“Anything pasta. Do you mind if I shower while you cook?” I put the bags on the counter. He shook his head when he saw me, and I was grateful. I didn’t like smelling like an explosion. “If you need anything to protect yourself in those twenty minutes, I’ll be unavailable, so check in here. I need to bandage and clean up.”
I used my cellphone to access the condo’s security system and locked down. Metal closed over the windows and doors, all unusable until I lifted the lockdown. I turned the entire two-story home into a safe room. In addition, I had a safe room in the condo, just in case there was someone capable of getting in.
“Thanks.” He looked at the windows, sighing. “Thanks,” he repeated softly.
I walked out of the room, taking a deep breath as I made my way to my room. I cleaned up my jaw, hissing as I wiped the deep cut from Erline. The fact that I was still alive was the only positive. The two-inch-long slice would scar. It wouldn’t be hard to fix after it healed, but it would piss me off until then. I hadn’t been careful enough. I used tissue glue and tape to keep it closed then shoved my first aid kit back in the bottom cabinet, knowing I had better things to think about than Erline, who was very dead now.
Beyond that cut, I had to admit, right after the explosion, the werewolf had hit me pretty good, bruising my cheek and jawline. I wasn’t swelling up as a normal person would, at least not as much, but that was only a small boon. The rest of it was a nightmare to look at. My shoulders, back, and ribs were all a sick patchwork of scrapes and bruises, and the back of my head was already forming a considerably sized bump.
“I need a healer,” I said, talking to myself as I stared in the mirror. “I can’t go out like this. I’ll be slower than normal, and…” I hit my hand on the bathroom counter, pissed off at everything. “Did I buy any of that fucking ointment Cassius swears by? Fuck, I hope I did.”
I shuffled through my cabinets, hoping I kept some on hand. I found it in the back of a drawer. I whispered my thanks to the universe and cracked it open. It stank, but I was about to shower, so that didn’t bother me. I rubbed it over every bruise. It wasn’t the most powerful healing ointment around, but it had pain-relieving properties and reduced swelling and bruising better than most things. It absorbed into the skin and the magic started taking effect quickly.
I tried to shower quickly, but I kept pausing and losing focus on what I was doing. Everything was tumbling around my head as I went through the timeline over and over. It didn’t help that I wasn’t well stretched, and every bruised muscle I had was trying to seize.
We went out with Cassius, and he told us he was going to the fae lands with Sorcha. I got a call from Tarak, saying the Tribunal was demanding an up-to-date review of the prison. Callahan had been getting onto him, but there was probably more. Something about Hasan making the Tribunal clean up their act. Dian, another fae and a Warden, was called back to the fae lands. Alvina had been unreachable even though I had called her private number.
Everything lined up neatly, almost too neatly. I was even skipping over some problems like Kartane attacking Eliphas. Did that have anything to do with the breach, or was it opportunistic? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I could even get the answers, but I wanted them. Everything had happened so fast and led to a hundred questions, and I wanted answers.
By the time I got out of the shower, it had been thirty minutes. I cut the water, dried off, and had started getting dressed when I heard Raphael scream, not in fear but shock.
“Kaliya, what are you doing?”
That made me straighten up. I finished pulling on the shirt in my hands and walked out of the bedroom. When I reached the entry to the kitchen, I frowned.
“I’m not doing anything…” I said carefully, watching him spin by himself in the kitchen.
When his eyes landed on me, they went big and started to turn black. The black veins began to radiate out, telling me something was