Pressing the bottle to his lips, she steadied her trembling hands before pouring some of the liquid into his mouth. Her heart pounded as she waited for him to swallow before giving him more.
When the bottle was empty, she stroked his cheek with her thumb as she tried to calm her racing heart. He was too cold to the touch. Far too cold, and his lips had taken on a blue hue.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” she commanded before kissing him.
Laying him gently back on the pillows, she slid off the bed. She ran into the bathroom, scrubbed her hands, and gathered as many towels as she could before returning to Cole. With tender care, she placed the towels around him to be ready for when she pulled out the sword.
Resting her hands on his back, she carefully shifted him again so she could see the sword embedded in him and the wound in his side. She blinked away the tears blurring her eyes.
He’d been so brutalized and beaten, but he was still alive, which was more than she could say for his enemies. And if the leaders of the rebellion weren’t already dead, she’d kill them herself.
But they were dead, and she had to make sure Cole survived. She shifted him again, so the blade rested against the bed but wasn’t digging into it. It couldn’t get stuck in the mattress.
Taking a deep breath, she wiped her palms on the clean sheets of the bed before gripping the hilt of the sword. She stared at Cole’s pale, handsome face as she tried to gather the courage to remove the blade.
No matter what she did, this was going to hurt him, and even though she’d given him the potion, he would not heal while the weapon remained inside him. She braced herself and pulled, but the sword didn’t budge.
She couldn’t get enough leverage to pull the sword free. After readjusting him a little, she pulled again, but the blade still wouldn’t budge. Biting her lip, she shoved aside her frustration as she resisted her impulse to jerk on it; that would only hurt him more.
She studied Cole and the sword. She might be able to get it free if she placed her foot against his chest and pulled on it, but she couldn’t do that to him.
Finally, she admitted she would need help to remove it.
Reluctantly, she crawled off the bed, returned to the outer door, moved the chair, and cracked the door open. Niall stood on the other side with his legs braced apart and his arms crossed over his chest.
Beyond him, the hall was empty, but someone could be lurking there. When Niall glanced at her over his shoulder, the stony countenance of his face eased a little.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I need your help,” she whispered.
“Cole?”
“He’s fine, but I can’t get the sword out.”
She stepped back enough for Niall to enter. She studied the hall, but if there were a dark fae out there, she wouldn’t see them if they were hiding in the shadows.
She hoped the palace would know and alert them to someone trying to approach, but she wasn’t exactly sure how this place worked. The magic and mayhem here were all a fantastic mystery, but one that could backfire on her if she trusted it too much.
Lexi closed the door, locked it, and positioned the chair against it again. It was then she realized Niall wasn’t in the room.
Chapter Sixteen
Lexi ran into the bedroom and skidded to a halt when she discovered Niall standing beside the bed. He wasn’t doing anything other than standing there, studying Cole, but she stalked over to stand protectively near Cole. She climbed back onto the bed and rested her hand on Cole’s shoulder.
“He’s going to survive,” Niall said. “If he’s made it this far, he’ll survive. No other dark fae would still be breathing.”
She didn’t tell him about Brokk having survived a fae sword through the heart, but then Brokk hadn’t been this badly injured.
“Yes, he is,” she agreed. “I’ll hold him while you pull it out.”
“He doesn’t have much left, but there’s going to be a lot of blood.”
“I know. I gave him a healing potion and have the towels to help stop the flow.”
He didn’t ask where she’d gotten the potion from, and for that, she was grateful. Cole trusts him, she reminded herself.
She held Cole as Niall gripped the sword’s hilt. When he gave her a small nod, her hands tightened on Cole before he pulled the blade free. She tried not to wince as metal scraped bone and Cole grunted.
As soon as the blade was out, blood poured from the wounds. Lexi snatched up the towels and pressed them against his chest and back in an attempt to staunch the flow. Niall set the sword aside and knelt on the bed beside her. When he reached for one of the towels, she almost snatched it away, but the look on his face caused some of her tension to ease.
She let him lift the towel from the bed and reluctantly removed her hand from Cole’s chest. Niall held the cloth against Cole’s chest while she kept the other against his back. With her free hand, she lifted another towel and pressed it to the hole in his side.
The injuries to his bicep, shoulder, and forearm had already started to heal. Blood seeped from them, but his skin had knitted closed over both.
The wounds he sustained before the fae metal pierced his heart were healing faster than the ones he received during and after the sword went through his heart. The fae metal hadn’t killed him, but it was slowing his healing ability.
She released the towel and kept it lying there as she leaned over Cole to lift another potion from the bedside table. To remove the stopper, she had to let the towel go.
When she did, Niall picked it up and held it against the wound. Lexi tipped Cole’s head back and poured some more potion into his mouth. When he had no other choice, he swallowed the liquid.
She put the stopper back in the empty bottle and set it on the table before brushing back some of Cole’s hair. Some of the color had returned to his face, but he was still far too pale for her liking. Though his lips weren’t blue anymore, they were still the bloodless color of a corpse.
His skin was still cool to the touch but warmer than before. As she ran her fingers over his cheeks, she relished the roughness of the stubble lining his cheeks. It felt real and solid beneath her hands; that was something she needed right now.
“You’re a witch?” Niall asked.
Lexi hesitated before answering. If he believed she was a witch, he might be less likely to try something. Cole trusts him, she reminded herself yet again.
And so far, he’d done nothing other than try to save his king. No, not just his king; he considered Cole a friend too. That much was obvious.
She had no one else to trust in this realm. She might as well give at least a little faith to this man, who’d earned it.
“No, but I know one,” she said.
She took the towel away from Niall again and tossed the blood-soaked cloth onto the floor. Then she plucked a clean one from the bed and held it against Cole’s back while she used her other hand to press down on the towel against his side. The blood didn’t drench the towels as fast as before.
She wanted to take that as a good sign, but she was scared it was because Cole didn’t have much blood left in him. When the cloths soaked through, she and Niall changed them out again.
Over the next hour, Cole’s blood stopped flowing enough that they didn’t require the towels, and the wounds to his shoulder, bicep, and forearm completely healed. When Niall helped her maneuver Cole to clean his injuries and examine them more closely, she saw his flesh was closing over all three of the awful holes in him.