Page 52 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

Chapter Fifteen

M iranda had never known true terror.

Not before this moment. Devin was unconscious, too much blood oozing from the wound in his side, soaking his clothes, leeching into her.

Water dripped from her hair to dilute the puddle gathering beneath them.

Dread seeped into her very bones as she screamed for help.

For those first precious seconds while she held him, the icy reality threatened to break her. He may not survive this.

She could lose him.

After that, time passed differently. Miranda lifted Devin to the bed.

Servants were drawn to the noise and one of them sent for the Watchmen.

Another sent for a doctor, hopefully a Healer.

There weren’t many Day Fae with the gift of healing, even less that sought to use that gift for others, but even as she was desperately trying not to think it, she feared magic was the only way to save him.

She couldn’t lose him now .

Not after everything. Not when things were finally going right.

She defeated the bad guy. She stopped the evil plot.

She rescued her sister. This was supposed to be the happily ever after part of the fairy tale.

She was going to marry him and live a life of adventure and maybe someday have children with pointed ears and aura sight who she could love with every ounce of her heart so that they never grew up hating who they were.

And she would love Devin. She did love him.

All that couldn’t just be…over.

Miranda knew a little about dressing wounds, her training had always been on how best to keep her body functioning during battle.

But there were limited supplies here. Only sheets and clothes and towels.

She hadn’t thought to ask the butler or ring for a footman for aid.

She hadn’t thought of anything in the last hour beyond her fear that he might stop breathing.

Her first aid was amateur, but she was able to keep him stable.

Pressure. Keep the wound clean. Monitor him until help arrived.

She paced at the edge of the bed. Why couldn’t she just…attack this problem? There should be a way to fight Death. She would win. She was too fueled by the absolute terror of losing the person who had become her everything.

Voices outside the door drew her attention, the muted tones of an argument just outside.

“Nonsense, I’m sure it’s fine,” Captain Blair’s voice carried over all the others, “We’re his only friends, damn it.”

“Miranda is in there, Gideon.” Rachel’s voice, softer but she must have been close enough to the door for it to carry anyway.

“And? Does she have dibs on his final moments because they’re hooking up?”

A thud.

“What the hell was that for?”

“Just lower your voice.”

“But I may have a way to help, did you even consider—”

Miranda threw the door open and Captain Blair turned, mid-word, from Rachel to her.

“You have a way to help?” Miranda didn’t bother with introductions. This was a time to be rude.

His eyes darted away and he raised a shoulder. “I said… may . As in, maybe. Or, rather, depends on what we’re looking at.”

“May we come in?” Rachel asked, kindly.

“If you think you could help.” Miranda moved out of his way.

“What happened?” Captain Blair searched the room, investigating. He stopped when he reached the bed, eyes lingering on Devin.

Devin let out a shallow breath and the Captain moved on.

He examined the door—splintered, destroyed—then leaned past the doorframe where Miranda’s bath waited, cold and stained crimson. “What in the fuck happened here?”

“Graves stabbed him,” Miranda said, not bothering to look anywhere but Devin. She set her hand on his chest gently, waiting until she felt the slow, feeble rise of breath.

“Where?” Rachel kneeled on the bed. She was already unwrapping Miranda’s attempt at a bandage.

“He’s lost a lot of blood and I’m worried that something internal was damaged. We’re always taught to protect that area of the abdomen, because a strike there could be fatal. My hope is that we got lucky.”

Rachel craned her head, hands already smeared in blood—Devin’s blood. Miranda froze, icy fingers of dread squeezing her heart until she thought it would burst.

Rachel looked back up from the wound, her eyes soft with compassion. “I…I’m not a doctor.”

“But?”

When she met Miranda’s eyes there was a sadness in them that said more than her words. “But I don’t think we got lucky.”

Miranda got up and punched the wall, the plaster and parts of her crumbling to the floor.

“I was afraid of that,” The Captain said, ignoring the gory scene in the other chamber. He crossed his arms, looking down at his friend. “We found a lot in that warehouse. All of Graves’s research into the potion intended to give fae Divine blood.”

“What does that have to do with Devin?” Miranda snapped.

The Captain raised his hands in surrender, but kept talking without a change in his demeanor.

“Just that what we learned so far is that the potion isn’t permanent, the effects wear off after a few hours, a day or two at most. There’s a high risk of death, though.

Even after they got the potion stable, it still risked killing the subject when first injected.

”“Again. Why the fuck does this matter?” She took a threatening step toward him.

He sighed. “Apparently, that first injection accelerates everything. Cell growth, metabolism, a bunch of other shit I can’t remember the name of.

It’s like adrenaline, but times ten. That’s the part that kills you, but if you survive it then you become the strongest race in our world.

And there was one case,” Now, Captain Blair addressed Miranda directly, with a mixture of pleading and despair in his dark eyes.

“ One subject was recorded to have healed, very quickly, during that phase.”

Miranda felt like her heart could finally beat again.

“Why are we waiting? Did you bring any?”

“Because it’s one case in hundreds of trials,” Captain Blair said, “And it could kill him faster.”

“I don’t think it matters,” she tried not to sob mid-sentence, but she had not expected hope to enter into this so easily. There was a chance. A real chance. “Either he dies without it, or he maybe dies with it.”

Captain Blair turned to Rachel. ““Is that it? Do you see any new angle or are we down to untested psycho lab potions and nothing else?”

Rachel was trying to wipe her hands clean with a napkin from the food tray. “I’m afraid so. Unless you want to wait till a doctor gets here to confirm.”

“I don’t think he has that kind of time. We can’t sit around discussing this!” Miranda yelled.

“She gets a say, Gideon,” Rachel said, both of them completely ignoring Miranda.

“Says who? We barely know her. We don’t know what their relationship was. For all we know, she wants him dead and this is just a convenient way to keep her hands clean.”

Had this been a different situation, Miranda might have responded to the accusation reasonably. After all, Captain Blair had known Devin first. They were friends. He did not know Miranda or her intentions.

But she was not in the mood for bullshit.

“She’s going to hit you and I’m not going to stop her,” Rachel murmured just before Miranda grabbed Captain Blair by the collar.

He was taller than her, and probably equal in strength, but he was no match for her fury or the all-consuming fear that tunneled her vision to one goal. One drive. Devin’s survival.

“Where is it?”

“I thought she would hit you,” Rachel’s voice again, and she made no move to protect her superior officer.

“I’m not really the type to respond to force or ultimatums. And, for the record, I feel like I’m being unjustly attacked. I don’t want to leap straight to a last resort when there might be a less lethal solution in front of us. I don’t want him to die, either.”

Miranda forced him against the wall, and he winced, but otherwise didn’t show any sign of losing his composure. “There isn’t time. And he can’t die, do you understand? If he dies because you were trying to tick off boxes on a checklist you won’t look much better than Graves.”

“ Holy shit , is that Yarrow Graves?” He glanced at the adjoining door to the crime scene in the dressing room. “You didn’t leave much to identify him by, visually anyway.”

“The potion, Blair. Where is it?” She pressed him harder into the wall, distantly aware that he wasn’t putting up any sort of fight. But she didn’t care about logic or reasoning. Devin might be dying.

Rachel’s hand closed on Miranda’s arm. Her grip was firm, squeezing, but her eyes were sympathetic as she said, “He’s not trying to be insensitive. He’s just like this. And I’m afraid I can’t let you kill him.” She did not remove her hand until Miranda let go.

Captain Blair adjusted his collar, like her iron grip had made it uncomfortable. “I can’t give away evidence in an investigation. There’re rules. I’m the captain. It’s not like I can just do what I want.”

“Then I’ll get it myself.”

He sighed, crossing his arms and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, if you were going to steal it, then you shouldn’t have mentioned it to me. But…”

Miranda stopped, but she didn’t turn around. She would hurt Captain Blair to get what she needed.

The thought left her cold. She would hurt him for the chance at saving Devin. The reality of it was starting to trickle in, covering the blinding fear. She took a steadying breath.

“But, there’s another option. Emmy, you were with me when I was reading all those notes.” It took Miranda a moment to figure out who the hell ‘Emmy’ could be, but Rachel was the one to respond.

“You fell asleep face first in those notes. I briefed you when we got the call about an attack at Devin’s home.”