then she struggled to raise her hands to force it away, but they, of course, were chained.
“Swallow,” Magnus instructed.
If looks could kill, Magnus would have been incinerated on the spot, but that didn’t happen. Allie had to swallow to keep from choking on the thick fluid pouring into her mouth and hitting the back of her throat. It was disgusting—warm, salty, with a hint of rusty metal—and she wanted nothing more than to spit it out, but didn’t have that option with his arm across her mouth. They stayed like that for what seemed to Allie to be a long time, but she knew that was a function of the unpleasantness of the situation.
Stuck there glaring at him as she swallowed his blood, Allie came up with quite a few inventive words she wanted to call him once her mouth was free. She never got the chance to use them. When he finally removed his wrist, she’d barely opened her mouth to spit out some of those invectives when a large clawed talon ripped across her stomach. At least, that’s what it felt like. A great winged dragon had clawed her stomach open and the wizard riding it had poured acid into the gaping hole.
Gasping in pain, she tried to curl up to protect her stomach, but, chained down as she was, could only lift her head. Allie saw that she wasn’t injured, but that wasn’t what the pain was telling her. And then that pain intensified a thousandfold and Allie began to shriek.
“Well . . . That was different.” Katricia’s comment filled the silence left when Allie passed out after nearly an hour of thrashing and screaming.
Magnus glanced at the woman in question. “How so?”
“It usually starts in the head. You see the metallic glitter in their eyes, or . . .” She shrugged. “But with Allie it seemed to be her stomach.”
“Yeah,” Mabel said with amazement. “Her stomach was jumping like one of Sigourney Weaver’s Alien babies was about to burst out of it.”
“It must be where she needed the most work,” Magnus said, glancing at her stomach now. He’d kept his gaze on her face until then. She’d looked at him with such anger and betrayal when he’d forced his wrist to her mouth . . .
“Probably ulcers from all her worry,” Elvi said solemnly. “Tybo said she was running and hiding from Abaddon for years. That must have been stressful.”
There were grunts of agreement from everyone around the bed and then they were all silent again until Mabel shifted restlessly, and asked, “How long do you think she’ll be unconscious before the pain wakes her up again and—”
Her question died abruptly as Allie’s eyes shot open and she began to shriek again.
It was going to be a long night, Magnus thought grimly as he watched Allie, helpless to do anything to end her agony. He’d take it for her if he could. She was his life mate. His wife . . . and this was their wedding night. Every prospective bride and groom no doubt hoped their wedding night would be unforgettable, and his certainly would be . . . Just not in the way one would expect.
I woke up feeling like I’d been dunked in a vat of slimy grease. And the stink . . . Woo-ee.
Those words ran through Allie’s head as she woke up. Probably because they described perfectly what she was experiencing. The first thing she became aware of, even before she opened her eyes, was the smell surrounding her. Wrinkling her nose, she opened her eyes and shifted restlessly on the bed, grimacing when her legs slid together with a squelching sound and a slimy feel.
Lifting her head, she looked down her body, noting that the chains were gone. So was the IV stand. She didn’t see any of the gear they’d set up for her. The nightgown was still on her, though, and she was on the same old sheet Katricia had put on the bed, but both the gown and sheet were now soaked with liquid the same color as the ear wax she’d once removed from the infected ear of a dog she’d had as a child.
Oh, God, the smell was unbearable, Allie thought with disgust, and shifted her attention to the room. At first, she thought she was alone, and then her gaze landed on a chair that had been set next to the bed. Magnus sat slumped in it, eyes closed and mouth open, sound asleep.