Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Bella’s lips moved, but no words came out. “Louder, hon. Come on, you can do this.” Fosch massaged the tense knots on her shoulder with one hand, kept his other hand over her cheek.
Bella’s lips parted. Her eyes darted sideways. The world shrank to that single moment in time. “I – I – I can’t remember.”
It took Fosch a moment to comprehend what Bella had just said. For a moment, Fosch didn’t move. Then with a ferocious roar that shook the house, he jumped on Oberon with sharp teeth and talons and attacked.
Only to freeze an inch before Oberon’s throat.
“To attack Seelie royalty,” Leon, the enforcer of the Seelie court uncloaked herself and said silkily, “is to forfeit your life, Dhiultadh Yoncey Fosch.”
“He did something to my mate.” Fosch spat, his teeth too large to be properly accommodated by his still human lips.
“I did not.” Oberon replied calmly.
Fosch’s eyes narrowed, for he knew the Seelie could not lie – but was well crafted in the art of evasion.
“You sent someone.”
“I did not.”
“You did something to my mate to make her human.” Fosch Enunciated slowly.
Here Oberon tread carefully. “I have no part, Dhiultadh Fosch, by any means, foul or otherwise, in the happenstance of your mate being human today.”
Fosch’s eyes narrowed. “Neither directly nor indirectly?”
Oberon met his eyes steadily. “I am not responsible, directly or indirectly for the status of your mate’s mortality, Dhiultadh Fosch. Neither are my people, directly or indirectly. If she is human, it is because that is what she is. It is through no doing of mine.”
Fosch deflated. His talons returned to fingers, his teeth normal. He took a step back and Leon lowered the sharp dagger she had poised at his throat.
Turning, Fosch glanced at Bella, still standing where she had been when he had jumped Oberon. Frozen, eyes wild, skin pale.
“She is human,” Leon mused from beside Oberon. “Completely so.”
Fosch growled, but he didn’t look at them. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on Bella, at the way her shoulders trembled slightly, her stomach rippled, her hands fisted tightly beside her.
Fosch tilted his head to the side, studying her plain blue aura. Not a flicker of the witchy sheen was present now, not even a tiny speck.
Bella jerked again; her eyes widened slightly, her skin, if possible, paled even more.
Fosch’s nostrils flared. “What –”
Bella fainted.
One moment she was standing there, the next her eyes rolled back, the whites showing all around and she went limp.
Fosch caught her before she could hit the ground, gently lowered her to the floor.
“Bella?” he choked in a hoarse whisper. “Bella? Bella? Please say something.”
Leon crouched beside him and studied the prone woman without touching her. “The scion is coming,” she announced in her cold voice.
Chapter Ten
The Outcome…
At the hospital, Fosch paced back and forth. He wanted to take her to someone with more experience with the preternatural world, but there wasn’t any time for that, even if flashing through dimensions would have made it faster. He had no idea where the clan’s healer was at the moment, had no time to inquire about it.
There was internal hemorrhaging, the doctor had said before ushering Bella to an operating room, and, like it or not, he thought, at the moment she was human.
Fosch clenched his jaws, felt a welcoming ache, clenched his fists to add upon the pressure. He spun around when Oberon entered the waiting room.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, almost feral now.
Oberon eyed the eyes that were flashing between black and yellow, crossed his arms over his chest. “I have Benty watching over the procedure. She will report soon.”
Fosch felt the fight abandon him, felt his knees weaken.
Tone conversational, Oberon tried to keep his posture non-threatening. “A Seelie healer would make the process easier. I took the liberty to send for Hiendrich.”
Hiendrich, the best healer in the entire Sidhe land.
A Seelie, a powerful one, considered only one step below Queen Titania herself.
No, no… but Fosch didn’t voice the protest. He would give anything right now, even an open favor to Oberon, in exchange for his mate’s safety.
Oberon watched Fosch fight with himself, watched as Fosch’s eyes flashed yellow, once, twice. Under any other circumstances he would have never interfered, but this was an emergency, one Oberon himself cared greatly about its outcome.
Suddenly, Oberon stiffened and turned around to face the door.
“What? What?” Fosch jumped beside him in an instant, grabbed Oberon by the arm, whirled him around. “Tell me!”
Oberon snarled at him, and Fosch watched, for the first time in his entire existence, anger darken the expression of the Seelie – and couldn’t care less.
Benty popped into existence in front of Oberon, just as Fosch was about to shake him. The pixie spoke agitatedly, in the tiny high-pitched tone that Fosch couldn’t understand. He had an urge to pluck the pixie out of the air and start squeezing it for information, so Fosch fisted his hands.