“No! Don’t!” Effie cried, holding out a hand to stop him. “I’ll come to you.”
She didn’t want Lucian to come anywhere near the shrouded corpse. He might be tempted to lift the blanket. She didn’t want him to see proof of what she was capable of. How could he look at her with anything but disgust again if he did?
It was more difficult than she’d thought to unfurl her body, her overworked muscles cramped and unwilling to budge. With a low groan, she managed to move to her knees and crawl to Lucian.
He sucked in a breath when she made it into the light.
“Effie.”
“It’s not mine,” she managed, referring to the blood she knew covered her.
His eyes shifted from her battered hands up to the matted hair hanging in clumps around her face.
“I know what happened to Jo—” she broke off, choking on the name.
Lucian’s eyes darted back to the corpse behind her and gave her a grim nod. “We’ll save the storytelling for later. For now, let’s worry about getting you home.”
She nodded, a tear slipping free as she sucked in another breath. “Okay.”
“Can you slide forward a bit more? If you swing your legs down the latch, I can grasp you around the waist and help you down. There’s a ladder alongside the trunk of this tree that leads to another platform below. There’s an entire series of houses up here. It took us a while to find the one you were in.”
Lucian kept talking, his voice warm and unhurried as she tried to follow his commands. He only stopped when her swollen foot came into view. It was an angry purple, her skin shredded from the rope and barbs, and more than twice its normal size.
“Here, I’ve got you,” he murmured, no longer waiting for her to try and navigate getting out of the little house on her own.
Effie was more than willing to let him take over. Wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, she buried her face into his shoulder and breathed him in.
“We’re coming down!” he shouted over her head. In a quieter voice, he added, “Hold on to me.”
Lucian began climbing down a ladder she hadn’t noticed. Effie didn’t once worry about falling. Lucian wouldn’t let her.
“I’ll take her,” Kael said, holding out his arms for her as they neared the landing.
“No, it’s fine,” Lucian said, the sound of his voice rumbling against her cheek.
Peering through her hair, Effie watched Kael nod and step back.
“Mother’s tits,” Ronan whispered from somewhere out of view.
Effie held onto Lucian tighter, attempting to hide as much of her gore-spattered body as possible.
“Effie, look at me,” he ordered.
She shook her head.
“Look at me, fledgling,” he said again, this time in a voice coated in steel. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Loosening her grip, she lifted her chin. A tremor ran down Lucian’s body as his eyes roamed over her face.
Not knowing what else to say, Effie blurted the first thing that came to mind. “You owe me a new weapon. Lots of them. Something more substantial than a fucking dagger.”
Lucian’s eyes widened, and his mouth curled into a smile. “Is that so?” He tilted his head. “Seems like you managed well enough.”
Some of the horror of what happened must have shone in her eyes because Lucian’s smile faltered.
“I’ll get you whatever you want,” he said gruffly. “If you don’t know how to use it, we’ll train you until you do.”
Effie nodded, relieved that much, at least, would be settled. She started to lower her face back to his shoulder, preferring to stay out of sight as much as possible.
“Wait,” Lucian said, halting the movement. “I need to set you down for a second so I can get a better hold on you. It’s a long walk back to the portal from here.”
“Should we try and make her a litter?” Kael asked from behind her. “It might be more comfortable.”
“Effie?” Lucian asked, looking down at her.
She dug her nails into his back and shook her head.
The only place she wanted to be right now was in Lucian’s arms. She hated that it made her appear weak, but he was the only thing keeping the panic at bay, and she didn’t want to risk it coming back. Some combination of his strength, scent, or maybe just the steady sound of his heartbeat had managed to make her feel more like herself than she had since ending up in the treehouse.
Effie didn’t recognize the savage creature she’d turned into up there, and she never wanted to be that thing again. She didn’t care that it might have just been her sense of self-preservation taking over. She’d been scared of a lot of things in her life, but nothing so much as who—what—she’d turned into when facing off with Jo and Tess. That other Effie was beyond terrifying.
Especially since she could still feel the echoes of pleasure she’d experience when destroying Jo.
Revulsion made her stomach roll, and Effie squeezed her eyes shut. No. I would never take pleasure in killing anyone.
She repeated the mantra over and over. It was one thing to kill for survival, but another to revel in it. Effie didn’t want to be the kind of person that enjoyed another person’s pain. Not even if they deserved it.
“I’ll carry her,” Lucian said. Dipping his chin to whisper in her ear, he added, “I won’t let you go.”
“Thank you.”
After wrapping up her ankle in a makeshift bandage, and a quick bit of strategizing, the men worked out the fastest way to get out of the trees and back to the portal. Effie leaned against Lucian, barely hearing any of it. She was numb. Numb to the pain and to her surroundings.
“She’s shutting down,” Kael said, sounding like he was speaking from a great distance.
“It’s battle fatigue,” Ronan said. “I recognize the symptoms.”
It wasn’t until Lucian spoke that she snapped back to the conversation.
“We need to get her to a healer.”
“Not the healing wing,” Effie protested weakly as Lucian lifted her back up, cradling her in his arms.
“You need to get your wounds tended to,” Lucian insisted.
“I’m tired of waking up in that cold, sterile room. Can’t they tend to me in my suite? If not, they may as well just put my damn name on the door and let me redecorate considering how much time I’ve spent in there.”
Lucian’s lips flattened. “We’ll go to the healers, so as not to inconvenience them, but you can stay with me.”
“Okay,” she said, letting her eyes fall closed as Lucian started walking.
“I fucking hate it when you agree with me that easily,” he muttered darkly, lengthening his strides.
Effie’s lips twitched, but her eyes remained closed. “Why’s that?”
“Because it means something’s seriously wrong.”
Chapter 24
In the end, Lucian didn’t end up taking her to the healing wing first. He started down the hall that would take them there and didn’t make it more than two steps before noticing the way Effie was cringing away from the others’ curious stares.