Stars of Fortune
Page 65

As he spoke, the last stars faded. The sun shimmered at the edges of the east.
The wolf howled, one long note that might have been pain, might have been triumph.
And began to change.
It hunkered down, muscles and fur quivering. Bones seemed to shift, to twist. Only the eyes remained the same. As the light bloomed, the woman emerged.
Riley sat, naked, her arms wrapped around the knees she hugged tight to her chest.
“Holy shit, and let’s add a wow.”
At Sawyer’s comment, Riley lifted her head. “Not to play shy, but maybe somebody can lend me a shirt. I had to leave my pack in the jeep.”
Saying nothing, Doyle shrugged out of his coat, tossed it to her.
“Thanks. Can we save the questions, comments, remarks until we get inside and start triage? He’s not bad, like you said,” she told Bran, “but he’s really hurting.”
Again keeping his silence, Doyle got his arms under the dog, lifted the considerable weight. Riley managed to get her arms in the sleeves of the coat, wrap it around herself, and, murmuring to Apollo, walked with Doyle.
Annika took three limping steps before Sawyer picked her up, carried her. “Riley’s a freaking werewolf.”
“Lycan,” she snapped over her shoulder. “Call me a werewolf again and I will bite your ass.”
“Can you walk?” Bran asked Sasha.
“Yes. I’m mostly just . . . I don’t know what.”
“How did you know it was Riley?”
“I just knew. When it—she—came out of the dark, I knew. It didn’t even surprise me—then. Now I just feel numb.”
As the sun lifted, she, a woman who barely a week before had never held a weapon of any kind, walked back toward the villa holding a knife still wet with blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Apollo first.” Still wearing only Doyle’s coat, Riley sat on the floor, the dog’s head in her lap.
“I’ll need some things,” Bran began. “I have healing supplies in my room.”
“I’ve got a non-magickal first-aid kit in mine, if it helps.”
“I’ll get that as well. We’ll want plenty of towels, but for now let the wounds bleed.”
When Bran strode out, everyone began talking at once. Sasha actually felt the words beat like little hammer blows on her temple.
“Talk later,” she snapped, surprising everyone into silence. “Doyle, towels. Sawyer, put Annika on the table.” As she whipped out orders, she snatched the fruit bowl off the table, then pulled the largest pot out of a cupboard. After she turned on the faucet to fill it, she shoved her hands at her hair, turned.
“Ah, Sawyer, get Apollo’s water bowl and a couple of his dog biscuits. If Bran has to medicate him, it should go down easier that way.”
“Check you out, Captain Sasha,” Riley commented.
“I’m winging it.” She grabbed some towels from Doyle, folded some under Annika’s leg to elevate it. And thought, Thank God, when Bran strode back.
He nodded when she put the pot of water on to boil. “Good thinking. But let’s speed it up.” At his gesture, the water bubbled. “Ten drops each, these three bottles. In this order,” he told Sasha. “Brown, blue, red. Ten exactly. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
He knelt by the dog. “Keep him quiet and still,” he told Riley, and ran his hands over Apollo. “I need to clean his wounds first, counteract any poisons. How did he get out?”
“Busted right through the window of my room. We’re going to have to fix that,” Riley added with a weak smile. “Don’t want to lose our security deposit.”
He gave her arm a pat. “Sasha, are you done there?”
“Yes, ten exactly. Brown, blue, red.”
“Step back from the pot now.”
He held out a hand toward the pot, and his gaze fixed on it. On his murmured incantation, light spewed up from the bubbling water, burst, then circled back down, as liquid circles down a drain.
“One of the large, clear bottles now. Hold it out. Don’t worry. I won’t miss.”
His brew arced out of the pot, arrowed into the bottle.
“And the next,” he told her, and repeated the process.
“Give one to Sawyer. You’ll need to pour it, slowly now, over that gash on her leg. You’ll know it’s done when the blood runs clear. It’s going to hurt some, darling,” he told Annika.
“Let me do that.” Doyle took the bottle from Sasha. “Why don’t you hang on to him.”
With a nod, Annika turned her face into Sawyer’s chest.
“Bring me that one, Sasha. Between the two of you, you can keep the dog still and calm.”
As he worked, Sasha felt Apollo’s pain, like a slow burn, and his fear of it. He quivered under her hands, turned his head to lap, lap, lap at Riley as if begging her to make it stop.
She felt Annika’s pain, that shocking rise of heat, a thin line of fire.
She felt Sawyer’s barely suppressed rage, Doyle’s cold control, Riley’s struggle with tears. And Bran’s utter focus.
She felt them all, crowding her, the pain, the grief, the purpose, in a tumult of emotions. She wanted to turn away from them, close off from them. Then Bran’s hand brushed hers.
“Nearly done,” he said quietly. “Nearly there. Can you hold on?”
She nodded. Tears spilled out—Riley’s tears, she realized, and felt them run down her own cheeks.