Bloodfire (Blood Destiny 1) - Helen Harper Page 0,59

lot better.”

“It accelerates healing in humans, although it often sends weaker ones into a coma before it can really start to work. You’ve avoided that part of it, fortunately. It does have some rather unpleasant side effects, however.”

“Yeah, I felt those,” I commented.

“I didn’t mean the pain, dear. Shifters don’t use it to heal, they use it as a hallucinogenic drug.”

“Uh…what?”

“You’ll feel a lot better very quickly but if you start to see things that don’t make logical sense then you’re pretty much going to be hallucinating. It’s why I haven’t ever given it to you before.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“Trippy,” grinned Alex, helping me onto Tom’s furry back.

I curled my fingers into his fur to prepare myself. “Thank you, Alex.” I said quietly, looking at him. “Not just for getting Julia. For…”

He ruffled my hair and shushed me. “You gave me a scare there, dude. Glad you’re okay though.”

I smiled at him weakly and Tom took off.

*

When we arrived back at the keep, the sun was reaching higher into the sky and the sunny daylight made the darkness of the night before fade away into a bad memory. I was in desperate need of a good night – or day’s – sleep, however. I slid off Tom’s back.

“I’m going to owe a lot of people a lot of favours by the time all this is over,” I murmured, half to him and half to myself.

He whined softly in return. In front of the oak doors, a gleaming limousine sat waiting. The scratched car from the other day seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps it offended his sensibilities to be seen in anything less than perfect. Nothing but the best for the Lord of all Alphas, I thought sardonically. From within the keep itself, I could hear his raised voice barking out indistinct orders. I briefly considered trying to enter through a back door and slipping up to the dorm unnoticed when Lucy wandered outside.

She waved enthusiastically. “Hey! Can you believe how freaky that thing was last night?”

For a stupid moment I thought that she was referring to the wichtlein and wondered how on earth she knew about it, before I realised that she meant the earthquake monster instead.

“Yeah,” I nodded fervently in response. “Freaky.”

“You were kind of freaky yourself too,” she added. “I’ve never seen Lord Corrigan so mad at anyone before.”

Next to Lucy, a giant four poster bed, draped with satin covers and plumped up pillows, hovered in the sky. I looked down at Tom.

“I don’t suppose you can see a bed floating in the air next to her, can you?”

Tom looked about as concerned as a wolf can possibly ever look and shook his head. Okay then, I guess the hallucinations were starting to kick in.

“It must be a gift I have,” I said to Lucy, trying to ignore the allure of the bed. I guessed that taking a running leap and diving on top of it would look pretty dumb when what I’d end up doing was a face plant onto the gravel.

She smiled at me. “I’m going to be sticking around and helping you guys out with all this.”

I bit back my retort that we didn’t need her aid and tried to look gracious. “That’s…um…great.”

Anton came round the corner at that point, noted Lucy, and smoothly greeted her with a kiss. Mr Charm himself. He completely ignored me and began chatting to her. Little forked devils danced around on his shoulders, poking him in his ears and blowing kisses at me. I really needed to go and sleep this off. Then I could start working out what on earth a Draco Wyr was and why the wichtlein thought all this was my fault. I swallowed hard and bit my lip.

Leaving Tom in the courtyard, I walked past Lucy and Anton and into the keep. Not far to go now. My legs were starting to feel like leaden weights as I dragged myself up the stone stairs, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground lest any other unexpected visions decided to crop up and surprise me. I was fairly certain that a few of the old portraits on the walls were making faces at me, but I refused to look at them directly just in case. I finally reached the dorm room and was about to turn the doorknob when I heard a voice behind me.

“In the doghouse, Miss Mackenzie?”

I supposed it really had been too much to hope that I’d manage to completely avoid Corrigan. “Whatever do you