender bubble bath. “That water is going to have to be as fragrant as possible.”
Cole nods and dumps half the bottle into the water, and it foams up instantly. Okay, I said fragrant, not overpowering.
“Wasn’t sure if it would hurt your wounds,” he says.
Wounds? I have wounds? I must look mildly shocked by that as CK comes to kneel at my feet. “You didn’t heal, Aefre. You still have the wounds he inflicted on you.”
Oh, I guess that makes sense why it hurts to turn my head and why my left arm feels like lead. It doesn’t explain why the rest of me is so sore though. CK must see that I don’t know the half of it and he hesitantly reaches up to undo the tie on the frumpy nightgown. He peels it away from my super sensitive skin, plucking it delicately over the neck bite and down my torso. Well, so far, so good. Only the one on my neck. He continues to peel it slowly down as Cole watches. He pulls it off my arms and I see the awful wrist bite. It is red and oozing pus and blood.
“Why am I not healing?” I ask.
“We don’t know, maybe because you are still so weak?” Cole says as CK continues with his task. I stand up and help him remove the rest of the nightgown and get a bit of a shock. My legs have been clawed from thigh to ankle. Remiel must have done that to keep me paralyzed. He mutilated me to keep me still. The claw wounds aren’t as bad as the bites, they seem to have semi-healed at least, but I look an absolute mess. I start to cry and CK holds me tenderly as I sag against him and give up. I don’t even have the energy for a good pity party. I am pathetic.
He lifts me up again and places me in the bath and I scream as the hot, bubbly water hits my lacerations. They both pull me back out again, unsure of what to do next. In hindsight, perhaps the bubbles were too much. “Too hot,” I say. Cole reaches down to run the cold tap and soon it is to my liking. I keep the bubbles though, as I stink, and after the initial sting, I settle back, keeping my left arm dangling over the side. No way am I getting that in here. I am sore enough without that agony.
“No one thought to bathe me while I was lying comatose?” I must ask because it does seem to have escaped both of them.
They look at each other and shrug. “We kind of had bigger things to worry about than your appearance, my sweet,” CK says.
I scowl at him, but I suppose I should be grateful that even in my stinky, sweaty, bloody, oozy, greasy, hair-tangled state, they both still love me.
“Where is everyone else? Where is Devon?” I want to ask about Cade, but I am not sure if they know of his betrayal, so I refrain for the moment.
“Devon is with Corinne trying to rework a spell to heal you,” Cole says. “He was due back by now, so hopefully he won’t be too long.”