(eng) Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Chapel Hollow 02 by Silent Strength of Stone

Author:Silent Strength of Stone [Stone, Silent Strength of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

My throat was raw by the time I finished coughing up the. water, and I felt soggy and tired. Willow stroked my head while tears dripped from her face onto my chest. Evan knelt at my other side, with Megan beside him. Megan had given me the actual mouth-to-mouth; it wasn’t something Willow or Evan knew. Megan’s face wore no expression.

Willow glanced up at Evan. “How could you let this happen to him?” she said in a small hard voice. It had an edge to it that sliced—at least, I felt it. “He was in your care. How could you?”

Why was she blaming Evan? How could he have stopped it? It had happened so fast.

He had told me I would be safe from his relatives. I had wanted to believe him, but I never really had. How could you stop a snake in midstrike?

Evan looked hollow-eyed and exhausted. He stared back at her. “I didn’t stop it,” he whispered. “I should have.”

Willow gripped my hand hard. “Not again, Evan,” she said. “Can’t lose him.”

“No,” he said. He touched Megan’s cheek. “Thank the Powers you were here. You gave us grace. Thanks.” She stared at him unblinking.

He lifted his hand and laid it on my throat. It was warm. “Heal,” he murmured. He ran his hand over my chest. “You are refreshed. You repair yourself. You feel fine and energized.”

I closed my eyes and just breathed in and out for a while. His hand was warm against my chest, almost tingling with a heat that radiated outward, chasing the deep chill out of my blood. I could feel the soreness fading, though the hurt wasn’t evaporating instantly this time the way it had before. In a little while my throat didn’t feel as though I had swallowed broken glass. I opened my eyes and looked up at Evan.

He said, “Nick. Listen. Take this in. Don’t get in front of Uncle Bennet, okay?”

“But he was hurting you!”

“Hey. I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around. I should have stopped him from—I was too shaken up and couldn’t think in time to—don’t risk yourself for me, Nick. I mean it.”

I could feel that command trying to take hold of me the way his other words had, but it didn’t lock in. I tried to figure out why. “Well, I couldn’t—I didn’t—I don’t know, it wasn’t like I knew I was going to—” I tasted wolf, remembered how we had exchanged breath that morning, and said, “You’re in me.”

He patted my chest three times and looked across me at Willow. She wiped her eyes.

“Besides,” I said, “you didn’t hurt me. Your uncle did. It’s not your fault. It’s not his fault,” I told Willow.

She touched my face, my mouth, my chest. She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything either,” she whispered. “I couldn’t think fast enough.”

“I’m okay now.”

Willow looked across me at Megan. “Thank you. Thank you.”

Megan finally blinked. “Once a lifeguard, always a lifeguard,” she said.

I said, “Thanks, Megan. I owe you.

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