"Ah, but there is only one neck I desire." He walked over to the bed and dropped a kiss on my forehead. "Do not lapse back into a coma. Riley would be most displeased."
If he thought I was in any danger of lapsing, he wouldn't be leaving. "Give her a kiss for me."
"I will."
He left, and my gaze returned to Ilianna. "So why was I out so long? Even if I'd lost a lot of blood, I shouldn't have been out for five days."
"It was the poison."
I raised my eyebrows. "Poison? What poison?"
"From the hounds that attacked you on the astral plane," Azriel replied, and suddenly appeared on the other side of the bed.
I very much suspected he'd been there the entire time, though I hadn't actually sensed him. But there was more than one reaper in this place, so maybe I was suffering some sort of temporary sensory overload.
My gaze met his. Anger and relief vied for dominance in the turbulent depths of his blue eyes. "But they weren't real. They were just a product of Taylor's imag—"
"No, they weren't," he cut in. "And because these particular beasts were little more than plague bearers, the wounds became poisoned."
"I wouldn't have thought the hospital would have known how to cope with that sort of poisoning."
"They didn't," Ilianna said. "Kiandra did."
"She was here?" Holy shit!
"And I didn't even have to call her." Ilianna wrinkled her nose. "She didn't have an easy time of pinning down the particular branch of poison, though. It really was touch and go for a while there."
"Meaning Taylor was close to winning anyway."