Richelle Mead - Iron Crowned

But now, the power flowed through me as the fetch pulled herself off my blade. She had no time to react, attack, or flee. The magic seized her, and she disappeared before my eyes, fading into sparkles and then nothing. I didn’t know the extent of the athame’s damage. I might have just sent her back to die. Or, she might survive and come after me in the Otherworld as some creatures tried. I wasn’t worried. My abilities stayed consistent in both worlds, but my magic was a bit stronger over there—especially in the Thorn Land.

I took a deep breath of relief and stuck the weapons back in my belt as I hurried toward the front door. Jenna was sitting on the lawn, face pale with worry. She sprang up when she saw me.

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, wiping sweat off my brow. My hand came away red with blood. “We have to find her. Does she have a basement?”

“No.” Jenna followed me inside and then halted. “Oh my God … your back …”

“It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it later.”

“At least—” She reached toward a spot between my upper arm and shoulder blade, wincing as she did. I yelped in pain and watched as she pulled away a huge piece of jagged glass. “That’s bleeding … really bad …”

“I’m in better shape than Regan,” I said brusquely, trying to ignore both pain and the sight of my blood all over the shard she’d taken. “No basement. Closets? Attic?”

“Both.”

We checked the closets with no luck, and Jenna stuck her head in the attic’s tiny space. Still nothing.

“Shit,” I said. I shouldn’t have let the fetch go without getting Regan’s location. What if Regan wasn’t nearby? What if the fetch had broken habit and hidden her victim far from home?

Jenna looked as defeated as I felt, then her head shot up. “The shed. There’s a shed out back.”

We were out the back door in a flash, jerking open the door to a little garden shed that was mercifully unlocked. There, curled up on the ground in a fetal position, was Regan. Jenna let out a strangled cry, and we both dropped to the ground. Jenna propped Regan up while I gently shook her.

“Regan, Regan. Wake up. Please wake up.”

For a few moments, I feared the worst. Then, Regan’s eyes fluttered open, her expression frightened and confused. Her breathing came in short rasps, and she futilely tried to sit up on her own. Her failure didn’t surprise me. When a fetch took over someone’s life, it put its double into a sort of magic coma. It required no ropes or gags, simply leaving behind a silent and immobile victim. Regan’s ability to wake up verified that the fetch was gone, but the woman had spent days without food, water, or using her muscles.

“She’s dehydrated,” I said. Studying Regan’s state, I knew this was beyond a few glasses of water. “Let’s get her to the hospital.”

Jenna drove, with Regan laid out carefully across the backseat. She said little, only making the occasional moan. Meanwhile, in the passenger seat, I attempted to clean myself off with baby wipes and to pull glass bits out of my back. The blood on my face was cleaned off when we reached the ER, as was most from my body, but I didn’t want to answer questions about what had happened to me. I borrowed Jenna’s jean jacket, figuring the few scratches on my face weren’t enough to attract attention.

We told the staff that Regan had been depressed and starving herself. We went on about how we hadn’t seen her for days and had only just found her tonight. Since there was no ostensible bruising or signs of binding, they took us at our word and hurried to hook her up to fluids. We’d also probably landed her in therapy, but that was of little concern now.

I waited with Jenna just outside Regan’s room as a nurse finished attaching the appropriate tubes and a doctor performed further examination. When they were done, they told us we could go in and that Regan would recover once her body had sustenance again. I had no intention of going with Jenna. Now that Regan was safe, my plan was to get a taxi back to my car and go home to clean up before an Otherworldly jump. Lara could bill these women later.

“Wait,” said Jenna, as the doctor and nurse were about to leave. “My friend’s hurt. She broke a window to get in Regan’s house and got cut.”

I shook my head. “No, really, I’m fine—”

I shut my mouth when I followed everyone’s gaze. Even I could see that the left sleeve of the jacket was soaked with blood. There was little argument to make after that. Jenna stayed with Regan, and I was ushered off to a cubicle in the ER. The nurse shut the curtain, and I took off my shirt. The doctor’s eyebrows rose.

“You broke a window? With what, your entire body?” He called for another nurse, who began assisting the other with glass removal and sanitizing.

“I threw a rock,” I said. “It didn’t make a very big hole, but I didn’t have time to make it bigger. I just had to get to Regan.”

“Noble,” said the doctor, whose attention was on the larger shoulder gash. “If stupid.”

Someone with a better understanding of physics might have realized my injuries didn’t quite line up with what I’d get crawling through a jagged hole in a window. Fortunately, this group’s talents were elsewhere. The myriad scratches and cuts were dealt with by bandages and painful antiseptics. The big cut required a fair number of stitches.

I was restless the whole time, wanting only to get back and see what had happened to Dorian. The medical staff was thorough in its work, however. I decided I should just be grateful that they were letting me go and not forcing a longer stay. I was the walking wounded, in bad shape but not in life-threatening danger.

“Here,” said the doctor, just before letting me go. He scrawled out a prescription and handed it to me, along with reams of paper on wound care and cleaning. “Antibiotics. Get it filled tonight.”

“I will,” I said glibly.

He gave me a warning look. “I mean it. I know your type. You think you’re invincible, but any of that could get infected. Get the prescription. Clean and change the bandages on the cuts.”

He was right that I thought I was invincible. I’d had stitches and wounds before, my gentry blood usually expediting the healing. But I nodded meekly, promising I’d obey.

“Good,” he said, following me out to the waiting room. “Follow up with your family doctor in a week. I think your ride’s over there.”

“My ride …?”

I stared around the room, freezing when I saw a familiar face. “Mom?”

She’d been leaning against a wall, eyes anxiously studying everyone in the room. Spotting me, she practically ran over, staring at my bandages in alarm. I had no coat, and the tank top showed my battle wounds. “Eugenie! Are you okay? What have you done now?”

For some reason, that made the doctor snort a laugh before walking away. “I’m fine,” I told her automatically. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m your emergency contact. And that is not fine.”

I was still stunned to see her. It felt like it had been so long. Ages. “It is now,” I said dazedly. “All patched up. And I’ve got all this … stuff.” I waved my stack of paper around.

She brushed dark hair from her face, her expression both weary and distraught as we headed for her car. “It never gets easier. Not with you, not with him.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “Does he know you’re here?”

“No,” she said, getting out her keys. “Not that it would matter if he did. Nothing could have stopped me from coming when they called me. I thought … Well, I never know what to think….”

I couldn’t look at her as I sat gingerly in the car. My eyes were filling with tears. I’d missed her so much. I’d missed her, well, momness. Lots of people cared about me, but it wasn’t the same. Plus, I felt horrible, horrible that I made her worry. And because of me, Roland was out endangering himself again too.