Tw: this book will deal with triggering topics. If you are easily triggered this is not the story for you, thank you.
(Book two in the Starlight series)
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Danika Archeron had been through hell.
Forced to go back to Spring C...
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"The truth is never as painful as discovering a lie."
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
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I SLEPT beside him, offering what warmth I could in the very futile hope that the Bloodbane poison would fade just as it did for me. Have no effect at all. A foolish hope.
I hadn't slept. Instead opting to keep my shields up the entire night. Piling on reinforcement after reinforcement until I was satisfied. Monitoring for threats and deterring them at the same time. The beasts in the forest prowled past in an endless cycle, echo after echo of creature after creature. Each time they passed my worry was born anew, forged in the fire of concern that they would come for us. Only in the gray light before dawn did their snarls and hissing fade, my fear subsiding.
Rhys was still unconscious as watery sunlight painted the stone walls; his skin still clammy. If I did not see his chest rising and falling, I would have thought him dead. And I felt that thought ring through me, clamoring through my veins as pure, undiluted terror washed away all else. I checked his wounds and found them barely healed, an oily sheen oozing from them.
And when I put a hand on his brow, I swore at the heat.
Poison. Poison. Poison. Poison had coated those arrows. And poison remained in his body.
My chest rose and fell in uneven pants. The only cure I knew of for Bloodbane was out of reach. Not accessible on this side of the wall, and the chance that there was a cure back at the Illyrian camp...we would not even be able to winnow there in Rhys's state.
An hour passed. He didn't get better. No, his golden skin was pale—paling. His breaths were shallow. "Rhys." I said softly.
He didn't move. I shook his shoulder gently. He did not wake. Using my enhanced hearing I listened. Listening to the too short intake of air into his lungs. The too faint beat of his heart.
