They dressed me again, just in time to hear a knock on the door.
“Girls?” Avery called. “Is everybody decent?”
“Come in,” Kaitlyn called back. “Or we’re about to come out—Emma has a bite and we need to get her to the Healer.”
The door opened and Avery, Bran, and Lachlan came in.
“A Healer of the Sisters won’t help if there’s Fae magic involved,” Lachlan said, frowning.
“And I don’t think we have time to get her to the Healer, anyway.” Avery was giving me an extremely anxious look. “You okay, Emmers?” he asked gently, though I clearly wasn’t.
By that time, everything was starting to get blurry and I couldn’t stand on my own.
“Quickly, bring her out into the Common Room,” Lachlan said.
He and Bran took me from Kaitlyn and Megan and carried me over to one of the long, overstuffed couches.
“Did anyone count the spiders?” Lachlan asked, as they got settled with my head in his lap and my legs over Bran’s.
“Let me see!” Kaitlyn ran back into the room, though I knew she didn’t like spiders either, and began counting. After a moment, she ran out and said, “Sixteen! Exactly sixteen.”
“Damn.” Lachlan frowned. “I thought I knew what was going on but the count is off. “First there was one fly in Emma’s oatmeal, then two ants on her leg. After that four wasps—but now we’ve skipped up to sixteen.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“There were eight roaches in the bathroom,” Megan volunteered. “When Emma was taking a shower earlier,” she explained. “Eight of those big Palmetto Bugs came crawling up on the shower curtain—you guys were already in bed and she didn’t want to wake you up,” she added.
“Damn.” Lachlan’s face looked grim—grim and blurry, I thought. “I was hoping I was wrong.”
“What? What are you thinking?” Avery demanded.
“A doubling spell,” Bran murmured and Lachlan nodded.
“Someone—and I think we know who—has placed doubling magic on Emma. Every time the threat doubles, and every threat has double the danger.”
“But she had the wasps first and then the roaches. Wasps are more threatening than roaches, surely,” Griffin protested, frowning. He had been standing by with an arm around Megan, who was giving me a worried look.
“Not to us girls, they’re not!” Megan shivered. “I know they’re technically more dangerous, but wasps don’t freak me out nearly as much as roaches—especially those huge, awful, hairy ones that fly!”
I had to agree with her but I still didn’t understand quite what was going on or what we were going to do about it.
“Can you…help me?” I asked Lachlan dizzily. “Don’t…feel so good.”
“I think she was bitten by one of the black widows,” Avery said, frowning anxiously. “Their venom has an immediate effect. It takes a while with the brown recluse.”
“I can’t heal you completely, but Bran and I can help you share the pain and the venom,” Lachlan said and Bran nodded. “But…” He frowned.
“But what?” I asked faintly. I was honestly feeling worse and worse.
“But you’ll have to Mark us as well. Only through a complete connection can we share your pain and help with your healing, little one.”
He looked disturbed at the thought, but I didn’t hesitate a bit.
“Yes, okay.” I looked at Megan, knowing she would have something I could use to prick my thumb. She did Blood Magic, after all, so she always had something handy.
Wordlessly, she handed me an old-fashion silver hairpin with a teardrop shaped red pearl at one end of it and a needle-sharp point on the other.
“Are you sure about this, Emmers?” Avery asked anxiously. “If you Mark the two of them after they’ve both Marked you, everyone’s going to know it.”
“Don’t…care.” I was already stabbing the sharp hairpin into the pad of my thumb. The little pain hardly registered with me—I was fading fast and I needed to get this done. I beckoned for Bran, who was still holding my legs.
The tall blond Fae leaned forward, giving me his forehead.
“Bran,” I whispered. “You’re mine and I’m yours.” Then I pressed my bleeding thumb to the spot between his eyes.
The feeling of being in the middle of a snowstorm made my whole body shiver and I saw a glimmering light—like a tiny star—appear on Bran’s forehead when I pulled my hand away.
I felt my connection to the blond Fae strengthen at once but I wasn’t done yet.
Pricking my thumb with the hairpin again, I beckoned to Lachlan. The dark Fae leaned over me, but kept just out of reach.
“Are you sure, little one?” he asked hoarsely. “Bran is a High Sidhe of the Summer Court. You will bring no shame on yourself by Marking him. I, on the other hand…”
“You are mine too. And I’m yours,” I said firmly, if a bit dizzily. “Come here, Lachlan. Hurry!”
I was feeling worse and worse and in fact, it was starting to get difficult to breathe.
Lachlan seemed to sense my pain because he leaned forward quickly and let me press my thumb to his forehead, right between his eyes.
The snowstorm feeling came over me again but this time, both of my guys were there with me—the three of us naked in the storm, as snowflakes kissed our bare skin and we held each other tight…
Then we were back in the Common Room and I could see a softly glowing star on Lachlan’s forehead.
“Now we three are one,” he said, looking at me and then at Bran. “We can help our lady to bear this pain and diffuse the poison of the bite.”
He took one of my hands and Bran took the other and both of them closed their eyes.
At once it became easier to breathe and the throbbing pain on the side of my neck, which had been growing and growing, eased considerably. I heard a muffled grunt of pain from Lachlan and Bran clenched his jaw.
“I’m going to heal you now—heal all three of us,” Lachlan told me. “No, don’t try to help, little one—let Bran and I share the cost.”
Bran nodded at him. “Do it.”
I felt Lachlan pulling on the golden thread of power that was always there, for anyone with Fae blood who knew how to reach it. I also felt Bran, bolstering him from the other side of me, helping him bear the cost of this healing—which must have been pretty intense.
I wanted to help them, but I was too dizzy—too weak. I was starting to fade…and then I felt a healing warmth flowing through me—through all three of us. The best way I can describe it is being submerged in a tub full of cool water and then you turn on the hot water tap and feel that wave of warm water running through the coolness and warming you to your bones. It was like that—comforting and gentle and strong.
I began to come back to myself. Opening my eyes more fully, I looked up and saw blue eyes and green eyes staring anxiously down at me. I couldn’t remember feeling so secure before—so loved and protected and surrounded as I did then, with the two of them supporting me and healing me.
In that moment, while I was touching both Lachlan and Bran, I felt a strange tingle run between the three of us. A feeling of rightness—of oneness—I could neither explain nor deny.