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Bad Blood
Fourteen: The Standoff, Part Four

Fourteen: The Standoff, Part Four

Vincent hauled himself to his feet, pulling something from his waistcoat pocket as he stood. He slipped on a leather glove, the palm glittering like the inside of a geode. Even as cut off from her own magic as she was, Asra could feel the power from the thousands of tiny lodestones embedded into the palm of the glove.

Asra remembered Ciaran’s words about Vincent eventually learning to wield magic as her people could.

“I don’t know what you see in these humans, pet,” Ekkrin called to Asra. “They’re not very loyal. Won’t be long before yours turns on you, too.”

She moved away from the door frame, piercing Vincent with a glare.

“I would think you would have the sense to not anger your king, at least,” she said.

Vincent waved his gloved hand to the fire behind them, and it vanished, leaving behind a haze of smoke.

“Get going,” he said.

The shapechanger advanced towards them, her heels tapping on the tiled floors. Vincent swung his arm towards her and she flew sideways into the wall of gardening tools. The force of the impact rattled several of them off the wall with a clamor onto the floor, and Asra had to dodge a particularly lethal pair of long-handled hedge shears.

Ekkrin swung her own arm as she righted herself, and Vincent was thrown into one of the tables full of vases. Glass shattered and splashed water all over the floor. Flowers tumbled from the tables. Ekkrin turned her attention to Asra and Ciaran.

“Go!” Vincent shouted.

Asra lifted Ciaran by the shoulders and dragged him backwards as quickly as she could manage. Ekkrin stalked towards them, a murderous rage etched into the lines on her face. The water turned into slick ice at Vincent’s motion, and the woman slipped and slammed onto the hard surface beneath her.

Asra strained with Ciaran’s weight. Her limbs felt like jelly, but she forced them to move. They were almost to the door.

Bane rocketed forward before Asra had the wherewithal to stop him. He latched onto the woman’s arm, shaking furiously, and she raised her other hand to propel him away with her magic. He slammed against the wall with a heart-crushing yelp.

“Bane!” Asra shrieked, desperately searching her mind for Ciaran’s commands for his dog. “Bane, let’s go!”

The dog struggled up, then limped toward her. Asra hoped Bane’s assault would have at least temporarily debilitated the wolf, but the wound on her arm had already completely healed.

Asra’s stomach dropped. Were wolves even faster healers than her people?

Ekkrin pushed herself to all fours, then her robe shredded as she shifted into her fur. The giant arctic wolf towered over them, her coat almost as white as the rows of teeth she bared at the escaping figures beneath her. Massive claws bore down into the ice and gave her the traction she needed to throw herself forward.

Asra stumbled and fell backward. A sudden blast of fire in front of the wolf’s snout made her yelp, and she turned to address Vincent. One swipe of her paw knocked him to the ground, then she stood on the arm that wore the magic glove.

There were several loud cracks, and Asra wasn’t sure which were from snapping rock and which were from snapping bone.

Ekkrin turned back to Asra and Ciaran with a snarl. They wouldn’t make it to the door in time. The wolf charged, and Asra cast out for anything to defend herself. Her fingers landed on the large hedge shears. She pulled them in front of her and yanked the blades open just as Ekkrin reached them.

The wolf slammed into the shears, the blades lodging themselves deep into her sternum. Asra heaved the handles closed, severing bone and flesh alike. Ekkrin whimpered and yowled and flailed backward, desperately trying to dislodge the shears from her chest. Blood flowed like a stream, staining her white coat scarlet.

Vincent hobbled over to them, his broken arm hanging limp at his side.

“Let’s go! Now!”

He helped lift Ciaran up with his good arm, and they stumbled out the door and across the lawn.

“Did you kill her?” Vincent asked, his voice strained from the pain in his arm and the exertion of hauling Ciaran.

“None of us are that lucky,” Asra grunted.

“The horse is there,” Vincent said, nodding to a placid gray horse on the other side of the fence. “It won’t be long until everyone has regrouped and they send out search parties, so get somewhere safe as quickly as you can.”

“What will you do?” Ciaran rasped.

Vincent winced. “Damage control.”

“You can come with us,” Ciaran said.

“No you can’t,” Asra snapped.

Vincent smiled sardonically. “Your dogs never did enjoy my company.”

Ciaran pushed himself forward to wrap Vincent in a tight hug. The noble seemed wholly caught off guard, but managed a few awkward pats on his back.

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“Thank you,” Ciaran whispered to him. “For trying to help me, even when I didn’t want it.”

Vincent grimaced. “You’re getting blood all over my clothes.”

Asra pulled Ciaran off of Vincent and led him to the gate. Vincent unlocked it with a lodestone key from his pocket and held it open for them.

“Try to keep him alive, will you?” Vincent said as Asra and Ciaran passed through the gate, Bane slipping through behind them. “He’s good at making enemies.”

The horse swished its tail as they approached. Leather straps strained to contain the contents of the saddlebags, and Asra’s rucksack was secured to the back of the saddle. She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t be forced to leave it behind.

Asra fumbled her way up into the saddle—how did humans always manage to make that look so graceful and effortless?—then helped Vincent pull Ciaran up to sit behind her.

“For what it’s worth,” Vincent said as he stepped back, “I am sorry for my role in this.”

Asra glared down at him. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

Vincent smiled. “Then I hope we never meet again.”

He turned and headed back through the gate, closing it with a firm clang and locking it with the lodestone once more.

Asra hesitated for a moment, then sighed.

“Hey,” she said.

Vincent turned to regard her with a raised eyebrow.

“Whoever it is that you’re protecting … ” Asra began. She frowned. “Protect them. Get them somewhere safe. Now. Nolan will come for them first.”

For the first time since she’d met the man, Asra saw pure, unbridled fear flash across Vincent’s face. “I know.”

And then he turned and limped back to the manor without another word.

Asra turned back and swallowed as she took hold of the reins. “How do I make this thing move?”

Ciaran grabbed hold of her waist and tapped his heels on the horse’s sides, and Asra was nearly thrown back as the horse kicked forward and away from the palace.

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They were only about thirty minutes away from the manor when Ciaran lost consciousness.

He slumped forward into Asra’s shoulder, and she yanked the reins to stop the horse. It nickered indignantly, stamping and threatening to throw them from the saddle, and Asra mumbled an apology.

As she tried to carefully pull Ciaran from the saddle and onto the ground, her head was on a constant swivel, paranoid that at any moment guards could emerge from between the thick trees of the forest.

He was ice cold, and his heart rate was far too low. Asra placed her hands on his head and reached out for her magic. She felt it just out of reach, like a word on the tip of her tongue, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t bring anything to her fingertips.

She fought back the tears that threatened to overflow. She had to keep it together. It wasn’t too late. Ciaran wasn’t dead yet.

The thought entered her mind just as Bane pushed his head under her hand.

Her eyes widened. That was one way to possibly keep him from dying.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Was that her decision to make? What if he woke up and was furious that she changed him? She wasn’t sure if she could even get Bane to bite him.

But what if she got Bane to bite her instead? She thought of what Vincent mentioned, about a sufficiently powerful magical source possibly overriding the spell.

She thought of when he’d bitten her before, after she’d escaped the tunnel through the mountains. It had healed her non-infected wounds with speed and efficiency beyond even her accelerated healing abilities.

She thought of when he’d bitten the wolf shapechanger, of how those wounds had healed equally as quickly. In the moment, she’d feared that wolves were naturally more gifted healers, but Ekkrin had entered that room with her face still wounded from the shattered glass of hound’s woe.

Bane’s bite must have some kind of magic transfer, even if it didn’t convert the person he bit. Or perhaps it only worked with those who couldn’t be converted.

Either way, it might solve both of her issues.

She chewed her lip, then stood.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said. “I have to try.”

Then she lifted her foot and slammed it down onto his paw, bearing down as hard as she could. Bones cracked and tendons popped beneath the force, and the dog instantly responded with a flurry of savage bites that went clean through her skin and muscle down to her bone.

As she toppled backward, Asra threw her hands behind her to catch herself. She pulled her shirt over her head and tied it as tightly as she could just below her knee. Bane licked at her chin in apology, his wagging tail held low.

“You’re a good boy,” she said as she finished the knot. “It’s not your fault.”

Her pulse pounded as she stared at the gruesome wound on her leg. The bite had healed quickly last time Bane bit her.

She flexed her fist open and closed, but she still didn’t feel any magic.

Finally, the shards of bone in her tibia snapped back into place, and the muscle and skin fused back together. Asra scrambled over to Ciaran and laid her palms on his forehead. She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could, and finally she felt his skull and his brain underneath. She nearly sobbed in relief, but forced herself to keep focused.

He had a significant concussion. Her hands moved down to his ribcage. A few ribs were bruised, luckily none broken.

She trailed down to his abdomen. Something was bleeding internally. This was the most important issue to take care of. She wasn’t sure how long she could count on this burst of magic from Bane.

She sealed the leaking blood vessels in his abdomen, then moved to his concussion. This was trickier for her to fix, and she could feel the magic rapidly waning. By the time she healed everything in his head, she only barely had enough time to take care of the bruised ribs before she felt the magic flicker out. She used the last remnants to heal Bane’s paw.

She swayed on her hands and knees over Ciaran, utterly exhausted. She had to get him back on the horse and into the safety of the concealment spell … somewhere.

Ciaran’s eyes fluttered open just as she collapsed onto his chest.

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