“And you,” a small voice chirps. It’s Ryan, sitting at the table with a plate full of spaghetti. “You’re hurt, too.”
As I hand Skye to Jack, the muscles in my side pull, and I suck in a breath. A glance tells me that the injury to my wing has translated into a deep, blistering burn on my side, stretching from my left shoulder blade all the way to my hip. In the rush to get Skye to the Lodge, I hadn’t even noticed it, but it’s sure as fuck making itself known now. My body throbs with pain, and the burn is angry, raw, the blisters already popping and oozing. There’s charring around the edges, a black rim to the wound that tells me this is far worse than I’d thought.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” someone gasps, and a shape darts toward the downstairs bathroom.
“The nurse is on her way,” Maya announces as she sidles up to us. “Aiden, you better go wait for her in your room.”
She raises her eyebrows pointedly, and I shake myself from my stupor. Yeah, it doesn’t look great for the clan leader to be standing buck naked in the middle of the room filled with small children, especially since it’s clear I got my ass handed to me.
I could tell them that our attacker is dead, that I drowned him, but something inside me refuses to brag for the kill. It wasn’t for the glory that I did it, but to save Skye’s life. I don’t care about my reputation—there is nothing glorious about death.
Wincing with every step, I follow Jack and Ty down the hallway, past the bathroom where some poor soul is puking their guts out. I find my small family clustered together in bed, and my heart skips a beat at the sight.
I would doanythingto protect them. I’d murder and kill over and over again if it meant keeping them safe.
“Ah, man,” Jack says, turning toward me. “You’re a mess. What the fuck happened?”
Skye’s dark eyes well with tears again. She bites her lip and looks at me, giving me a chance to tell the story myself. I fall even more deeply in love with her at that moment—she’s letting me know she would keep my secret if I wanted her to. By I don’t want that. Nothing should come between us, and no secret is worth tearing us apart.
“I killed the witch. Cameron.” I force out the words. “He attacked Skye and burned her.” I glance from Jack’s grim face to Ty. “He wouldn’t stop.”
Ty goes pale, but he dips his chin in a nod. “Then you did the right thing.”
I collapse in my armchair, the one where I sat the first time I watched the three of them together. The upholstery will get ruined, and my burn screams with pain from where the fabric brushes against it, but my legs won’t hold me up anymore, so it’s either the armchair or the floor.
“There’s nothing right about what I did,” I mutter, then bury my face in my hands.
A cold hand touches my shoulder, and I lift my gaze to Skye’s face.
“Thank you for saving my life,” she says, her voice cracking. “Thank you.”
She drops to her knees in front of me, and we cling to each other until the door opens and Nurse MacLeod bustles in.
“You can’t go a week without needing medical attention, huh?” she says, her clear, loud voice breaking the tension of the moment.
With Jack’s help, she cuts off Skye’s ruined clothes while Ty goes to fetch the ingredients for a healing spell. The back of Skye’s neck is burned, as are her hands where she tried to put out the flames that fucker cast at her. At the memory of how she blazed with green fire, some of my remorse over Cameron’s death evaporates. He would have continued torturing her until she died, and that’s not something I can forgive.
The nurse cleans Skye’s burns and washes away the sand and salt so the wounds can seal properly during the spell. She clucks over Skye’s singed hair, then wipes Skye’s tears.
“You’ll be okay, darling,” she says in a surprisingly gentle tone. “Good thing you’re a witch, huh?”
Skye gives her a weak smile. “Yeah. But I don’t think any of this would have happened if I wasn’t.”
Leanne shrugs. “You can’t know that. You just have to make the best out of what you have.”
Ty returns with the herbal infusion and a bag of salt. “Here we go,” he says, all business. “We’ve done this so many times I know the recipe by heart.”
He and Jack set the circle, and Skye sits in the middle of it. Then she gestures at me.
“Come on,” she says. “I don’t want to be in pain anymore.”
I shake my head. “You first.”
Nurse MacLeod steps over to me and tuts. “You didn’t tell me you were hurt as well. Should have smelled it, though, you’re in a bad way, Aiden.” She hands me a towel. “Get on the bed. I’ll clean that out for you as well or the salt will make you scar.”
Maybe I should leave the burn as it is, a permanent reminder of what I’d done. “I’ll wait.”
“No,” Skye says. “You’ll come herenow, and I’ll heal both of us.”
