Page 7 of Where Lightning Strikes Twice (Fated Mates, Stubborn Hearts #2)

Zara manages a rough landing on a narrow ledge, immediately collapsing from eagle form to human.

The transformation is usually fluid and graceful, but this one is jagged with pain.

Blood stains her tunic where the second arrow grazed her side, but it’s her arm that concerns me most. The wing injury has manifested as a deep laceration from shoulder to elbow, exposing muscle and glimpses of bone, but it is the angry black blood oozing from it that is the most damning evidence of a poison spreading through her bloodstream.

I land beside her, shifting back to human form in an instant. “Let me see,” I say, gently examining her wounds.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she says through gritted teeth, a brave lie we both recognize.

“Since when do wolves work with ground-dwellers?” I ask, trying to distract her as I tear strips from my tunic to bind her wounds. The makeshift bandages soak through with blood almost immediately.

“They don’t,” she says, hissing as I tighten the binding. “Or they didn’t. Something’s changed.”

I help her into the cave, a shallow space barely large enough for both of us. Inside, cached supplies provide basic medical provisions—herbs for pain, clean bandages, water. I work methodically, cleaning her wounds as best I can with our limited resources.

“The bleeding won’t stop,” I mutter, applying pressure to her arm. The wound is too deep, too complex for field medicine. Storm Eagles heal faster than humans, but some injuries require more than time and natural recovery.

Zara watches my face, reading my concern. “How bad?”

I’ve never lied to her. I won’t start now. “Bad. The arrow severed tendons. And there seems to have been some toxin on the arrowhead. Without proper treatment…” I don’t finish the sentence. I don’t need to.

Without proper treatment, she’ll never fly again and may very well lose her life.

“We need to get you back to the aerie,” I say, securing the last bandage. “The healers?—”

“Won’t be able to fix this,” she finishes for me. “Kael, you know as well as I do that our healers are skilled with broken bones and superficial wounds. This is beyond their capabilities.”

She’s right. Our healers work with traditional methods—herbal remedies, spiritual practices, and the occasional storm magic enhancement. They excel at treating the common injuries of our people, but the precision damage to Zara’s wing exceeds their experience.

“Then we find another way,” I say, the decision crystallizing even as I speak. “There are other healers.”

Zara’s eyes widen as she realizes what I’m suggesting. “Ground-dwellers? You can’t be serious.”

“They have medical technology we don’t. Techniques for repairing nerve and tissue damage.”

“And you think they’ll just help a Storm Eagle?” She shakes her head, then winces at the movement. “They’ll kill me on sight—or worse, capture me for study.”

“Not all of them,” I say, the image of the female healer from the raid rising unbidden in my mind. Something about her had been different. Something that might now represent Zara’s only hope.

“You’re thinking of her, aren’t you?” Zara asks, her perceptiveness undiminished by pain. “The healer you mentioned.”

I don’t deny it. “I saw her working on the wounded after our raid. She’s skilled, dedicated. Different from the others.”

“Different how?”

I struggle to articulate what I sensed. “Most ground-dwellers fear us. Hate us. She was afraid, yes, but there was curiosity too. Intelligence. And something else…”

“Something else,” Zara repeats, studying my face. A flash of understanding crosses her features. “Kael, is she…?”

“No,” I say firmly, cutting off the question before she can voice it. “It’s nothing like that. She’s just a healer who might be willing to help.”

Zara doesn’t look convinced, but pain overtakes her skepticism as a fresh wave of blood seeps through her bandages. Her face, already pale from blood loss, turns ashen.

“We need to move fast,” I say, making my decision. “The wolves will be tracking us. We can’t stay here, and you can’t make it back to the aerie in this condition.”

“What are you suggesting?” she asks, though I think she already knows.

“I’m taking you to her. To the settlement medical facility.”

“That’s insane,” she whispers, but there’s no strength behind the protest. We both know she’s running out of options. “The council will exile you for this. Viktor will use it to challenge your leadership.”

“Let him try,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “I’m still Stormwright. I make the difficult choices no one else will.”

The truth is, I’m terrified. Not of Viktor’s political maneuvering or the council’s judgment, but of losing Zara. She’s more than my sister—she’s my conscience, my advisor, my link to a time before leadership consumed my identity. I can withstand exile or challenge, but not her loss.

“If we’re doing this,” Zara says after a long moment, “we go tonight. Under cover of darkness.”

I nod, relieved she isn’t fighting me on this. “Can you hold out until then?”

“I’ll have to.” She attempts a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“If this healer of yours turns out to be our enemy, don’t let them take me alive.” Her golden eyes, so like our mother’s, hold mine with fierce intensity. “I won’t become a specimen in their laboratories.”

The request sends ice through my veins, but I understand it. I would ask the same in her position.

“It won’t come to that,” I promise. “But if it does… You have my word.”

We spend the remaining daylight hours in tense waiting.

I dress Zara’s wounds again, administer pain-relieving herbs, and watch as she drifts in and out of consciousness.

Her condition is deteriorating faster than I anticipated.

By the time dusk falls, her skin burns with fever, and her breathing has grown shallow.

I gather her in my arms, cradling her against my chest. She feels smaller than I remember, fragile in a way that contradicts everything I know about my fierce, independent sister.

“Stay with me,” I murmur as I carry her to the cave entrance. The sky has darkened to deep indigo, stars appearing in the eastern quadrant. Perfect conditions for an approach from above—dark enough to conceal our movement, but with enough starlight to navigate.

Shifting with an injured passenger is one of the most challenging techniques in Storm Eagle training.

It requires perfect control of the transformation, maintaining human consciousness while eagle instincts scream to reject the unnatural burden.

I’ve practiced it, but never under these conditions, never with stakes so high.

I close my eyes, concentrating on the partial shift—human body, eagle wings.

Pain lances across my back as massive golden wings erupt from my shoulder blades, tearing through skin and muscle before extending to their full span.

I stagger under the conflicting anatomies, forcing my body to stabilize in this hybrid form.

With Zara secure in my arms, I step to the edge of the ledge. The settlement lies miles away, across territory now potentially hostile with wolf-human patrols. One mistake, one moment of weakness, and we both fall to our deaths.

“For our parents,” I whisper, invoking the memory that has guided me since I became leader. “For our people.”

I leap into the darkness, wings catching the night air with a powerful downstroke. Zara moans softly as the movement jostles her wounds, but doesn’t wake. Perhaps that’s a blessing.

The journey passes in a blur of pain and determination.

My hybrid form burns energy at an unsustainable rate, muscles screaming as I force them to perform beyond their limits.

Twice, I must land, collapsing onto hidden ledges to recover strength before continuing.

Twice, I check Zara’s pulse, finding it weaker each time.

Finally, the lights of the settlement appear in the distance—a constellation of artificial stars spread across the valley floor.

I circle high above, scanning for the medical facility I observed during our raids.

There—a large structure set apart from the main settlement, illuminated with bright lights even at this late hour.

I spiral lower, watching for guards, defense systems, anything that might prevent our approach. The settlement’s perimeter bristles with weaponry, but the medical facility sits slightly apart, its security more focused on ground approaches than aerial threats.

Landing without being seen requires precision I can barely muster in my exhausted state. I select a shadowed area behind the facility, near what appears to be a service entrance. With a final, painful effort, I angle my descent into the darkness.

My landing is anything but graceful. My legs buckle as I touch down, nearly sending Zara tumbling from my arms. I manage to cradle her against my chest, absorbing the impact with my shoulder instead.

An involuntary cry escapes me as I collapse against the wall of the building, wings dissolving back into my human form in a shower of golden light.

For several breaths, I simply kneel there, cradling Zara and fighting unconsciousness. Her breathing has grown so shallow I can barely detect it. Her skin burns against mine, fever raging through her system.

I’ve run out of time. Out of options.

Just as I begin to fear I’ve made a fatal miscalculation, I place my palm against the lock, channeling a focused charge through the metal. The lock mechanism heats and shatters with a muted crack.

The door swings open silently. I step inside with Zara in my arms, following the scent that led me here—her scent, the healer from the raid.

I find her in the main treatment area, alone, working at her station. She hasn’t heard me enter.

“Help her,” I croak, my voice rough with exhaustion. “Please.”

She spins toward me, nearly dropping the vial in her hand. I recognize her instantly. The healer from the raid. The woman whose eyes met mine across the battlefield. Her scent confirms what my eyes tell me—this is her, the one who called to something deep within me.

She hasn’t seen me yet, as I am still cloaked in darkness. I step forward from the shadows, Zara cradled against my chest.

“Help her,” I repeat my heartfelt plea.

The healer’s eyes widen in shock, fear, then recognition. She sees me—truly sees me—as she did during the raid. But this time, there’s more. Her gaze drops to Zara’s broken form, professional assessment overtaking her initial alarm.

“Bring her to the lab,” she says after a heartbeat of decision. “Quickly.”

I follow her deeper into the building, crossing the threshold that separates our worlds. Everything I am—leader, warrior, Storm Eagle—falls away in this moment. I am simply a brother desperate to save his sister, placing her life in the hands of someone who should be my enemy.

The healer—Elena, I hear someone call her as we pass through the corridor—leads me to a secluded treatment room, away from the main facility.

“Put her on the table,” she instructs, already gathering supplies, activating equipment I don’t recognize.

I lay Zara down as gently as possible, reluctant to release her even now. “Save her,” I say, the words somewhere between command and plea. “Whatever it costs, whatever you require in return—save her.”

Elena looks up from her preparations, her eyes meeting mine with unexpected steadiness. In this moment of crisis, the fear I glimpsed earlier has vanished, replaced by professional focus and something else—compassion, perhaps.

“I’ll do everything I can,” she promises, moving to examine Zara’s wounds. “But you need to understand—I don’t know if your physiology will respond to our treatments. I’ve never treated a Storm Eagle before.”

“No one has,” I say grimly. “Those who fall in battle, we recover. Those we cannot recover, we do not permit to be taken alive.”

She absorbs this information with a slight nod, then turns her full attention to Zara. Her hands move with precise efficiency, cutting away the blood-soaked bandages, assessing the damage beneath.

“The wound is deep, with significant tissue and nerve damage,” she says. “She’s lost a dangerous amount of blood. I need to start fluids immediately and prepare for surgery.”

I watch as she inserts needles into Zara’s arm, connecting tubes that carry clear liquid from hanging bags. Medical technology we’ve observed but never experienced firsthand.

“Will she fly again?” I ask the question that matters most to any Storm Eagle.

Elena’s hands pause briefly. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “But without intervention, she’ll die within hours.”

I nod, appreciating her directness. “Then do what you must.”

As she works, I stand guard by the door, alert for any sound that might indicate discovery. I’ve placed us both in terrible danger—Zara at the mercy of ground-dweller medicine, myself in violation of our most sacred laws. If we’re discovered, death might be the kindest outcome.

“Why did you come to me?” Elena asks as she prepares surgical instruments. “Why risk everything to seek help from an enemy?”

I consider lying, creating some strategic explanation, but exhaustion strips away pretense.

“Because when I saw you during the raid, I recognized something in you. Something different from the others.” I meet her gaze directly. “And because she’s my sister. I would break every law, violate every tradition, to save her.”

Something shifts in Elena’s expression—respect, perhaps, or recognition of a shared value. Whatever calculations she’s making behind those intelligent eyes, she reaches some conclusion that seems to satisfy her.

“I’m going to need your help,” she says. “Your sister’s anatomy is similar to humans’, but with significant differences. You’ll need to guide me through the surgery.”

I step closer to the table where Zara lies unconscious. “Tell me what to do.”

As Elena begins the delicate work of repairing my sister’s shattered wing-arm, I find myself in the unprecedented position of collaborating with a ground-dweller healer.

Our enemies, our prey, the beings we’ve dismissed as inferior for generations.

Yet here, in this sterile room with Zara’s life hanging in the balance, none of that matters.

Only later will I fully comprehend how this night changes everything—for me, for Elena, for the future of our peoples. For now, there is only the desperate hope that my sister will live to fly again, and the strange sense that I’ve found something I didn’t know I was seeking.