Suddenly wide awake, it felt like someone set my abdomen on fire. I tried to sit up, screaming and ready to fight.
“Hold her down!” someone screamed the harsh military-like order. “Keep her fucking down so we can finish!”
I caught a flash of blonde hair in the low candlelight. I was surrounded by people. Someone put their hands on my head, grabbing both sides, and pushed me down where my head found a pillow. I screamed louder as the fire intensified.
“Stay down, Kaliya!” a woman’s voice ordered. “We’re almost done. You weren’t supposed to rise until this was over. I’m sorry.” Her voice, even with steel in it, was compassionate. I needed that. It penetrated the pain and made me realize where I was.
A piece of leather was shoved into my mouth, and I used it, sinking my teeth and snake fangs into it. No venom came out, something I was grateful for. Whenever I was healed like this, wide awake for the event, it was a fifty-fifty chance of me nearly giving myself an aphrodisiac high from my own venom. While that was inconvenient, it was even worse when I was with the witches. Naga venom was too unique to just hand out or make readily available to anyone. Not that this coven would try, but I always had to be careful. They knew I would kill every one of them if they stole something that belonged on or in my body.
It wasn’t an idle threat. At least one witch in Phoenix was already dead because of that very type of crime, though that one hadn’t been in the coven.
I screamed with a closed mouth, holding onto the leather, glad they thought of it so quickly, so I didn’t bite my tongue open or nail it with a fang.
“We’re almost done, Kaliya. I need to clarify something since you’re awake. The healing is free, but the scars aren’t. Choose now, so we don’t have to do this again in a few weeks when it’ll be harder.”
“She has a couple, one might form under her jawline,” the brunette said in the professional, hurried way a nurse would in an emergency surgery.
“Kaliya? Can you pay?”
I nodded rapidly. If they wanted to do the scars now, I was more than willing to pay the bill and get it over with. I didn’t really want to be scarred to hell by the time I was two hundred. I paid a pretty fucking penny to get done, but I would not live with a thousand scars.
The fiery pain turned into an ice-cold pain, meaning they had finished closing the wounds and were now making sure nothing scarred. My screams only grew, bouncing off the walls even with the leather strap helping to muffle it. My back arched.
Then it was done, leaving me sweaty, panting, and sagging on the table where they had laid me out.
I looked at the ceiling, my eyesight blurry, but I knew it would clear up. The witches did nothing halfway. They would have healed everything they could. They would have made sure nothing was wrong with my head after repeated blows and made sure the bruising subsided. They were more efficient than fae healers, but it came at the cost of the pain.
“You can sit up now,” a matronly woman ordered. I tried, and the brunette at my head helped me, easing me up and helping me swing my legs off the side of the table. I was naked, but I didn’t let that faze me, and I knew it didn’t faze any of the witches in the room.
Before me stood a blonde woman who looked like she walked out of a porn shoot set in the suburbs. She knew the impression she gave, looking the way she did, but I knew she didn’t care. She didn’t like what she called “witch aesthetic” because it made her obvious to human governments, something she had to worry about, and I did not. It was also just too cliché.
She was smoking hot. With ice blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she was the perfect white woman who needed a husband, two point five kids, and a yellow lab. She had magically enhanced breasts; she was the type who loved the silicone look but didn’t want the surgery. The secret to her look, though, was the corset she always wore under her tops to give an hourglass shape that made heads turn and jaws drop. Men everywhere