Chapter Four (Part 1)

Several things happened very quickly after that. All within the span of maybe eight seconds, but looking back, it felt like hours.

The deer…thing fell back to all fours, the human hands attached to its forelegs digging into the earth and helping propel it forward in one huge leap that would have knocked all three of us over like bowling pins if I hadn’t suddenly grown a brain and grabbed Peace and Wisdom, teleporting us a couple yards away.

I had wanted to teleport us straight back into the palace, but unfortunately, I was too flustered to be very precise with it. Still, distance was distance, and I immediately pushed my kids towards the garden’s entrance so they could flee while I held it off.

Peace went a few steps before realizing Wisdom wasn’t following and was instead glaring at me incredulously, like she couldn’t believe I would send her away from the fight.

But I didn’t have time to argue with her, and so I gave her one last push, urging Peace to grab her and get her inside with my eyes.

And being the good brother he was, he obeyed instantly, grabbing Wisdom around the waist and hauling her over his shoulder as if she wasn’t a good half a head taller than him.

“Peace!” she scolded him, then whipped her head up to look at me, angrier than I’d ever seen her. “Rook!”

“Get your ass inside and find Idris. You can yell at me later,” I called back distractedly before directing an energy blast at the deer that barely made it stumble. It definitely did some damage, but it was like the creature was beyond the point of caring about pain, because all it did was groan in a disturbingly human way before charging at me again, swinging its antlers, which I distantly noticed were sharpened to points at the tip.

Lichen deer didn’t have naturally sharpened antlers.

If I hadn’t been sure before that someone intentionally fucked with this creature, then I was now, because someone had to have taken a knife to those. And I highly doubted that the creature had the reach to do it itself, even with those human hands.

But I didn’t have time to puzzle over who the hell would make something this fucked up, because those sharpened antlers were currently pointed straight at me. The deer charged, another powerful leap that would have skewered me if I didn’t dodge to the side, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of my lungs before rolling to my feet.

I needed to start taking fighting lessons with Idris or something, because it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t actually have any battle experience beyond using energy blasts, and those clearly weren’t proving to be very effective.

I blasted the creature again while it was turning around to face me, and it stumbled, keening in pain, smoke rising from its side where I had hit it. Blood the color of ink dripped from the wounds I’d given it, staining the green lichen all over its body with oily sludge.

Seeing an opportunity while it was disoriented, I shot forward and kicked its injured shoulder, using magic to bolster the kick so that the creature went flying. Unfortunately, as it rolled, it kicked its head around furiously and managed to actually clip me with one of those antlers, tearing right down my side.

Given my pain tolerance, it felt like little more than a scratch, and I ignored it to send repeated energy blasts into the beast. It squealed so loud I felt like my eardrums were going to burst, but after three more blasts, it finally died, slumping to the ground with its human fingers still twitching.

With timing that was almost comedically bad, it was at that moment that Gabriel and the three guard trainees burst into the garden, all of them stopping dead at the sight of the slain creature.

Gabriel’s face went green, and he flung a hand up to cover his nose. “Gods, that thing stinks. What the hell is it?”

I sniffed the air curiously, because I hadn’t noticed a smell before, but now that I focused on it, there was an odor to the creature, like rotten eggs and the musk of an unearthed burial site.

Lichen deer usually just smelled like lichen and unwashed animal, so that was new too.

“Not sure,” I said after a moment. “It’s a lichen deer, or it was at some point. Someone tampered with it, though. Nice of you to finally show up, by the way.”

Gabriel went from green to red in a matter of seconds. “The wards weren’t tripped. We didn’t know anything was wrong until we heard your blasts,” he said defensively, side eyeing the trainees behind him, probably not wanting to give off the impression that he sucked at his job.

And he didn’t. Usually. It was still fun to rile him up.

In an attempt to look cool and in control to his little students, Gabriel bravely went up to ‘examine’ the creature. He still couldn’t bear to touch it, hovering over it with his nose slightly wrinkled.

I watched him for a moment, amused, then went up and crouched by its head so I could peel its eyelids back.

Gabriel, who was watching over my shoulder, made a barely-concealed gagging noise and I smirked, but chose not to comment, even though it killed me a little inside.

Idris chose that moment to finally arrive, rushing into the garden with Peace and Wisdom close behind him. He looked frantic before he saw me and sighed in relief, coming up to grab my cheeks and kiss my forehead.

“Would it kill you to just run with the children instead of sending them off without you,” he muttered to me, squishing my cheeks together in punishment, quiet enough that only I could hear him. “I didn’t think you had a hero complex, Rook.”

“I don’t,” I snorted, once he’d relaxed his grip enough for me to speak. “But I was curious and fairly certain I could beat it.”

His eyes narrowed. “How certain is fairly certain?”

“Like, sixty percent.”

“Rook,” he hissed, but I was already turning away to avoid another lengthy scolding that I would just ignore later anyway. I was joking. I was more certain than that. Eighty percent, maybe. Not that the deer would have killed me. I was a god, and thus, pretty hard to kill. It could still do some serious damage, though.

Although, it appeared Idris wasn’t going to let me weasel out of this particular lecture so easily, because he grabbed me by the waist to turn me back around, only to abruptly let me go, making a strange, startled noise.

I frowned back at him, finding him looking at his hand that had just been on my waist.

And it was covered in blood.

Oh, hey, yeah. I’d been injured. He hadn’t noticed before because I was wearing all black, but now that I looked down at myself, I could see the shimmer of glossy blood covering my entire right side and most of my upper thigh.

Well, that was going to be hell on the washing machine. And this shirt? Fucking toast. Shredded.

I sent a glare at the dead beast. This was a brand new fucking shirt, too. Ugh.

My silent ire towards the creature was interrupted as Idris peeled my shirt away from my skin to look at the wound, face paling.

“Peace, call for a healer,” he barked, and then grabbed me up in his arms princess-style.

“Hey,” I protested, flailing as I was suddenly lifted, but Idris was no longer listening to me apparently, because he continued barking out rushed orders to Gabriel on storing the beast for further examination and locking down the palace while the incident was investigated.

Two seconds later, Idris teleported us up to our room on the top floor of the palace, setting me down gently on the bed and getting right to work removing my ruined shirt. Seeing the strained purse of his lips, I decided to hold off on chewing him out for manhandling me, and instead looked down at my wound once it was fully revealed.

Well. That was a little more than a scratch. The deer’s antler had cut right down my right side, from just under my ribcage to the top of my hipbone. It was jagged and curved, the flesh torn rather than neatly sliced. And while it was difficult to see with all the blood in the way, the wound was actually quite deep. I could see white peeking through at the top of the wound – one of my ribs – and farther down was the hint of my pulpy insides, my liver and intestines partially exposed to the air.

It had been a long time since I’d been injured like this. Seeing my own insides was kind of nostalgic, even.

Hello, friends. Long time no see.

Idris placed his hands on either side of the rift in my skin, sending in magic to help stop the bleeding and urge the healing process to go faster. Unfortunately, while gods healed quickly on our own, and our magic could speed up the process even more, it couldn’t replace real doctoring and it couldn’t instantaneously fix an injury.

But the magic did help numb the pain a little. Not that the pain was really bothering me in the first place, but it was nice, nonetheless. Idris’s magic was like a warm summer breeze, and it melted into me, making me feel light and warm. I sank back into the pillows, watching from under half-lowered lids as Idris grabbed a couple of our blankets to help sop up the blood. He had his head bent over my wound, pin-straight white hair falling over his face and nearly concealing the deep, angry furrow of his brow and the way his sky-blue eyes became dark like storm clouds.

Oh, boy. Someone wasn’t happy.

It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand his anger. I know if someone hurt him like this, I’d be pretty pissed about it too.

But I’d been hurt way worse before. This was nothing in comparison.

And Idris had a tendency to overreact. This was the first time I’d ever been seriously injured while we were together, so of course it was going to freak him out more.

With that in mind, I swallowed back the joke on the tip of my tongue. While it might lighten my mood, it had a high risk of starting an argument, which was the last thing either of us needed right now.

But I was at a loss as to what to say instead, so I settled for focusing on the issue at hand.

“Someone fucked with that deer,” I muttered once Idris had gotten most of my bleeding to stop.

Idris’s jaw worked from side to side, still pissed, but at least he wasn’t shouting at me. “Clearly. The question is who did it, and why. And how did they manage to get it into the garden in the first place.”

“Gabriel said the wards weren’t tripped,” I mused, wincing as Idris grabbed my hips to help ease me into a more comfortable position, then moaning in relief as the new position reduced the pressure on my torn muscles. “But the wards aren’t designed to keep out animals, so they must have sent it in from outside. Which, combined with the fact that that thing could speak and was definitely looking for me specifically, means they somehow managed to create it so that it follows orders. That indicates a high level of skill. I need to get down there and dissect it.”

Idris looked at me flatly. “Actually, you’re staying right here. The kids and I can look at it and report back, if it will make you feel better, but your ass is staying in this bed until there’s not even a scar left on you. Is that clear?”

I snorted. “What are you, my dad? I’ll stay until my organs aren’t threatening to fall out, sure. Maybe a day or so.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. At least, not right now. See, Idris’s control issues were a hindrance at best and a nightmare at worst. I’d learned, over the short course of our marriage, that there were times when it was good and necessary to push his buttons, to remind him that there were many things in life he could not control, including – and especially – me. But then there were times that it was overall smarter to let him have his way, at least for the moment, while he was still cooling his head. And I’d just been split down the side like someone had taken a pair of scissors to a length of silk not more than ten minutes ago.

Which means being stubborn about something that really didn’t need stubbornness was probably not my best move.

A muscle jumped in Idris’s jaw. “I see.”

That was all he said. Just ‘I see’ in that tight tone.

I might have fucked up.