Love's Magic by Traci E. Hall

Author:Traci E. Hall [Hall, Traci E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Western
ISBN: 9781933836270
Google: hTQ3xmWoKr4C
Publisher: Medallion Press, Inc.
Published: 2008-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Twelve

Nicholas did not know what to expect as he watched Celestia close her eyes and place her slender fingers on his wrist. He was prepared for the burning sensation he had felt before when she handled his scars. He braced himself so that he wouldn’t move or pull away. He’d not scare her again.

This time, however, the feeling was different.

There was warmth, a pleasant heat that reminded him of the high summer sun when he’d ridden at the abbey, a time before he went on crusade. Celestia’s grip never tightened, but remained loose over his scars, which began to pulsate beneath her touch. Nicholas’s eyelids grew heavy, and he found he was tiring, even though he was doing none of the work. Rather, she was drawing out his injuries and pain with her personal energy.

He’d never imagined that his internal wounds had substance. When he’d given it thought, which wasn’t often since he was a warrior, by God’s bones, he thought the pain to be a figment of his mind.

Like a man who swore he could still feel the itch on a hand that had been lopped off in battle, he would feel the damning narcotic pull of opium in his blood.

And he raged for it.

He’d learned that the madness would come for him in his deepest sleep.

Did Celestia take the dark need into her healer’s body and break it apart, as if it never were? What if she was stealing his life force, as well? Nicholas did not move a muscle as she worked her magic. He made himself stay calm—he trusted her.

He chose not to examine how that had come to pass.

Nicholas lost track of time, rousing as he realized her healing touch was cooling. He opened his eyes, which he hadn’t remembered closing, and saw that the red, aching scars were gone. Gone. A smile flitted across Celestia’s face, and he could see that she was finished.

He opened his mouth to thank her, expecting her to release his arm, when all of a sudden she grasped his wrist in a rough hold. Her gaze met his, and he read the confusion on her face. She was trying to let go, and yet could not. Her fingers were fused to his skin.

Concerned, Nicholas tried prying her hand off of his arm, but it was bound tight. Celestia’s brow creased, her mouth twisted, and a warning moan came from the back of her throat. Oof. Nicholas jerked back—something, mayhap the same invisible something that bound the two of them together, had slammed into the middle of his chest. He gagged, choking on fragments of memories. Rats with pink eyes and scrawny bodies in his cell, lice in his hair, bugs in his food, and Leah … Leah, with her inky sloe eyes and sensuous body, plying him with opium and raping him to satisfy her own carnal desires and need for a dark-haired babe.

Every ugly thing in his past threatened to suffocate him. He coughed and fought against the images—he had escaped before—he would not let his foulness drown Celestia.

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