All around the wound, Rage’s skin was turning dusky grayish-blue, the early signs of silver poisoning.
“I thought maybe the bear got you and the bullet was just a regular one,” I muttered, squeezing Rage’s hand as I took up my spot by his shoulder. “I’m so—”
“Stop it, Nai,” Rage whispered. “None of this is your fault.” Then he put the spoon between his teeth and, closing his eyes, bit down.
“Right, then. I’m going to have to do this fast because of your wolf healing.”
Rage nodded, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath.
Oh mage. Oh mage. This was going to—
The man stabbed the scalpel through the scab of Rage’s healing wound, and my mate bit down so hard on the spoon the wood cracked. My breaths grew shallow; my palms were slick with sweat as I watched in horror.
The doctor jerked the blade up, tearing through the tissue, and Rage screamed, his whole body shaking with pain.
John and Audrey held Rage’s legs, and Audrey snapped for him to be still.
I narrowed my gaze but bit my tongue when I met Sara’s fierce stare. She and I held Rage down at his shoulders, and I was grateful for their help.
“You can do this,” I murmured to Rage.
The mage-doctor pulled the blade out and then stuck a pair of tweezers into the gaping hole in Rage’s side.
Fur rippled down Rage’s skin as he convulsed, and his features started to shift.
“Don’t shift!” the man warned. “I can feel the bullet. If you shift, we’ll have to start all over.”
I could see the madness in Rage’s eyes as he fought his wolf.
“Use your bond,” Sara said to me. “Take some of his pain.”
What?
“I … don’t know … how.” I didn’t even know I could until now. It must be a fated mate thing. I opened my mental link to Rage and recoiled at the screaming in his head.
‘It’s going to be okay. You’ve got this,’ I told him. ‘Breathe.’
I looked across Rage to Sara, panic coursing through me when she frowned.
“Have you guys, you know…?” She waggled her eyebrows, and I grimaced and shook my head.
She wanted to know if we’d had sex? Not exactly an appropriate thing to talk about right now! Or ever.
“Never mind,” she said with an exhale. “If your bond isn’t sealed, you can’t take his pain. Just try to calm his wolf.”
Ohh, now I understood why she’d asked. So after we had sex I’d be able to take Rage’s pain?
He screamed and shook again, and I banished the thoughts for another time. I cooed at his wolf, again and again, hurling mental encouragement at Rage too.
I had no concept of time while the man dug around inside of my mate; I didn’t even notice when Rage lost consciousness. Or when I started crying.
“Got it!” the doctor shouted, a triumphant grin sweeping his face.
He fished the metal alloy instrument into Rage’s side and then pulled out a blood-covered silver bullet with a grin.
Sadie held a tin bowl out to the mage-doctor, who dropped the bullet in with a clang.
“What I wouldn’t give for a healing potion now,” the man muttered. “Stitching up shifters is not my favorite—”
I thrust my palm out to the mage, giggling hysterically. “Virgin high mage blood healing coming right up!”
Everyone looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
All except Jeb. He raised his eyebrows and leaned toward me.
“You’re a high mage heir as well?” he asked.
I nodded, pulling down my top the slightest bit to show my high mage mark. His eyes bugged out. Glancing down, I snatched up the mage’s scalpel, ready to cut myself, but he yanked it from my hand.
“What is your mastery element?” he asked.
Demanded, really. I sucked in a deep breath and glared at the mage-doctor. “Spirit. Now, give me that. I need to give him some of my blood to help him heal. I’ve done it before.”
He nodded, clearly in the know, and then said, “You should have told me you were a high mage heir before. There’s better ways of doing this.”
“There is?” I held my arm out to him. Maybe he knew some dark magic like Surlama. “How?”
“John, fetch me a bottle of mage wine,” the doctor said, offering me a quizzical look.
What the hell did mage wine have to do with anything? My freaking mate was passed out and bleeding on a table! “Mage wine?”
Sure, let’s all get drunk, maybe that will heal my mate.
“Did you know the acayanthic blossoms from Shifter Island are a powerful sedative, but they have to be soaked in alcohol to extract the barbiturate-like chemical?” Dr. Jeb asked.
“I have no idea what you just said, and I don’t think I care unless you’re going to tell me how it’s going to heal my mate!”
John returned then with an unopened bottle of mage wine and handed it to the doctor. Then, John set a small shot glass on the dining room table.
The mage opened the bottle then, just before I snapped a sarcastic comment about shots, and said, “Give me your hand.”
“What?” I asked, my mind reeling.
“You want to heal your mate, so give me your hand.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice—well, I guess he did, but…
I held it out, and he took it in his. Holding it firmly, he pricked my fingertip with the blade and then squeezed several drops of my blood into the bottle of bubbling golden fluid.
What the…?
The color changed from gold to violet, and my hysteria disappeared.
“That’s healing elixir?” I said, pointing at the bottle. Holy Mother of Mages, Surlama was charging an arm and a leg for something I could’ve made myself this entire time?
Jeb held it out to me. “You should give your mate a good dose of that, and then I suggest you leave the rest of the bottle with John and Sara for their troubles.”
He stepped away from the table and started to collect his instruments.
My jaw dropped. “That’s it?” I asked. “The healing elixir is just mage wine and magic blood?”
Jeb shook his head. “It’s mage wine mixed with blood from a high mage with the mastery element of spirit. It’s blood magic. And it only works if the blood is freely given.”
“Whoa, so my grandpa—?”
Rage moaned.
“I suggest you help your mate,” Jeb chided softly.
Of course! I’d been so shocked with his huge reveal I’d forgotten pretty much everything.
Spinning back to Rage, I held the shot glass to his lips. He’d regained consciousness, and after the second swallow, his color returned in his cheeks, and after the third I looked down to see his skin on his side knit back together smoothly, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths.
Phew. Thank the Mages.
“Rage…” I grasped Rage’s hand.
“Nai,” Rage said, his voice rough. “Hey…”
John corked the bottle and said, “You kids should get some rest.”
“Thank you.” I offered him a smile and then noticed that Sara and her twins’ jaws gaped open as they watched me. Maybe my high mage heir status shocked them or maybe because I’d just made freaking healing elixir! Hell, it still shocked me. I pivoted just in time to slide my arm around Rage’s waist as he stepped up next to me.