He'd done nothing except hurt her from their first meeting. When he'd gutted her in a dirty street. When he'd poisoned her.
And when she needed me most, I was high in my room, failing her.
Each time Brandr excised a staple, Declan could hear her biting back a cry. The strain was crippling him. But now it was accompanied by the onset of withdrawal symptoms. Teeth-clattering tremors threatened.
At her first real scream, an answering roar was ripped from his chest. Where was his vaunted will power now? His lack of emotion?
How many times had Webb told him, "You're devoid of emotions like that"?
I'm not. That gnawing anxiety overwhelmed him until he nearly doubled over with it.
Then came another scream, thunder clapping immediately after. Everyone stared at each other, leery.
The storm intensified, seeming to rock the mountain until even Lothaire raised his brows.
Regin cried, "No, no, Brandr, now just wait-"
When she shrieked, Declan rammed his head against the tiled wal , gritting his teeth. This is my doing.
Have to get to her. He strained against his bindings, his heart beginning to thunder as it pumped blood to his muscles. Coursing, coursing ... With another yel , he busted the straps, then charged to the door.
Natalya planted herself in front of him.
"Out of my way." - Nothing keeps me from her.-Just as he raised his hands to toss her to the side, Brandr came out. He had streaks of blood up his bare chest. He barely gave Declan's freed hands a glance. To the fey, he said, "She won't pass out, and the next part is going to be bad."
Declan snapped, "That wasn't?"
"What can I say? Your bitch Dr. Dixon did a hack job on her."
Because she was in a hurry to finish before I woke from my stupor.
"The wire got mangled into Regin's rib cage, and some of the bones have already grown over it."
Brandr looked at Natalya. "I need someone to hold her shoulders down. Either you or the boy."
Natalya nodded. "Of course I'll do it."
"Use the restraints," Declan grated.
She hissed, "How easily you say that."
"I tried using them," Brandr said. "Regin has to be perfectly still or the wire's going to pierce her heart. I can't strap down her chest because of the size of the opening."
Declan ran his hand over his face. "Neither of them will be strong enough to hold her still."
"And you will be, Chase?" Brandr demanded. "It's clear you've begun to think of her as yours-"
Lothaire guffawed.
"-so can you watch me slice open your woman?"
Natalya drew Brandr aside. "You're not considering this? The fiend looks like he's about to have a psychotic break."
Declan didn't deny that, just said, "I'm no' asking."
Brandr studied his expression. "Maybe he should see it."
When Natalya reluctantly deferred, Brandr turned back to the room.
Am I ready to see this? Declan inhaled deeply. You reap what you sow. He entered, halting in his tracks at the scene before him.
Brandr was squeezing her bloody hand in his, and Regin was gazing up at him, crying, shaking her head miserably. "We c-can do ... the rest tomorrow."
She was bare from the waist up. A line of pitted skin crawled up the middle of her torso, and blood tracked down her sides. Between her br**sts, Brandr had sliced the line wide open until her skin gaped over her rib cage. That hideous wire jutted up in the center.
Declan shoved his fist against his mouth, swal owed back vomit.
"This will be over soon," Brandr promised her. "And You'll never have to go through it again. Close your eyes, Regin. If you trust me, You'll close them."
At length, she did.
Only then did Declan cross to the table. He could see why Brandr needed her perfectly still . The man was going to have to lower those cutters directly beside her beating heart.
How many times had Declan cursed an immortal's resilience?
Now he prayed for hers.
Regin lay in a twilight, her mind refusing to go under, even as Brandr began clipping in her chest.
The gruesome sound of those cutters- snip, snip-echoed in the room. She thought she was still begging him to wait til later to do the rest. To give her a chance to recover from the staples.
Reasoning with him like a coward.
Her tone was mewling, like a little girl's. She was appal ed at herself.
Oh, gods, had he let Chase inside? She opened her eyes, but a murky film shaded her vision. Was that brute holding her shoulders down? She flailed against him, but he was immovable. "Let me go, let me go!"
"Regin, be still." Chase's voice sounded thick. "Please."
She kept struggling. Metal scraped bone.
"Damn it, Chase!" Brandr pulled the clippers out. "You've got to keep her still!"
"Aye," he rasped. His big hands covered her mouth and nose.
Terror flared. Suffocating her? Can't get air! She kicked her legs out, digging her claws into his hands.
Instead of helping her escape, Brandr muttered, "You are the coldest son of a bitch I have ever met."
Blackness took her, and it was almost a ... blessing.
When Declan removed his hands from Regin's face, Brandr gazed at him like he was a monster.
"See to her before she wakes!" Can't do that a second time. Her little claws were still embedded into the backs of his scarred hands. "What are you waitin' for?"
Brandr shook his head hard, then returned to the knot. "I've almost got it. It's tangled, though." Clipping, untangling, clipping. "One piece left-"
A spray of blood erupted from her chest.
"What the hel happened?" When Regin's lids slid open, Declan snapped, "Goddamn it, she wakes. ... "
But her head lol ed to the side, her eyes sightless, deadened. No, not waking. "Regin!" he roared. Her heart had stopped, punctured; no breath fil ed her lungs. He swung his head up. "What the f**k did you do?"
"I'm not a surgeon-I'm just trying to clean up what your people did to her!" In a rush, he yanked away the last of the wire.
Declan squeezed one of her hands in both of his, will ing her regeneration to take hold, that preternatural healing that coaxed her kind back from the brink again and again. Live, Regin.
Brandr had just finished when she sucked in a breath, her lids sliding shut. Life returned, though she remained unconscious.
"It'l take more than this to kil her," Brandr said. So why was he so visibly relieved, running his arm over his sweating brow? "She'l heal quickly if we can find something to hold her skin together for a few hours.