If all the people who were terrified of him could see him now…
I tried to sit up and made the mistake of glancing at his face, nearly falling off his lap. I watched in stunned horror as his face morphed back and forth from his beautiful face to the snake creature that probably would be haunting my dreams for the rest of my life.
Along with all the rest of my nightmares.
Finally, I blinked and it was just Hendrix again, no sign of the snake creature.
“Hendrix,” I gasped, gripping onto his skin tightly. “Help me.”
His gaze was terrified as he stared back at me. “I will, baby,” he murmured as I fell back against him, too tired to hold myself up.
He quickly used a loofah to bathe me, not lingering on any particular place on my body. After a quick rinse, we were out of the shower, and I was wrapped in a heated towel.
Even with the heated towel, I was shivering, and standing there holding myself up felt like one of the hardest things I'd ever done.
What was wrong with me?
I tried to take a step forward out of the bathroom, but then Hendrix was there, scooping me up into his arms and striding out of the bathroom towards my bed where he gently laid me down. I made the mistake of looking up at him again, and just like before, his features shifted back and forth between the lizard monster and himself.
"It's not real, right?" I gasped as I shut my eyes and tried to block it all out.
"What's not real? Why do you keep panicking every time you look at me?" he asked, anger threaded throughout his voice.
But somehow, I knew that he wasn't angry at me. He was angry at his lack of control in the situation. There was one thing that Hendrix prized: it was control.
There was a knock on the door.
“Who is it?" Hendrix barked.
"It's me," came River’s annoyed voice through the door, and I cringed, hating that he was gonna see me weak like this.
"I have the healer," he continued when Hendrix was slow to answer.
Before Hendrix had even said anything, River burst through the door, a wildness in his gaze that I wasn’t used to seeing….at least directed at me.
Entering behind him was a woman I hadn’t seen before. She looked young, like all shifters did since we stopped aging in our thirties.
But there was something in her eyes, something that spoke to just how ancient she was.
River was fighting with Hendrix about something in muffled whispers, but the woman must have been able to hear because she frowned at them both. River growled under his breath, and my gaze darted towards him, just in time for him to transform into a specter with shark-like teeth and oozing yellow eyes. I began to scream hysterically, and River pounced towards me, only to be held by Hendrix who wrestled him to the ground.
“Get out,” the woman ordered sharply, and Hendrix and River both froze.
“Why did she act like that?” River asked, the monster switching back to his surly-looking face.
“It’s happened a few times with me,” Hendrix admitted reluctantly.
“Please,” I sobbed as this time both of their features transformed. “It’s not real. It’s not real.” I tried to reassure myself, but my brain felt like it was on the verge of snapping, sending me down a rabbit hole I’d never be able to return from.
I was faintly aware of the healer muttering something before pushing past the monsters and approaching the bed.
“Make it stop,” I begged her as she studied me intently with sympathetic deep blue eyes.
“What are you seeing, sweetheart?” she asked me.
“Monsters,” I gasped. “They keep changing into monsters.”
The healer looked back behind her with a frown. River and Hendrix had once again returned to normal and had moved back against the wall farthest from me. I was afraid that at any moment they would turn again, but at the same time, I wanted them here.
The healer closed her eyes, held her hands over my body, and began to whisper a litany of words in a musical language that I'd never heard before. I watched in distressed awe as a vibrant purple light streamed down from her hands, moving into my body. The light felt warm, and I could feel it moving underneath my skin, traveling down my body as she slowly moved her hands up and down it.
She went down the center of me before moving down my arms. When her hands moved over to where the bands on my wrist were, I felt a shock reverberate through my body. "Ouch," I hissed, almost at the same time as the healer whose eyes had flashed open with surprise. She yanked her hands away from me, and the shocking sensation immediately stopped.
"Oh my," she murmured before shaking her head.
"What is it? What just happened?" Hendrix barked, that familiar red glow beginning to appear in his gaze as he threatened to lose control.
"We need to get Miranda as soon as possible. There's a curse on those bracelets," she said in a serious, worried voice.
"A curse?" asked River incredulously. "I thought it was just something to suppress her shift. I've heard of that being done often in the East."
"All of the bands have some sort of magical property, but the magic in this one is designed to kill her slowly. He must've had some kind of trigger built into it that was released in the last few days, and that's why she started to get sick."
Hendrix opened his mouth to speak but closed it as River darted from the room, presumably to get this “Miranda” woman.
"Is there anything you can do until he returns?" asked Hendrix to the healer. But she just shook her head, her features drawn and tight. “There may be an herb that can help with the symptoms, but there’s nothing I can do now that the curse has been activated.”
“How-how many days?” I croaked, knowing that whatever was happening to my body was going to end me soon.
“Soon,” the healer murmured, and my heart dropped, the chill inside of me deepening as she confirmed my fears. She turned towards Hendrix who had paled in the last few moments as he stared at me in horror.
“I’ll go see what herbs I can find and if there’s anything in my books,” the healer said before leaving the room quickly.
Hendrix’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. Thick black fur was appearing and then disappearing across his arms, and the red glow in his eyes had overtaken everything else.
“You’re mine,” he growled, his beast threaded through his voice. The sound was comforting somehow. I could deal with that monster…just not the imaginary lizard one. “Not even death is going to take you from me.”
I’d always wanted to be wanted, and now that I’d finally found someone who may have wanted me too much…maybe a few someones, it was all going to end.
How was that for irony?
* * *