#Chapter 356 – Long Days
Ella
Cora wasn’t kidding when she said that there was a lot to do for the wounded men. Honestly, I underestimated her – or she’s a much faster and better worker for me, because I fall into bed at the end of each day totally wiped, asleep before Sinclair can even say goodnight to me.
The boys are busy too and I feel a little sorry for Cora and Roger, honestly. They should be living in a newly-mated newly-pregnant love bubble right now, and instead she’s spending all day healing while he’s trapped in a boardroom with his brother and his father, trying to figure out how to defeat my estranged uncle.
“How can you feel sorry for them,” Sinclair says to me when I take a break to feed Rafe. He comes to spend these little stolen moments with me, knowing that they’re some of the only moments I’ll be able to sit and concentrate on something else for a few minutes. “It’s not like you and I got to enjoy any kind of love bubble.”
“Yes we did,” I say, frowning at him. ” Dominic, we had so much sex in those first few months when we discovered I was pregnant -”
“Sure,” he says, a little sarcastic as he draws his brows together. “Between me accusing you of stealing my sperm, and then the constant attacks, and then having to flee the country – yeah, totally had a peaceful little love bubble somewhere in there.”
I laugh as I consider it, shaking my head and looking down at my sweet hungry baby. “I don’t know,” I say, giving a little shrug. “It was all wonderful to me. But maybe I just forget all the horrible parts as some side effect of pregnancy – like how mothers have to forget the pain of birth, or else they’d never do it again.”
Sinclair moves closer to me, putting an arm around me to let me and Rafe lean close against his broad, muscled chest. “Or,” he murmurs, “it could be that the pleasure was just so good that it completely overshadowed the pain
“Oh yes,” I murmur back, smirking a little. “Clearly, Dominic, the sex is so good that I barely remember my nearly -fatal injuries
He laughs now, shaking his head, and we both shrug it off, knowing that it doesn’t matter. That we wouldn’t trade any of what we went through for something different. Because it’s worth it all of it is worth it.
And I keep that idea in my heart as I spend hour after hour trailing behind Cora, tending to the poor men who were willing to sacrifice their health in the effort to save my little boy. The hours feel endless – changing bandages, administering medicine, checking in with the men to see how they’re recovering –
Honestly, I’m shocked by it, a little bit – especially the idea that Cora deemed three men too far beyond her ability to care for and sent them away. Because, honestly, some of these men seem to be doing pretty poorly – it baffles me to consider that there are some who were even worse.
“Should we send some of these men to Hank, Cora?” I ask late one afternoon, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Can we – can we really handle this?”
“We should keep them here, Ella,” Cora says quietly, “unless they need critical care. Hank – and all the other hospitals – they’re totally overwhelmed as it is with the aftermath of the war. These men- they’re on the mend, if not slowly. And Roger and Sinclair brought in enough medicine to keep us going. I know it looks bad but,” she sighs, looking around the room at all the men we’re helping. “They’ll get through it.”
“Should it be taking this long?” I whisper, concerned. “Roger and Sinclair…”
She nods, biting her lip, understanding me. “I don’t know. I’m used to our mates’ fast healing too but Ella, they’re both pretty remarkable, powerful specimens.”
“I heal fast too, though,” I murmur.
“Yah,” she says, rolling her eyes at me a little. “Probably the goddess blood in you,” “Your blood too,” I murmur, poking her in the shoulder.
She nods, letting it pass, but she does look over the men with some concern. It does seem to be taking longer than I’d expect it to as well…” she sighs, looking down at her battered clipboard as if it holds the answers. “Maybe there was something in the spell designed to inhibit the healing…”
“If only we all had a little bit of the goddess blood,” I murmur, looking around. “It seems unfair.’ Cora looks up suddenly and blinks, turning to me.
“What?” I ask, turning to her as well.
“Actually,” she says, cocking her head a bit. “Well, can you, Ella?”
“Huh?” I ask again, totally confused.
“It goes back to something Hank said once,” Cora says, suddenly excited. ” On the night when he came over to my -” she hesitates for a moment, place – and blushes a little, and I suddenly know precisely the night she means. I grin at her and she swats a hand at me, moving on.
“Seriously – he asked me if I thought that you might want to go into the medical field. So that you could, maybe, use our mom’s gift to heal people – ”
“Oh,” I say, my eyebrows raising in surprise. And then I look down at myself, a little ridiculously, as if I could see the gift floating around in my chest or something. Then I frown, wondering.
“Do you think you could do it?” Cora asks, excited and a little breathless. “I don’t know,” I say, snapping my head up to look at her. “I mean, I’ve only used it to heal myself. Do you think it can go…outward?”
“Well, we know it can go outward- you gave it to me, and then I used it to to do whatever I did. I don’t know. communicate to everyone.”
“Yeah,” I say, frowning a little, “but was that a healing?” Cora just shrugs, staring at me, and then we both laugh because we both feel a little stupid trying to figure this out.
“Honestly,” I murmur, “mom could have given us like, a little instructions pamphlet, couldn’t she?”
“Not her style,” Cora sighs, shaking her head. “But Ella…what do you think? Does it feel like you could?”
“I don’t know,” I wonder, my hands pressing to my chest where I can feel the constant, steady, warm glow of it – so familiar that I frequently forget it’s there. “But maybe we should try?”
“Okay!” Cora says, excited, and then she starts flipping through her paperwork, trying to think through which of the injured men might be the best candidate to get to work on. But as Cora begins to narrow down our selection, I feel my wolf nudge me a little with her nose, trying to get my attention.
What? I ask, curious, but feeling a little of her anxiety and suspicion start to bleed through into my own feelings. What’s wrong?
Not right, not right, she says, narrowing her eyes a little and turning in a tight circle around the gift, protective and wary. Why is that man asking questions about our gift? It’s our gift. It’s not his gift. He can’t have it.
I blink in surprise at the thought, but suddenly I’m wondering it myself. What was Hank doing asking Cora questions about my gift when they were on a date?
Was he just being a good medical health professional and identifying an incredible power that could be harnessed for the good of many, instead of being hogged by me?
Or was he asking for…other reasons? And is my wolf only suspicious now because Henry put the idea in our heads that we should be wary of Hank? Or is the act of asking suspicious in itself?
Cora whips her head up then, grinning at me with excitement as she points towards one of the men across the room. “This one is perfect,” she breathes, and then hurries off towards his bed, signaling me to follow.
I hurry after her, eager to help – and suddenly a wave of guilt runs through me. Didn’t I just promise Cora that I’d trust her instincts about Hank?
But still, my little wolf continues to prowl, and I honestly don’t know where this suspicion comes from. Is it just me being paranoid, and turning that paranoia on a good man?
Or is Hank asking weird questions to the woman he knew was least likely to suspect him of getting up to anything strange?
