CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elysian
“It can’t kill you, can it?”
“The wolf has gone into …. a screaming ... meltdown,” Walt gasped. “He … won’t answer me but … I’m going to go with … yes, it can. Yes, it will.”
“Is there an antidote?” Elysian threw the bathroom cabinet open, scattering tubes of exfoliant and old pots of eyeshadow over the floor as she rummaged for something, anything that could help. “You rub dock on nettle, is there something like that for wolf’s bane?”
“You tell me,” he said. He was choking the words out, his head starting to droop forward and his whole body sagging into the wall of the shower.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t even know you existed until two days ago, how am I supposed to know how to stop this?” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, wishing it was her grandmother who haunted the house and not Annette, so she could tell Elysian what to do. She didn’t know a damn thing about anything and Walt was going to die because of it.
“Elysian,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but the tone was like steel. “You do know. You can do this. The only thing wrong with you is you don’t trust yourself.” He let out a long ragged gasp, the effort of forcing so many words out catching up with him. “Trust. Yourself.”
Elysian took a deep breath, and reached out. The grimoire appeared at her fingertips. “Healing is dangerous,” she said. “It can have effects you don’t expect.”
He just laughed, weakly, which was fair. She deserved that.
“There’s one I know…” she paged frantically through the book. “It will let me share your pain. Take the poison on myself. Aconitum is poison to humans too. But the dose you’ve had is minute. I could take it from you—”
“No,” he said. “Not if it’s dangerous to you.”
“The spell can be reversed,” she said. “Any spell can. Just trust me, please?” There wasn’t time to keep arguing about it. Aconitum poisoning worked by slowing the heartbeat, and Walt looked like his had practically stopped.
Walt had started to shake, water droplets flying off his body and splattering on the tiled wall. She leaned past him and eased on the hot water until the water pouring over him was a few notches above lukewarm. Actually hot water would burn him in this state.
Her robe was soaked, sticking to her skin and pulling at her as she moved. She slipped it off, and stepped into the shower. Walt seemed barely aware of her presence, but leaned into her warmth when she pressed against him.
She cupped his face again, took a deep breath, and willed the poison to leave Walt and come into her. The palms of her hands burned, and then her wrists, but it was worth it as Walt’s eyes cleared and his gaze focused on her.
She was taking a gamble, given that wolf’s bane was poisonous to humans, not just wolf shifters. But just brushing against the plant wasn’t enough to hurt a human—it required ingestion, or at least having the plant pressed against the skin for an extended period. That Walt had been nearly killed just from walking through a patch meant that it was significantly more dangerous to him than to her.
“Elysian?” Walt whispered. He pushed himself up from the wall, straightening out from his slouched position, and put his hands on her hips. “Are you OK?”
“Yes. I—”
And then the pain hit. It burned down her arms and reached into her chest like a specter, grasping at her heart and squeezing. She gasped, her knees buckling, and Walt caught her.
She hadn’t just leached the poison from him, she’d taken on all of its effects. And she wasn’t as strong as he was.
His hands squeezed her waist like he could keep her alive by holding on tight enough. “I told you not to do this,” he said.
“Listen to me,” she whispered. She couldn’t summon the energy to speak any louder. “Is the wolf calm now? Is he speaking to you?”
“Of course he’s not calm, you’re dying,” Walt said.
“Ask him… if the aconitum will ... kill you at any dose… or…” she paused, leaning in to Walt as she caught her breath. “Ask if…”
Walt put a finger to her lips. “I understand. He understands. He says that at … ten percent of the dose I got, I could recover on my own. My healing factor could beat it.”
Ten percent. She’d hoped to hear him say half.
With shaking hands, she grabbed his wrists and guided him to cup her face. His hands were enormous compared to hers. She pressed her cheek into his palm, like a cat, and then closed her eyes. She reached out and pressed her fingertips to the small shaving mirror that was mounted beneath the shower head. Touching a mirror was one of the easiest ways to reverse a spell, and she needed easy.
She willed the poison to go the other way. More slowly this time. She unwound it, bit by bit, like fishing line on a reel, until Walt gasped and his hands tightened on her face.
She stopped, and waited, that ghostly hand of pain still squeezing at her heart, until his breath evened out and he nodded.
She pushed more of the poison back to him and the pain eased, but not enough. Not enough.
“We need to go faster,” she whispered.
“Give it all to me,” he offered. “Take a break.”
She did, and the sweet relief as the poison let go of her was nearly orgasmic. Walt stumbled, wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged him against her. He buried his face in her neck.
“It hurts so much,” he said. “How are you standing it?”
“You need me to,” she said simply. It was nothing compared to how much it would hurt for him to die.
She spent thirty seconds catching her breath, then took the poison back. He gasped as the pain left him, and rocked his hips into hers.
He was rock hard, she realized with a start, not that it was that surprising. Their naked bodies pressed together, warm water coursing over them, a tidal wave of adrenaline and a near-death experience. It would be weird if he wasn’t turned on.
She plastered herself against him, pressing their foreheads together. Their breath mingled together, both of them panting- her with the pain, him with the effort of healing.
“Give me more,” he whispered. “I can beat it. I don’t want you to hurt anymore.”
“Slow and steady,” she replied. She felt more whole now, her heart beating at its normal strength.
As she fed the last of the poison to him he blew out a long breath and tucked his head into the curve of her neck. He pressed one kiss to her shoulder, soft and gentle, then opened his mouth and let his teeth rest against her skin.
After a moment he lifted his head and stared at her. His eyes were bright, his skin clear and free of any trace of the spreading red poison. He was fine.
She leaned in and he met her halfway, their mouths crashing together. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, sliding against the wet skin of his back. He ran his hands down her back, over her rear and thighs and pulled, hoisting her up. He pressed her back to the tiled wall.
“We shouldn’t—” he started, but she shook her head.
“I need this,” she whispered. There was an ache at her core that went far beyond arousal. “I need—”
That was all the convincing he needed. He groaned, and slipped inside her like they were made to fit together.