#Chapter 370 – Unleashing the Flame
Ella
I fall into a little daze as I watch Hank work, as I hold my sleeping baby in my arms. It’s not that I’m not paying attention – it’s just that…I don’t really understand what they’re doing or saying, so to me it’s all just quiet repetitive work.
I do pay attention, of course, when Hank deems Cora patched up enough to roll her over onto her side so that they can perform an ultrasound. Cora gives a low moan when the nurses move her, a sound which at once pains me and gives me a little thrill of hope. Because as much as I hate to hear my sister in pain –
Damn it, at least it means she’s alive. I watch carefully as the nurses hold her still, as Hank expertly spreads some clear jelly on her stomach and then begins to search for a heartbeat. Then I bury my head in my hand a few moments later when he finds it – a fast, faint fluttering of noise. My little niece or nephew, still fighting for life.
I drag my hand away from my face a moment later to see Hank nodding to his nurses and Cora lowered back on her belly. Then, Hank turns to me, pulling off his gloves as he crosses the room and falls into a crouch so that we can be almost face-to-face while I stay seated.
“You saw?” he asks, looking up at me a little from his lowered place on the floor. “Yes,” I reply, nodding sharply. “The baby is alive, but – ”
“Right,” he says, glancing back towards Cora. “It’s – it’s not preferable, obviously, for a mother to be so gravely wounded so early in a pregnancy. Frequently the body will decide…” he sighs and shakes his head, trying to come up with the right words. He looks up at me as he finishes his thought, “the body will sometimes decide, Ella, to prioritize the mother.”
“So miscarriage…” I say, looking over at my sister.
“There’s a higher risk of it right now, yes. Ella,” he says again, his voice curious now, drawing my eyes back to him. “Did Cora ever mention to you the possibility…”
“Yes,” I say, nodding, knowing where he’s going with this. “I can do it, Hank but, the people who hurt us in the woods – “I shake my head, realizing that he’s not going to understand what I’m talking about if I start babbling on about priests in dark robes and the God of Darkness. “As we were getting away they they bound my gift and my wolf,” I say, giving a little shrug. “T tried to heal her in the car, but I couldn’t access the gift.”
“Really,” Hank says, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “So you can – you can actually like, use it to heal people – to heal wounds like that -”
I narrow my eyes at Hank suddenly, a little disturbed by his curiosity about the gift when we should be concentrating on helping my sister. What, really, is he asking me here?
“Sorry,” Hank says, putting his hands up in a little plea for forgiveness. “I’m I’m just a doctor, Ella. It’s all I really do, try to fix bodies. The idea of being able to wield medicine like that – it’s a dream. But please forgive my professional distraction.”
I let out a little sigh and nod, my eyes moving back to Cora, wanting to move on from it.
“Well,” Hank says, standing up to his feet and looking at Cora himself. “It would help Cora, and the baby, a lot, if you were able to…I don’t know, Ella, unbind the gift? I know a lot about wolf biology, but not a lot about the religion or the magic of it all. Is there anyway to get around this? Perhaps one of the priestesses of the Goddess, your mother? Could they help you get…in touch with her? Ask for her aid or something?”
My eyes flash to him suddenly as I realize that – that Hank may have stumbled on something here.
“That’s…a really good idea, Hank,” I say, getting quickly to my feet and looking around the room. “Can I use a phone, please?”
He nods to the computer and the phone in the corner of the room. “Of course, Ella,” he says. “The entire facility is at your disposal.” He glances back towards Cora now. “I’m going to run some tests,” he murmurs, taking a deep breath and steeling himself.” Let’s update each other, if we have news?”
I nod eagerly to Hank and then carry Rafe over to the little computer in the corner, where I open a web browser and begin to search for the contact information of the temple in the center of our city, hopping to hell the priestesses there can do something to help.
Sinclair
The priest before us sweeps a fist out in front of him, his teeth bared in determination as he sends a sheet of flame racing towards us. Roger, in mid- leap, takes the hit first, yelping and turning away as the fire burns him, singing the edges of his fur but burning out before it gets deep enough to actually hurt his flesh.
I crouch defensively, my roar of attack turning into one of pain as I turn my back to the fire but feel it curling at my clothes, my skin, the back of my neck – a deep and searing touch that’s gone after an instant as the wave passes me.
Then, cringing at the sound of my men behind me likewise taking the brunt of the flame, I turn back to the priest and stand again, coming back to Roger’s side.
“I’ll do it again,” the priest says, his teeth gritted as he glares at us. “I will burn you until your charred skeletons are all that are left -”
“You won’t,” I snap, taking another step towards him. “Or else you’d have done it by now.”
Something flashes in the Priest’s eye – frustration, I think, in being caught out. Roger, understanding my point, bares his teeth and begins to prowl forward now.
“You’re weakening,” I say, considering the priest carefully as we advance and he takes slow steps backwards away from us. “I don’t know why,” I continue, my shoulders hunching now as I prepare my attack. “Maybe you burned out your energy on that illusion below – maybe your magic was amplified by your connection to the other priests. They’re all dead, by the way.”
I watch carefully when I see the priest flinch at this information, wondering at the effect. “It doesn’t matter,” the priest snarls.” I will take you out, and your men will fall without their leader -”
Slowly, I just shake my head. “No. They fight for more than me,” I say, my hands itching to turn into claws now, my teeth aching to be fangs. But I hold back, wanting to keep him talking wanting to get whatever information I can. “Even if I died, they’d take you to defend their Luna. To defend their future King.”
The priest begins to laugh now, a dirty, hysterical thing. “Wasted,” he says, the words ripping victoriously from his teeth. “Your Luna is dead now, Alpha,” he says, “as is yours, and your pathetic little mutt with her,” he laughs, turning to Roger now.
Roger loses it then, crouching to leap, but I grab him by the scruff before he can. Because, while the priest’s words make me want to tear him to pieces as well, we still need more. We need to know about his master.
“And what will happen to you,” I say slowly as Roger winds himself back in. ” When you are dead. Who will mourn you? This master to whom you’ve sold your life?”
“The Master is nothing anymore,” the Priest says, his back almost literally against a wall now, and realizing that he’s out of space, he crouches and begins to prepare again, the fires that have never left his hands burning harder, hotter now. “The Master is gone now = he has his boy, and so our service to him is done. If I die today, it is the will of the Dark God. And I,” he says slowly now, his face lit from beneath by the light of his flames, “I will relish his gift of death.”
And then, with a scream that tears through the hall and makes all of us flinch, the priest unleashes his flames, burning himself out and willing himself to take all of us with him.
Roger roars, leaping directly for the fire that threatens to consume us all – But I beat him to it, my wolf taking over my body and surging in front of him in front of all my men brunt of the flame.
