A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(78)
Author: Kim Harrison

"More than you know."

I was cold, and my head slumping into him, I breathed him in, giving myself up to whatever came next. I was going to be okay, and that was enough for now. Trent had been looking for me? How nice was that?

But my next thought woke me back up. He thought he was my Sa’han? What the hell did that mean?

Chapter Seventeen

A high-pitched child’s wail cut through the thick walls as if they were paper, sliding between my sleep and reason and pricking me awake. A soft adult admonishment quickly followed, soothing the desperate demand into a pitiful whining that dulled to the inaudible. I smiled. Kids were great, but I was really glad not to have any right now.

My eyes opened, and I looked up at the high arched ceiling, bright with the sun leaking past the curtains. The ceiling was painted with a hunting scene, like you might find in a museum, with dogs and horses – and one running fox. Somehow it managed not to look overdone. The opulent surroundings helped.

In less than a day I’d gone from sleeping on a grimy floor to Egyptian cotton, silk pj’s, and enough pillows to drown in. Thank God there’d been a shower in between. Not to mention a trip downstairs to Trent’s surgery suite to get the bullet yanked out of my thigh. I’d be there still, but after they patched me up and made sure my kidneys were working, I had taken out the IV and demanded a real bed or I was going to call Ivy to pick me up that instant.

It felt good to be alive, clean, rested . . . and sleeping in Ellasbeth’s old room. Na, na. Na, na. Na-a-a-a, na. It had been redecorated in soft, earthy colors, and I could see Ceri’s hand everywhere from the lace draped over the top of the huge mirror to the elegant French provincial furnishings. The bathroom, though, looked the same as the night Ellasbeth had walked in on me while I’d been innocently soaking in her tub. She’d probably been pregnant with Lucy at the time, now that I think about it.

Ray, Ceri and Quen’s child, was only five months old. Lucy was eight months, and from the sound of it, had learned how to communicate without words. She was a smart little kid, the product of East Coast and West Coast elves, the attempt at forging a union between the two that I helped break not just once, but twice, first by halting their marriage, and then by helping Trent steal Lucy from Ellasbeth in an arranged agreement to avoid a legal battle for the child. Lucy was his now, lock, stock, and barrel. Trent had made me her godmother – her demon godmother.

I stretched with a happy sigh, grunting in surprise when my leg twinged. Oh, yeah.

Ceri had apologized profusely, but all the magic she knew that could help was demonic and therefore wouldn’t stick. Trent hadn’t even offered, probably still stinging over my less-than-enthusiastic response to being beaned by his pain charm – which had stuck. Wild magic had weird side effects in the best of situations, and he was a dabbler, even if he had laid me out. Ceri wouldn’t practice the ancient, unpredictable, elven magic. She was a smart woman.

My thoughts drifted from seeing Trent as a dangerous shadow crouched in that tree to the kiss we’d shared last summer. It hadn’t been unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but to think that it would go any further was stupid. I trusted Trent with my life, not my heart.

A shadow by the curtain moved, and I sat up. "Winona!" I said, quashing my first initial panic at finding a horned, tailed, demonic creature smiling at me.

"Sorry," she said, her lisp almost gone. "I didn’t mean to wake you. You feel okay?"

The pillows behind me were too soft to give any support, and I carefully propped myself up against the headboard. Seeing Winona in a long, dark red skirt and shawl threw me. "Pretty much. I should be up now anyway. Ivy and Wayde are probably banging on Trent’s gate."

I looked for a clock before remembering Ceri had taken it out of the room, telling me to sleep myself out. Scooting to the edge of the bed took some doing, and I threw back the covers and lifted the hem of my borrowed pj’s to see a big ugly bruise spreading out from under the bandage on my leg. It could have been a lot worse – should have been from that distance. I was going to have an interesting scar at the very least.

"My leg hurts, but I’m okay," I said, and she trip-trapped over to me, the sound muted when she found the rug. I let my legs hang over the side for a moment, my bladder warring with my need to slow down and gauge my fatigue. There was a pain amulet around my neck, and it was working well despite the throbbing in my leg. Small favors.

Slowly, with Winona ready to help, I stood. Everything seemed to shift as my feet took my weight, settle a little lower, a little more uncomfortable. I exhaled, then shuffled my way to the bathroom, Winona holding tight to my arm.

"Thank you for pounding Eloy last night," I said. "I can’t believe you set the basement on fire with just one charm."

Her ugly face smiled fiercely. "I would never have made it without you. Thank you."

I touched the bedpost in passing for support, but my pace was becoming more sure already. "I think you would have managed it," I said, then glanced at my charmed silver as it thunked from my elbow to my hand. "I bet I missed breakfast. What time is it anyway?"

"Almost noon."

"Good." I put a hand on the wall beside the closed bathroom door. "I promised Ivy I’d call by one." I had talked to her shortly after the yanking-of-the-IV incident. She wasn’t happy about my sleeping over until I told her I wanted to talk to Trent about getting this bracelet off. Wayde wasn’t happy, either. He thought he’d let me down. I needed to talk to him, too.

Seeing me standing on my own power, Winona opened the bathroom door for me. I hobbled in, a twinge of nausea rising at the pain leaking through the amulet, but I turned and made a solid front when she tried to come in with me. "I’ve got this," I said, and she snorted, giving me a look that I’d expect from a third-grade teacher, decidedly odd on her demonic face.

"Just thump the floor hard when you hit it, and I’ll come in," she said, and I heard her sigh when I shut the door.

I leaned back against the closed door and simply breathed for a moment. I was so damn tired. "Here we go again," I said as I pushed myself into motion. If I couldn’t get dressed by myself, Trent might insist I stay. Ivy would cart me out of here anyway, but I didn’t want to push the new truce Trent and I seemed to have. Weird.

I didn’t need another shower, but my brands of detangler and toothpaste were waiting for me on the counter along with a complexion charm. Trent would remember them from our cross-country excursion, but it still threw me. My clothes from yesterday were laid out, cleaned and pressed. The bullet hole in my leather pants had been mended so well I couldn’t see the patch unless I ran my hand over it, but there was no way I’d be able to wear them – not with my leg swollen like it was. Beside them was a robe and a pair of black sweats. The robe wasn’t happening, but the sweats I could manage, and I sat on the dressing couch and carefully put myself back together as if I was getting dressed for battle, somehow managing even the socks.