Chapter 33: Chapter 33

Erin sat up with his name clawing its way out of her throat, and Julian was there on the bed beside her. A lantern was lit on the wall, casting a flickering candlelight glow across the worry etched into the sharp angles of his face. He had her forearm turned over in his hand, his fingertips digging deeply into her arm where he gripped it. Underneath her skin was a tiny, green light.

Julian reached behind him and pulled something from the bedside table drawer as she panted and tried to make sense of the horrifying green glow.

“Don’t look,” he demanded.

But she couldn’t take her eyes from the light glowing beneath her skin. The flick of a knife blade was loud and clashed against the gentle dripping of the cave wall behind them. Before she had time to jerk away, he cut a skilled slit into her arm and dug something out of her arm.

Pain registered an instant later, but he already had the thing in his palm and was rushing away from her.

“Fuck!” he yelled, hunching into himself and flinging his hand. Something thick and sticky lobbed from his fingertips and made a splat sound against the stone floor.

Erin gasped out, “Oh, my gosh,” as the spatters of liquid caught fire around the edges and burned through the stone until she couldn’t see them anymore.

Julian clutched his hand to his middle and snarled out a pained sound.

Erin bolted for him. “Let me see it.”

“No,” he growled, shaking his head hard. “It’s best if you don’t.”

“Let me see it, Julian!”

Julian's shoulders heaved with his panting breath as he stared at her, but at last, he slowly unclenched his fist from his middle and exposed his palm. Erin's heart sank to her toes, and her eyes burned with tears. “Oh, love.”

His skin was mangled and raw. There wasn’t any blood to get in the way of his exposed meat, as if the gel in that capsule had burned him so quickly, it had cauterized his veins. There was no skin left to cover his exposed musculature.

Where he’d cut that thing out of her arm, she was already healing and the blood easily wiped away, but Julian's hand was repairing itself much slower, just along the edges of the injury. The pain must be excruciating.

“You saved me from that…that…what was that? How did it get in my arm?”

Julian blinked slowly, and the change in his eyes was instant. Shock turned to dark comprehension. “It was put in there a long time ago, Erin, when you weren’t paying attention or perhaps when you weren’t conscious.”

“By who?”

“By someone who’d planned your death for a very long time. By someone who wanted my life to be tortured for a very long time. He wanted me to be happy for a few minutes and then he’d swoop and take everything away as he had the last time.”

“I don’t understand. Is it acid? Why would anyone want to kill me?”

“It’s not acid, no.” He looked down at his ruined hand and sighed. “This is the work of the chemical equivalent of dragon’s fire. Impossible to make unless you have the real thing on hand to start with.”

“Julian tell me,” she whispered brokenly. “What’s happening?”

Julian dragged his blazing, inhuman gaze to hers. “I’m not the last immortal vampire warlock after all. My father, the king of the sunshades is still out there.”

Erin couldn’t catch her breath. It felt as if someone was standing on her chest, forcing all the air from her. “Your father,” she whispered. “My dream. Black eyes, skin sloughed off. Not like your scars. Worse. He said I can’t hide from him.” God, why couldn’t she breathe? That capsule of dragon’s fire had been meant for her. Meant to kill her, but Julian had taken the pain out of her and onto himself to protect her.

Tears streamed down her face as he clenched his hand and hid the injury from her again. More protection. She snatched the robe from the end of the bed. “I’m going to get help.”

“Erin, there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“I’ll be back,” she called behind her as she bolted across the cold stones toward the door, pulling the soft robe around her shoulders as she ran.

She couldn’t just stand there while her mate’s body tried to repair itself from something so horrific. She couldn’t just watch the pain in his eyes and not try to help. She loved him. Julian's pain was her pain.

Sebastian would know what to do.

Her robe flapped around her legs as she sprinted down the hallway toward the stairwell. There was an elevator that would take her to Seb's wing on the next floor, but damned if she was going to wait as the small cage carried her slowly upward. No, right now, she needed to run. She took the curving stairs two at a time, heart pounding as she screamed, “Seb!”

Reaching for the double door handles of his bedroom, she screamed at the same moment he flung open the door, dark hair disheveled and nothing but a pair of navy plaid boxers clinging to his hips. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Julian! He—”

“Where?” he demanded.

“His bedroom.”

Seb pushed past her and flew down the stairs so fast she struggled to keep up. “I had a dream about something awful in my arm, and when I woke up, my arm was glowing.”

“Glowing?”

“Yes. It was glowing green. It looked like a capsule of something that had turned on. It was like it was preparing to detonate. Julian cut it out of my arm, but it ruptured in his hand, and he said it was like dragon’s fire.”

“Would you care to tell me how it got in your arm, Erin?” he called over his shoulder as he jumped over the last three stairs and ran toward Julian's room.

“I don’t know.”

Seb spun and gripped her shoulders so hard, she swore his fingers hit bone. “Who the fuck put it in you? Did you plan this?!”

“Seb,” she said on a breath.

Seb yanked his hands away as if she’d burned him. “What?”

Now the tears were back, blurring her vision as she rushed out, “Seb, I don’t know how he put it in my arm. I don’t remember it ever hurting or—”

“Swear to me you didn’t do this, Erin. Swear it! Because of not!”

“I swear I had nothing to do with hurting him, Seb! I never would! I love him! I love him more than my own fucking life. He’s the air—” Her voice cracked, so she swallowed hard and continued in a ragged whisper. “He’s the air I breathe. I don’t know how his father did it. I have no memory of it.”

A long, low rumble sounded from the other side of Julian's bedroom doors, and Seb gave her one last questioning look before his gaze fell to her bare feet. He turned his head, exposing his neck. “I beg your apology. He’s my best friend.”

“I understand really. I would feel the same way too,” she said, her voice nothing more than a wisp of air with her throat so tight. “You care for him, too. You’re the first person I thought of when I wanted to get him help. Please help him.”

Seb nodded once and strode into Julian's room. Erin followed.

Julian was sitting on the edge of his bed, hand clenched in his lap and a dangerous growl emanating from his chest. His eyes looked like swirling mercury, and his long pupils were so contracted, they were nothing but slivers of dark in all of that brilliant color. Her instincts begged her to run from the power that emanated from him. Her skin prickled with the urge to defend herself, but Julian wasn’t posing any threat to her. He was sitting on the bed, his focus on Seb.

His lip twitched, and he tilted his chin upward as Seb approached with his head lowered and his gaze on the ground. “She’s forgiven me. I misspoke. Please, may I see it?”

Silence descended on the room for the span of three slow breaths, and then Julian nodded his head once and offered his palm, unfurling his fingers slowly from the mangled flesh. It was still open and raw. Skinless. The pain he’d shown her earlier was no longer there. He’d gone cold again, and his eyes hollow.

Erin looked away to save her insides from being shredded. The empty look didn’t belong on her warm dragon’s face.

Sebastian studied it carefully and murmured a curse. “I need to call Lily.”

“I’ll call her,” Erin rushed out, desperate for a way to help.

“Tell her what’s happened and ask if The Estaters healer has anything made up for burns. And I need water and clean cloths. Lots of them.”

“Okay,” she huffed out, relieved for a job to do. After snatching her phone off the nightstand, she ran back down the hall toward the kitchen and dialed the number off the it was so nice to meet you text Diem had sent her after they’d met.

“Hello?” Lily asked on the second ring. Sleep filled her voice.

“Lily, it’s Erin. It’s late, and I’m so sorry that I’m bothering you right now. Sorry for calling you right now, but julian has been burned badly by dragon’s fire from his father, and Seb said The healer might have something made up for it.”

“Dragon’s fire? What do you mean? You know what? Don’t bothered answering that. No time. Explain it to me when I get there. I’ll wake The healer. If she doesn’t have anything made up, I’ll help her. I’ll text you on how long it will be. Erin?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Erin slowed and slammed her shoulder blades against the wall as a wave of emotion took her. “I almost wasn’t. Julian saved me. He protected me.”

Lily let off a stressed out sigh and said, “Erin, I’ll be there as soon as I can to help.”

“Thank you, thank you so much Lily I appreciate the help.” she squeaked out right before the call ended.

Erin let out a shaky breath and tried not to release the tears that were threatening to fall off.

*****