Page 60 of Contested Crown

The bleeding had slowed, but without being able to shift, it wouldn’t heal right. Neither Cade nor I could afford to tell them that.

“Get him a healer. Now.” Cade’s voice lowered even further, arctic waters freezing over, leaving anything exposed frostbitten and dying. “Any harm to him is harm to me, and I take this as agreat harm.”

Elizabeth looked over at me, her eyes flicking from my bleeding arm to the leg I couldn’t put any weight on. “I will admit our mages went perhaps a bit overboard. But only out of respect for your own power, Prince Bartlett.”

“A healer. Now.” Cade ignored the implied compliment, his shoulders pulled back, spine straight.

Elizabeth turned, glancing at Nicole. “Go get one of the healers.”

Nicole nodded sharply, then raised her hand, teleporting herself off the field.

Turning to the mages I had been fighting, Elizabeth jerked her chin. “You two go as well. Get yourselves replenished. We’ll discuss tactics later.”

Both mages nodded, bowing before teleporting away themselves. Before Elizabeth could even turn back to us, Nicole had reappeared with a short woman next to her. She wore a white doctor’s coat, clicking her tongue when she saw me.

“I can’t treat him here. We’ll need to go back to my office.” She looked expectantly at Elizabeth.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth raised her hands and teleported all of us to what looked like an infirmary. A series of long cots, the soft beep of heart monitors, curtains closed for privacy.

The healer nudged me onto one of the beds, coaxing me to lie down. “Well. Continuing to train them hard, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth didn’t seem cowed by the sharp tone. “That’s my job.”

The healer made a noncommittal noise. When she turned to me, she smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners. “I’m Dr. Lin. Let me know if anything I do hurts you. I’m going to be starting with a superficial level of magic, just to get the extent of your injuries. You’re a consort?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. When she glanced at my neck, I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “We don’t use collars.”

“Very progressive of you, Prince Bartlett,” Dr. Lin said. “Now, try to relax.”

The healer chatted as she worked, keeping everything to fairly mild topics. How did I find the house so far, what breakfast had been, whether we could see the ocean from our room.

“Okay. I have the extent of your injuries. I can already see your healing starting to work. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer just to wait for your body to heal on its own?” Dr. Lin raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head sharply. We couldn’t afford to wait. If we were attacked again, I needed to be in peak condition. Technically, Cade might be able to heal me, but I didn’t want to risk that. I remembered his raw expression after he explained why he didn’t heal, how it brought up memories of his parents.

“No. The lance pierced deep, all the way through. I’ll heal, but I want to make sure I have full mobility.” I offered a tight smile, and Dr. Lin nodded.

“Yes. That was extreme forpractice, wasn’t it?” The emphasis was precise, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the doctor’s implication.

When Rhys had healed me, it felt like a warm bath, flower petals blowing over me. Dr. Lin released her magic in a wave of bubbles, the perfect circles coming off her skin and becoming three-dimensional, popping on my flesh as the magic found its targets.

It itched, reminding me of hydrogen peroxide my mother would pour over skinned knees and elbows. When I winced, the doctor reached out, squeezing my shoulder.

Cade shifted, his eyes focused on where she was touching me, narrowed and annoyed.

“I didn’t know consorts could do that,” Elizabeth said, breaking the silence.

The doctor released another round of bubbles over my leg, the magic seeping in deep. I hissed, and Cade brushed the backs of his fingers against my temple, a brief touch that was gone quickly.

“Survive an attempt on their lives?” Cade asked sharply.

“Touch others’ magic,” Elizabeth corrected. “He grabbed hold of the lance.”

“Miles is special in many ways,” Cade said ambiguously. But I heard the tension in his voice. He didn’t know how I had done that either.

“Yes, special,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “So you’re saying that not all consorts can do that?”

“I’m saying that you wanted to fight a consort, and you did,” Cade said.