Shannon Curtis - Warrior Untamed

She frowned. She could sense something inside him, something small, but sharp, with a shadow that was slowly spreading. Whatever it was, it wasn’t letting him heal. She tried to battle it, tried to conquer it, then tried to confine it, but she could sense it diffusing through his system.

She didn’t know how long they remained like that—Lexi sitting quietly on her chair in the corner, Lance breathing harshly into the silence and Melissa holding on to her friend, trying desperately to pull him back from the brink of death. She poured her own strength, her essence, into helping him. It slowed down the creeping shadow, but it didn’t stop it. This was some sort of natural poison that she couldn’t halt. She focused on that small, sharp object, the source of the toxin. It was so close to his heart. She tried to draw it out of him, using her magic like a magnet, but Lance moaned softly with pain. Melissa felt the raw edge of agony stiffen his muscles. She was only hurting him further.

She sagged back against the head of the bed and opened her eyes. The room was almost dark. She’d burned through many of the candles, and only a couple still flickered with light. Her legs felt numb. She must have been sitting there for hours. Lexi was staring at her, her expression of anxiety and hope like a suffocating weight on Melissa’s chest.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered brokenly, shame and desolation washing over her as she stared at her friend’s sister. “It’s not—it’s not responding to my magic.” Admitting that she couldn’t help her friend felt like a betrayal, an abandonment. “He needs medical help.”

Lexi stared down at her brother in confusion. “What?”

“He’s a dhampir, Lexi. In some ways, he’s the strongest being I know. In this, though, he is as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us humans. He’s got a bullet fragment inside him, and I can’t get it out.”

“No.” Lexi shook her head, tears streaming down her face as she rose from her chair. “There has to be something you can do, Mel. Please. Whatever it is—I’ll pay.”

Briefly, anger flared within her at the suggestion she would receive payment for helping a friend, but she quashed that anger. Lexi loved her brother and was desperate. She’d do anything to save him, and Melissa could relate to that—she’d do anything to save her own brother as well as her close friend. No, it was better to save her anger for those responsible for this—whoever shot Lance. But they weren’t going to be able to wreak any vengeance if they didn’t know who pulled the trigger, and in order for that to happen, Lance must survive. Only, she couldn’t help him.

Her gaze drifted down to the man lying on the bed, his features so still. She knew someone who could, though, and the very thought of asking him for help burned like acid in her stomach. The thought, though, that Lance would die was even worse.

Melissa dredged up her remaining stores of magic. The work she’d already done on Lance had been draining. She pressed gently against his temple and whispered a dormancy spell. It wasn’t quite as effective as a suspension spell, but putting the half-human Lance into a suspended state would halt his heartbeat, and a continuance spell may not work without that vital pulse. A dormancy spell allowed his body and mind to go into a state of hibernation, still sustaining life, but limiting the spread of that toxin, whatever it was.

“I, uh, I need to step out,” she said, her voice husky with strain. She blinked. Her vision was blurry and gray. Dormancy spells weren’t easy, and they took a toll. “Stay with him. Talk to him, Lexi. I’ve put him in a coma, to stop...it.” Death. She’d put him in a coma to stop death. Her mother would freak if she found her playing with the natural order of things. Magic could be used, but once you used it against nature’s course there were consequences. Melissa mentally defended herself against the imaginary conversation with her Coven Elder. She’d delayed death, not contravened it.

She knew one person, though, who could prevent it—and he was currently shivering in a cell in her basement.

With each step she took down to his prison, she argued with herself. Was there another option? Could anyone else help? What about Dave? No. He’d encounter the same issue she did. Lance needed medical help, not magical. How long could she keep Lance dormant? Perhaps she could wait just a little longer, until someone more suitable could be reached? The stairs leading from her store down to her apothecary spun for a moment, and she clutched the wall for support until her vision settled and she could enter her secret store.

A dormancy spell worked differently to most. For it to continue its effect, it had to siphon energy from her own reserves, and she’d drained most in her efforts to heal Lance and to halt the toxin. It was almost too much effort to despell the wards on the mural door. She reached for the torch and carefully made her way down the steep stairs, clinging to the railing as she went.

She halted before the dark door and took a deep breath, composing her features. She hated this. Hated it. She swung open the door and the torch cut a swathe of light through the darkness.

Her prisoner sat on the floor, his back to the wall, and he lifted his head. His lips curled in a wicked smile.

“Hello, Red. Come to make a deal with the devil?”

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