The Morrigan's Curse by Dianne K. Salerni

Author:Dianne K. Salerni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

21

THERE WAS A WEIGHT on his chest, and at every breath pain lanced through his body. Eventually Jax was driven to force his eyelids open and investigate.

A pair of black, glittery eyes in a smushed-up face peered back at him anxiously.

“Now you turn up,” Jax whispered.

Stink tilted his head and rotated his ears.

“Get off him,” growled a voice from nearby. A hand swiped at Stink, and the brownie leaped from Jax’s chest to the headboard of the bed. Immediately, the weight hindering his breathing disappeared, although the pain didn’t lessen much. A man with carrot-colored hair leaned into Jax’s field of vision. This man’s face usually wore a relaxed and rather stupid smile, so it was strange to see Michael Donovan looking angry.

“Awake, are you?” Donovan crossed his arms. “Usually, when an associate appears on my doorstep with a knife wound, I patch him up and no questions asked. But usually, said associate turns up on the doorstep. He doesn’t fall out of thin air in front of my daughter. So, you wanna tell me how you landed at Tegan’s feet in this condition?”

Jax licked his dry lips and tried to process the question. On one hand, it was a relief to have Donovan mad at him, because it suggested he wasn’t dying. On the other hand, it was mind-boggling for Donovan—thief, con man, and all-around nuisance—to act like a protective father. Did I really show up at Tegan’s feet? How embarrassing.

“I didn’t mean to,” he croaked. A flurry of activity in the doorway caught Jax’s attention: a flash of orange hair, a grunt, and the sound of wrestling. There was an eavesdropper to this conversation. Two eavesdroppers, Jax bet. “I was traveling by brownie magic and got dumped off with someone who would help me. I didn’t, uh, specify Tegan. I’m just grateful that”—he tried to swallow, but his mouth was like a desert—“that your family was willing to—” Jax couldn’t stand it anymore. “How hurt am I?”

Donovan reached for a plastic water bottle, the kind with a straw, and maneuvered it into Jax’s reach. “Drink,” he said gruffly. “I had a healer come. Not the most talented guy in the world, but he does his best, and I helped stitch you up. You were lucky the knife missed all the important stuff.” Donovan shook his head. “You lost a lot of blood, though.”

Jax sucked on the straw while Donovan held it for him, pausing only to ask, “Did you call Riley?”

“Call him? It’s the eighth day, Jax. We can’t call him.”

It was the same day, then. Good. Jax tried to raise himself on one elbow, and intense pain sliced through his torso. He gasped. Donovan put the water bottle aside. “Easy there. You’re healing, best as my associate could do, but you need to rest. Except first, you’re going to tell me what happened.”

Jax told him the story as concisely as possible: how he’d used the brownie tunnels to reach Evangeline’s sister and how Stink’s desertion had left him unable to use the tunnel magic effectively.

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