Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,129
her as a little odd considering that the last time Magnus had healed her, she’d been completely fine afterward. Then again, at the time, she hadn’t tried to pull what she’d pulled tonight.
The spell passed fast thankfully, and then Ares was shoved aside and Anna was pulled into such a crushingly hard hug, she had little to think about anything but breathing.
“Oh my God, amigita, I swear I thought that was it. I thought, ‘I’m gonna die for real this time, and I have to go on a night when I’m sick? Throwing up has to be the last thing I ever do in this life? How messed up is that?’ And then you – you were, ay Dios – just what the hell kind of amazing shit was that?” Carmen was both crying and laughing at the same time. Craughing? Anna thought wildly.
But then Piper yanked her out of Carmen’s arms in turn and squeezed her just as hard. Anna made a slight wheezing sound that went utterly ignored by both her friends. “Oh my God is right, Anna,” said Piper rapidly. “Everything Carmen just said was absolutely true. She really wouldn’t shut up about having to die after puking. On and on about it she went. It was embarrassing.”
“Puta! Shut the hell up!” Carmen gave Piper a hard shove to her shoulder before she was laughing again and Piper was grinning. Anna couldn’t help but smile too.
That faintness was back again for a moment, rendering her slightly unsteady. But this time Piper unknowingly held her up through it, and Anna just chalked it up to being giddy. Immense happiness joined the store of relief inside her, a cocktail more wonderful than the vast majority of the things she had experienced in her life.
There were only a few moments that had ever been happier than this. One of them had been seeing her baby brother born. But all the rest of them had been….
Anna was slowly released by Piper so she could get into it with Carmen again, the two now alternating between pushing each other and hugging each other. Their shared trauma most likely united them in a way that nothing and no one would ever be able to break.
Anna took the chance to look for – there.
All the rest of them had been with him.
When their eyes met, it was the same. It felt the same now as it had all those years ago. He was like a port in a storm for her. Solid. Real. From day one, from minute one, when she’d rounded that corner to find a tall, dark fortress of beauty standing in the middle of that white painted hall, he’d been the enigma at the center of her world – like a god of night trapped in human form.
But she must have been tired, because normally she could think through her little bouts of desire. Normally she could prioritize.
They were not alone, and what had happened with Randall Price? And Victor Maze? Where was Magnus? She wanted to thank him – had he vanished already?
“Ares,” she whispered, suddenly realizing that she was looking at the ground. It was indistinct. She was sort of losing focus. “What happened with Price?”
“He’s been taken to a holding facility,” he told her.
All around them, the Monsters and other wardens were breaking up into groups of friends or acquaintances. Some had taken drinks from the bar or the fridge and were spreading them around. Others were reclining on the couches or settling into the saddles of the motorcycles in the garage.
“And what about Maze?” she asked, feeling that she needed to ask while she still could. As if soon she wouldn’t be able to.
“Escaped,” he admitted. “For now.”
Damn, Anna thought. “And… that girl. The one who was here, the homeless one.” She had a vague recollection of a woman covered in layers of clothing and grime – and blood. She’d been the one Victor had used to… to –
“She’s safe. She was here earlier. But the sovereigns are seeing to her now.”
Annaleia’s memory of the woman was indistinct; the entire ordeal had been so much like a nightmare, blurred at the edges by untold amounts of fear. But one thing she knew solidly was that the woman Victor had used so repulsively would be appallingly damaged after such a hideous event if she were not taken care of. And if anyone could take care of someone like that, it was the sovereigns and wardens.