Page 13 of Accepted Bonds
9
Aurora
The second time I woke up, my surroundings were quiet.It wasn’t totally quiet because I could hear the beeping sounds of the monitors beside my bed and the hospital sounds of people talking and moving around outside my room.However, the peacefulness was much better compared to the noisy environment I’d gained consciousness in when I first woke up, with doctors yelling and nurses taking blood samples and hooking me up to several medical machines.Of course, after staring blankly for a while that day, I’d been forced to go back to sleep because my eyelids seemed to have been glued together, and keeping my eyes open seemed to be a super mission of sorts.
I enjoyed the sleepiness holding my eyelids closed for a few moments before I opened my eyes to look up at the ceiling.After a few seconds of gazing at the plain white ceiling, I turned my head to the side and met Levi’s inadvertent glance at me.
His eyes widened when he realized I was awake.Then a bright smile formed on his lips as he stood up, moved closer to me, and grabbed my hand, placing a kiss on it.I knew he must have been listening to both my heartbeat and breathing.Hearing a change in their pace was what made him glance at me.
“You okay?Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?I can call the doctors or ...or a nurse.”He said.
I smiled and squeezed his hand to reassure him before attempting to speak.“Mateo?Nyra?”
What came out of my mouth was more of a croak than an actual sound, and after speaking, I started coughing.I wasn’t coughing out blood anymore, but I could feel that my throat was in a bad state and was still healing.That had to be the after-damage of being forced to drink small doses of Wolfsbane every day while I was kidnapped by Nyra and her father.
Levi placed a cup of water and straw under my chin while Aiden, whom I hadn’t noticed before, helped me sit up to drink from it.
“Don’t talk.Mateo is okay.Your mom healed his stab wound and eliminated the poison in his system.And Nyra is fine too.She’s already settled in a Supernatural Council safe house and she has been assigned a psychotherapist team.”
I nodded, feeling relieved as a shiver of fear ran down my spine when I remembered Mateo’s state the last time I saw him.Before I could get lost in the memory of that horrific moment when I thought I was going to die and Mateo was going to die with me, a hand squeezed mine.
I recognized Aiden’s grip and turned to find him seated on a chair on the other side of my bed.
His face turned red when our gazes locked as he placed his forehead on mine.“You scared me.I thought I would never see you again.”
I pressed a simple kiss to his lips and squeezed his hand to comfort him.
“Well, I’m here now.Nothing happened to me.”was what I wanted to say, but I didn’t speak because my throat hurt a lot.
That was a little weird because there was no poison in my body and last I remembered, I’d heard my mother’s voice when I was fighting unconsciousness after trying to heal Mateo, so why wasn’t my throat healed?
As usual, Levi was on the same wavelength as me.As soon as I raised the hand he was gripping to my throat, using the back of his hand to rub over where my Adam’s apple would have been if I had one, he understood my question.
Levi chuckled as he said, “Your mom tried to heal your wounds completely, but she couldn’t.She neutralized all the Wolfsbane in your system and healed all the organ damage from it, but your body rejected any further healing.Her guess is that your body has developed an unhealthy tolerance for her magic and it will need to do the rest of the healing itself.”
“Does this mean her instinctual magic no longer works on me?”I asked, a little scared at the idea.
“Don’t talk.The doctor said you shouldn’t speak for at least three more days to give your throat time to heal,” Aiden instructed.
I pouted, looking in Levi’s direction.
As if to prove how much he understood my facial expressions, Levi chuckled while saying, “No, it means her healing magic can no longer fully heal you.The last time she healed you was when you got that nasty Blacke Virus that almost killed you.Her guess is that you developed a tolerance to her magic like people develop a tolerance to medicine.She sent your blood and other fluid samples to the medical facility in Aruthia to see if they could find anything but Aurora, you have to be very careful now.If you get hurt multiple times and keep developing a tolerance to your mom’s healing, she may not be able to heal you at critical points as time passes.”
I gave a satisfied smile at that, bringing the back of his hands to my lips and kissing it to express my gratitude.
Aiden, on the other hand, was in mother-hen mode and didn’t care about what Levi and I were discussing.“Do you want to sit up?Let me fluff your pillows so you can be comfortable.Levi let her lean on you while I—”
I held Aiden’s hand, squeezing it to make him stop panicking.Aiden stopped moving, staring down at me as I freed my hand from Levi’s and then used it to rub calming circles onto the back of his hand that I was gripping.
Aiden forced a smile and nodded as he said, “Okay, okay, I’ll calm down.”
I stopped rubbing and held my hand out, breathing in and out, until he joined me.
A few seconds after I stopped, gesturing for him to continue, he stopped and said, looking toward Levi, “Don’t you think we should call the doctor or a nurse?”
I sighed as Levi chuckled and dropped his hand on Aiden’s shoulder.“There’s no need.Aurora is only in the hospital to rest, recover her nutritional balance, and treat her throat.Her mom already eliminated all the poison and all her medicines are being supplied by the Hope Medical Facility in Aruthia.Except there is someone with her mom’s exceptional healing instinctual magic among the staff, they can’t do more than what has already been done.”
I stared at Aiden, who sat by my bedside, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache.
