Page 187 of The Lost Ones

“She’s already said several times that she couldn’t come back and we’re the only reason that she did.” Kai replies his voice filled with even more worry.

“What does she do?” Kysen asks sounding confused.

“She can lock her emotions and her pain away. So she knows she should be feeling an emotion or she knows that what just happened should really hurt but she doesn’t feel it.” I explain.

“Fuck. That could be really dangerous.” He agrees understanding immediately.

“We’ll just keep talking to her and offering her support and comfort. Hopefully that will be enough to stop her from retreating until Levi wakes up.” I say hopefully.

“Alright lets get this on. You guys were a hell of a lot quicker than you should’ve been so that’s bought us a bit more time but I still don’t want to push it.” Kysen says and we follow him over to the fire, which he’s relit.

He rummages around in his bag which is placed by the fire and pulls out a large reddish brown stone. He says something in latin and the stone disappears, crumbling into dust but now above the fire is a tepee style contraption with a large, round and flat cast iron dish suspended from chains attached to the tepee and only about two inches deep.

“I have never need that spell before. I normally just buy simple stuff that doesn’t need cooking and hunt. I never do anything that requires me to actually use a cooking pot. My mother is ever hopeful that I’ll at least attempt to try to cook though and follow in my brothers footsteps. She doesn’t understand why I want to protect the realms and thinks that I’m just doing it because that’s what my friends are doing.” Kysen speaks as he starts making the salve.

“My mother was the same when I joined the army straight out of school.” I chuckle.

“I did join because that’s where they were going, we’re family and we stick together you know?” He asks and we all nod. We get that. “It was more than that. I wanted to protect people and to help keep the law. I wanted to be someone that the people of the Fae and Demon world especially could trust. There’s a lot of corruption in the Enforcer ranks and of course the political ranks. I want to try and counteract that as much as damn possible and my brothers fortunately feel the same.”

I catch Sage’s lips twitch into a tiny smile, showing that she is listening to us and hasn’t lost herself. Kysen is going to make an amazing Bondedmate to Cole and I can only assume that his brothers are as awesome as he is. I’m glad he’s going to be sticking around after this.

“They sound like good guys.” Kai comments, “I can’t wait to meet them.”

“Hopefully you guys will after this.” He replies, throwing the last couple of ingredients into the cast iron pot.

“Looks like you’ve had to do this a few times before.” Maverick comments as Kysen reaches for the last few ingredients.

“I haven’t actually. It’s not really my forte, one of my brothers usually takes care of this sort of stuff he’s got a knack with pretty much all spells and potions that require ingredients. He specialises in alchemy. He’s told me,” he pauses very briefly, “I mean given me erm notes. So I can do it. This is ready.” He finishes quickly.

He’s done a couple of things now that make me think that there’s more to him than he’s let on. Sage trusts him though and we trust Sage so questioning him can wait until after Levi is ok.

He will be ok.

Maverick

“Are you ready?” Kysen asks me.

My heart beat quickens in my chest. I have never been good at being put on the spot so much so that in any spoken exams I am guaranteed to fail despite knowing all of the material and getting an A if it was a written exam. I don’t think ‘no’ is the answer he’s looking for though so I nod firmly. It’s about the only response I can give right now.

Kysen eyes me suspiciously clearly knowing I’m bullshitting.

“Good.” He says.

I can honestly say we’re going to be lifelong friends from this point forward. If he had called me on my nervousness it would’ve made it a thousand times worse. His eyes go unfocused slightly before he turns back to me. He’s done something similar a couple of times now and I’m starting to have questions. They can wait though, Levi can’t.

“Ok, so all you need to do is focus your magic on the salve and what you want it to do its pretty simple. Don’t focus on the wound though just salve and that you want it to pull the poison out of the wound and heal it. The wound will reject your magic if you focus on that and then reject the salve, it’s like a chain reaction. When it looks like it’s working then you can stop and hopefully you guys will be able to use the Bond link in order to heal him fully. There is a chance that your magic won’t be strong enough,” Kysen says, speaking calmly and rationally adding in the information that other people wouldn’t need but I do in order to calm mynerves so I can focus. Facts and information soothe me, I’m aware that’s odd.

“Ok.” I say simply.

I watch as Kysen puts the salve all over the bite. Levi’s back arches as his face contorts with pain, he makes no sound though and I think that might be worse than if he was screaming. Being in so much pain that you can’t make a single sound is infinitely worse.

Kysen looks at me grimly and nods as soon as Levi’s body settles back down, rigid with pain still but not contorting at the moment. I take a deep breath trying to find my calm and reach to the place where my magic resides.

I know I can do this, I healed Sage.

The longer it takes me to find my magic and pull it forward the more nervous I get and the harder it becomes to focus. I hear shuffling around me and I start to get angry with myself for letting everybody down. My hands start to shake as my panic at not being able to help Levi starts to overwhelm me. I haven’t had a full blown panic attack for years but when one started to surface Levi was always the one to talk me back. My brain speeds through all of the possible scenarios and outcomes to what I’m trying to do and of course thanks to my panic it starts with the worse case ones first, which only succeeds in making my panic worse.

My eyes snap open as I feel hands, too soft and too small to be the guys cradle my cheeks. My hands move to hers and hold them to my face, already her presence and focus calming my racing heart.