to anymore.
“Peony!” Nana bypasses two security guards with a wave of her hand, racing towards me. “Are you okay, darling? We saw what happened in the stands…”
“I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth as another stab of pain shoots through me. I don’t think my ribs are broken, but I do believe they’re bruised.
“I’m going to take her home,” Nana says to Helen, and my coach nods once.
“Take it easy, okay?” Helen tells me with a soft look.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “I just need to rest.”
And perform a few healing spells.
I accept Nana’s arm gratefully and allow her to lead me off the field to the polite claps of the audience. I can hear the game resume before we’ve even left the stadium. Isn’t that the way things always go? Someone gets injured and life goes on as normal.
But something changed in those last few minutes. Something that I can’t put into words. Something that will make it so life can never go back to normal.
Because beneath the hate, the anger, the burning fury I feel towards the Devils…
I feel the embers of something else, too.
Chapter 20
“How do you feel?” Nana demands, fussing over me. She attempts to fluff the throw pillow propping me up on the settee in the living room, her muddy brown eyes even darker with worry, but I shoo her hands away.
“Like someone plowed into me,” I respond dryly, my eyes flicking to the three triplets kneeling in front of the coffee table. Christian stirs a cauldron of a pink, bubbling liquid, while Polo tosses in a teardrop preserved inside a crystal tube. Gabriel watches the proceedings with a scowl marring his handsome face. Unlike the others, he chose not to attend the football game, so he’s shirtless instead and wearing a pair of loose pajama bottoms, the broad planes of his bronze chest on display.
“I think we’re just about done…” Christian murmurs, for once, his jovial smile nowhere to be found. He blows out the candle currently resting beneath the cauldron and then pours the liquid into a coffee mug for me to drink. Immediately, the pungent stench of sulfur combined with vomit contaminates the air, causing me to gag. I wrinkle my nose in disgust as I stare at the potion in distaste. Most potions taste like shit. Some witches, like my mother, place flavorful additives into their potions. Strawberry, raspberries, bananas, and even chocolate.
But we don’t have time for such frivolous things, not when it feels as if my body has been through the meat-grinder. Pain explodes throughout my body like errant fireworks as I bring the disgusting liquid to my lips, the sour scent barraging my senses.
“Drink it all,” Nana instructs sternly, and despite my grimace, I do as she says, chugging the liquid in one go. The taste makes me gag, and wanting to vomit, I bring my hand to my lips to quell the almost painful urge to do so. But when the nausea fades, I can feel the potion traveling through my body like the rapids in a river. It cascades all the way from my head to my toes, branching out to my fingers and shoulders, my stomach and my back. It’s almost as if my body is made up of thousands of train tracks, each one traveling to a new location. Warmth explodes in my stomach like bottled sunshine, and I squeeze my eyelids shut against the almost euphoric feeling.
“Fuck…” I curse as the aches and pains flare once, then begin to ebb as if they never existed in the first place. If anything, it feels as if I fell asleep in an uncomfortable position and am only now able to stretch out my taut limbs. Thousands of pinpricks dance on my skin as I flex first one foot and then the next. I bring my hand to my stomach, tentatively pressing on my once bruised ribs, but I feel no pain.
I have made and used healing potions before in my life, but never one like this. Never one that almost instantaneously healed something that should’ve taken hours with a normal potion and weeks without one.
“Christian here is a skilled potion-maker,” Nana explains when I stare at the three triplets in wide-eyed wonder. Christian blushes from the roots of his hair down to his neck.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it taste better,” he says before once more flashing me his easy-going grin. “I usually add a dash of caramel.”
“I’ll show you where you can put your