ASHER
When I rouse from a decidedly restless sleep in a bed that I know is not mine, in a room that is not in my house and my wife nowhere to be found, pissed off is not even close to the emotion I’m feeling.
“Mena!” I thunder into the stillness of the room, worried and weak, my strength slowly coming back after healing such a lethal wound. If I had gotten hit on the right side, it wouldn’t have been too bad, but the left side… not so much. I’m kicking off the covers and about to stand when my beautiful wife comes walking in the door looking like she’s been put through the wringer. She’s still in the clothes she was wearing when the house was attacked, blood-soaked and soot-covered. Her hair is up in a haphazard ponytail and trailing her is Ian and Aurelia. Her twin is on her like white on rice, riding her ass about something, when Mena explodes – figuratively, this time.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Aurelia!” she says as she whirls to face her sister. “I’ll take a shower when I’m Goddamn good and ready. If I wanted your opinion, I would ask for the motherfucker. Leave. Me. Alone. I want to check on my husband,” she ends with a growl through gritted teeth.
Aurelia looks stunned for a moment before firing back, “You cuss too much.” Her arms cross as if she’s getting ready to deliver another lecture, but Ian cuts her off.
“Shut up, Half-Pint,” Ian breaks in shouldering Aurelia out of the way before Mena decides to tackle her and start the ass kicking she is dying to give. Mena uses Ian’s distraction to come to me, standing in between my pajama-clad legs.
“Hello, my darling,” she says as she cups my face and gives me a relieved kiss. Her knees buckle, and Mena’s arms wind around my waist as her head hits my chest.
“How long have I been out?” I murmur against her hair, cupping the back of her head, massaging her scalp.
“Three days,” she whispers, looking back up at my face, lips trembling as her eyes well up. She’s breaking down, and by my guess, this is the first time in three days she’s cried.
“Okay, you’re up. Super. Asher, I’m glad you’re alive. Can you get your wife to take a shower, eat something and go to sleep? Because she hasn’t done any of that in the three freaking days you’ve been out and I’m ready to drug her ass,” Aurelia gripes from her position at the foot of the bed, eyes flashing in concerned anger, and the argument makes sense now.
“And I keep telling you, I’ve gone weeks without any of that, and I survived just fine,” she bites back, voice clogged with the emotions she’s trying so desperately to tamp down.
“Great. Fabulous. You’re a badass. You’ve proved it. Now, for God’s sake, eat something, take a shower and. Go. To. Sleep!” Aurelia says, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
“Princess,” I murmur, my tone half scolding and half sorry. I did this to her, put her through hell.
“I blew up the house,” she confesses and then she breaks, chest heaving with sobs as she squeezes my middle. I haul her up, tuck her in the bed, and follow her in, propping myself up on the pillows so I can cradle her in my arms as she finally loses it.
When I look up, Ian is still standing there, brow creased, patiently waiting for Mena to either stop crying, quiet down or it's entirely possible he’s trying to figure out how big a dose of sedative she’ll need. Aurelia shoulders the door open, carrying a tray piled with food. Two huge bowls of chicken and dumplings, crusty French baguettes, and two bottles of water fill the tray, and by the determined twist to Aurelia’s mouth, she’ll force-feed Mena if she has to. Mena’s sobs have quieted even though her tears keep flowing, and Aurelia plops the tray on her lap.
“Now, I made the bread and dumplings from scratch, so you’re going to eat all of it.”
“I thought you couldn’t cook,” Mena croaks from my chest.
“I said ‘don’t’ not ‘can’t.’ I hate cooking and kitchens in general, dishes most definitely, but I pull out the big guns for a crisis. You not eating is a fucking crisis. Eat,” she says, brandishing the spoon like a weapon. Mena reaches for the spoon and slips it from Aurelia's fingers, and sits up taking her bowl from the tray. Before I know it, she’s devouring the hearty soup like a frat boy with the munchies. She rips into one of the baguettes and dabs the rest of the bread in the soup, sopping up some of the broth before shoving the hunk in her mouth again.
Success.
I take my bowl, but before I tuck into my food, I ask, “How bad was it?”
“You or her?” Ian murmurs, eyeing Mena, and it occurs to me that she could have been hurt after I left and I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to help her.
“Her first,” I insist.
“Minor injuries. Cuts, bumps and bruises mostly. My biggest worry was the shock, despite her efforts to keep it at bay. But she did good. Mena got you here, tried to take care of herself so she could do what she needed to, didn’t wreck your Jeep, and didn’t pass out until we got you inside. It would have been better if she called us, but given what she had to work with, she did good. Teach her how to use a cell phone, would ya?”
I can’t believe I didn’t take the time to teach her something so simple. “And me?” I ask.
“I need to check some things, but my guess is you’re fully healed, which is markedly faster than expected given your injuries. The shot was a through and through, but the bullet broke your clavicle and nicked your subclavian artery. Average bleed out for that is anywhere between two to twenty minutes and it’s usually fatal. Now, I know I don’t have to tell you that we do not regenerate at the same speeds as Phoenixes. You don’t and I sure as shit do not.”
Ian pauses, trying to make a point, but I’m lost.
“He’s attempting to tell you that mating me saved your life,” Mena breaks in, talking around a hunk of bread. “I guess a mating shares the strongest traits between the spouses. So congratulations, it’s really hard to kill you now.”
“Uh… what?” I sputter almost choking on my food.
“You are organically drawing on my Aegis, so in life threatening situations, I protect you,” she garbles matter-of-factly around her food. “No spell, no pain, and apparently you keep me from blowing shit up – your house excluded. Sorry. I don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent, but I call it a bonus.”
“And you swear I’m not hurting you,” I ask as I turn to Mena.
“I promise, Ash,” she assures me, “I wouldn’t lie to you. Especially not about that.”
I take a deep breath and try to wrap my mind around shared abilities between mates. I’ve never heard of a Phoenix and a Wraith mating in the first place, so I’m at a loss. Is this just because of Mena’s Aegis or is this something else. Will she be harder for our enemies to find now that I’ve drawn from her?
Mena’s spoon clatters in her bowl and she lets out a giant yawn.
“Okay, Princess, why don’t you grab a shower, Ian can examine me, and then we can get some more rest? Sound like a plan?”
“Yeah,” she says sleepily, slowly moving from the bed and padding sluggishly to the en-suite bath. She doesn’t take any clothes with her, and Aurelia rolls her eyes as she snatches Mena’s bag from a leather armchair and trails after her.
“Did anyone ask John about it?” I ask, and I wish I hadn’t. Ian’s face falls, and I know it’s bad.
“He’s not doing so great, Ash,” he says as he opens his med kit and takes out a stethoscope fitting it in his ears before placing the cold metal over my heart. He listens in several locations and then switches to my back.
“Deep breath,” he instructs, and I comply.
“Your heart sounds good, and your lungs are clear. I’m pretty sure you’re completely healed. You don’t even have a scar.”
“How bad is he?” I murmur, ignoring my clean bill of health, and Ian shrugs, swallowing hard as he grits his teeth.
“He’s got maybe a week,” he croaks, “And Voyt is coming here to talk about succession. Since he’s the next male in the bloodline – however slight his claim to that bloodline might be – he wants to speak to John about handing over the reins early. He says there is a call for war with the Phoenixes and he’s been recruiting. Evan is beside herself, she’s so pissed, and West can’t calm her down.”
Like he could if she decided she didn’t want to be calm. Evan isn’t one to just sit there and take some distant third cousin twice removed stealing her father’s throne. Not to mention, we all know that if Wraiths are behind Olivia’s poisoning, Voyt is at the top of the list of suspects.
“Voyt— that fucking douchebag. He makes Cam look like Mr. Congeniality. I haven’t had a single conversation with that asshole that didn’t make me want to punch him in his smarmy fucking face,” I growl. “West is going to bail isn’t he?” I ask, less like a question and more like a statement. I know how this is going to go. Bad.
“Probably. You know how he feels about being a leader,” Ian grouses.
“It’s bullshit, is what it is. He’s been the only one John has truly trusted. West knows everything. Every family, every transgression. He knows who to trust and who to kill. Hell, ninety-eight percent of the people who needed killing, West is the one who killed them.”
“And that’s the problem,” Ian whispers and it occurs to me that West might hate himself more than he hates the throne.
This has horrible fucking idea written all over it.