Chapter Seventeen

Sierra lays on her bed, appearing angelic in her sleep, while Claude assesses her. Being a talented witch doctor with a specialty in the healing arts, he should be able to diagnose exactly what made Sierra suddenly lose consciousness. He knows if he doesn’t, I’ll be extremely displeased. Despite our long-standing relationship and him being the closest person to me outside of Wyatt, he knows it’s not wise to earn my displeasure.

If I hadn’t caught Sierra, she would’ve taken a nasty fall to the stone floor. As soon as she’d opened the door, I noticed the slight paleness in her features despite the flush in her cheeks, but it didn’t alarm me as much as it should’ve. My anxiety rose as her lips moved lethargically and soundlessly. She’d blinked several times with a dazed look and then tipped over.

Leisel, ever the healer, ran in as I was frantically trying to speak to Sierra and get her to at least open her eyes. She healed Sierra from whatever was afflicting her instantly, but Sierra’s yet to wake up. Now, Leisel sits next to her sister on the bed, watching Claude with sharp eyes as he examines his future queen.

I stand at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over my chest, ready to fend off any possible threat to my mate—even though I don’t know what the threat is.

“Was her skin feverish when you healed her?” Claude asks Leisel, peering at her with interest.

I’m sure it’s exciting for him to have full-blooded witches, especially earthly witches around him, but so far he’s curbed that excitement. I do suspect he’ll take it upon himself to teach Sierra and Leisel his craft—help them navigate their powers and learn the higher arts of magic. At least, those that he’s familiar with. Claude doesn’t have the extensive powers of a pure-blood witch, but he has enough magic to hold his own. In addition to his healing capabilities, he occasionally gets random glimpses into the future—only small snippets though that usually aren’t enough to serve as reliable indicators of what’s to come.

“It was hot when I touched it,” Leisel responds.

Claude nods slowly. “Wyatt told me a little bit about your healing abilities. From what he’s observed, when you heal, any area of injury glows a golden color. Is that correct?”

Leisel nods solemnly.

“Where on Sierra’s body was there a glow when you healed her just now?” Claude questions.

Leisel answers instantly, “Her chest, her head, and her neck.”

Claude proceeds to ask her a series of mundane questions about Sierra—from her daily activities to her food intake to her predisposition towards illnesses.

“Has she been sleeping well recently?” Claude asks.

Leisel bites her lower lip, casting me a brief, displeased glance. “No. I don’t think she’s slept since he showed up,” she replies, pointing towards me with a small hand.

I’ve suspected as much, but there isn’t anything I could do about that. Ordering my mate to sleep would’ve likely had the exact opposite effect, so I left the topic alone aside from polite questions. Clearly, I should’ve been more concerned with it.

Claude winces. “That’s three sleepless nights if I’m not mistaken.” He looks at me. “Are the rumors that Sierra had a taxing duel with Aspen correct?”

I give a single tense nod. “Is lack of sleep enough to make her fall ill?”

Claude lets out a heavy sigh. “That, combined with high levels of stress from shifters appearing in her life, would easily compromise a human’s immune system. Add in that she’s a witch, and…”

“And?” I prompt.

Another sigh. “And it’s a wonder she didn’t faint sooner. Those with magical blood are strong of body and soul—able to tolerate pain and hardship well—but their greatest vulnerability is emotion. Stress and anxiety often have physical effects on witches, especially young ones.”

I think back to the immense stress Sierra’s been under since meeting me and feel shame. I had no idea that anxiety prompted by meeting me and a change of scene would affect her well-being since I’m not very well-versed on witches. I also didn’t take her lack of sleep as seriously as I should have—shifters can go up to a week without sleep before succumbing to it, but humans are quite different. Sierra and Leisel are both a blend of human and witch—their bodies are vulnerable, but their magic makes for shared traits with witches of other realms.

“What can be done?” I ask Claude.

“Let the Alpha female sleep,” he responds. “Ensure she eats enough. Allow her to adjust; if you smother her with new tasks and responsibilities, she’ll certainly lose sleep over it, and gain a substantial amount of emotional turmoil. Then she’ll find herself bedridden again.”

He gives me a meaningful glance that, coming from anyone else, would be unacceptable. Claude, however, has earned leeway with the many ways he’s helped me over the years. After my father’s abdication a decade ago, I came to be quite reliant on him for advice.

With that, he walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.

I lock eyes with Leisel, who’s staring at me like I’m an enemy combatant who infiltrated her camp. It doesn’t cease to amaze me how easily she and Sierra hold my gaze. As though I’m not an Alpha whose very presence is frightening to grown hardened shifters. She shifts her body to face me fully, and I get the sense that she’s trying to be intimidating—trying to protect Sierra from me. Which is more amusing than irritating, given her size.

“She needs to rest,” Leisel snaps, her words harsh and clipped.

I let my gaze travel over Sierra—taking in every detail of her existence. I love looking at her most of the time, but seeing her so…vulnerable rankles me. I’m accustomed to seeing her hold her own against me and refuse to back down even when fighting back tears, so her current fragility is disconcerting.

“She appears to be resting just fine,” I point out, not appreciating Leisel’s subtle hint for me to leave.

I understand it—in her eyes, I’m quite literally the big bad wolf. The enemy. A direct threat to a woman who single-handedly raised her.

“She’s in this bed because of you!” Leisel exclaims. “The least you can do is back off! You’ve already hurt both of us enough!”

I see her eyes starting to shine with tears which tugs on my heart, as do her words, because I know they’re true. Sierra is bedridden because of me and me alone. That knowledge kills me. If I thought it would help, I would wrap Sierra in my arms and hold her close, protecting her from anything and everything. Unfortunately, it currently appears that I’m the biggest threat.

I murmur a curse and start pacing the length of the room, ignoring Leisel watching me quietly.

I’d come up to retrieve the sisters for dinner on impulse after receiving extremely unpleasant news on the movement of the primary vampire clan, one of the groups within their species, that threatens my kingdom. My first reaction was to seek out my mate, and the comfort she provides with her mere presence, even when that presence is edged with palpable hostility.

The very last thing I need right now is to be facing off with my Sierra, the one person who can potentially take out dozens of vampires with the lick of her flame.

It’s obvious to me why the gods paired Sierra and me; together, we’ll make an unstoppable team. I have substantial strength and battle stamina to back me, along with a track record as one of the best warriors to live in some time, and she can incinerate anything with her powers. Once she’s trained, it’s possible that she could demolish the entire hoard of vampires threatening us without needing to touch them.

Her viewing me as the enemy complicates our situation.

“I know you don’t like me, Leisel—”

“You don’t know,” she interrupts, shaking her head slowly. “You can’t possibly get how the sight of you disgusts me.”

Through the wave of irritation her words bring, I also feel a flash of admiration. Leisel’s remarkably intelligent and well-spoken for such a young tiny thing. That can only be attributed to Sierra’s teachings.

“I don’t want to be your enemy,” I tell her sincerely. “I want us to be on the same side.”

Leisel gives a snort that reminds me very much of Sierra.

I fall still when Sierra stirs. She shifts restlessly on the bed, her hands moving over the teal silk covers, as if in search of something. I can’t help the brief hope that washes over me; the hope that Sierra’s somehow reaching for me. That our bond is subconsciously pushing her to seek me out.

That hope is squashed when she speaks a mumbled slurred word. “…Leisel?”

Leisel, whose attention turned to Sierra when she first began shifting, reaches for Sierra’s hand and clasps it in her small ones. Sierra visibly settles at the touch, obviously only having clawed her way out of her slumber to ensure Leisel’s presence.

Leisel’s chipmunk, who I’ve heard her refer to as Chip, leaps onto Sierra’s chest and curls up on her as if offering comfort.

I let out a long, measured breath. “When she wakes up, I’d like to know immediately,” I tell Leisel, trying to word my request gently. “You’re welcome to stay with her while she rests—food will be brought up. I’ll pop in every few hours. Outside of that, you shouldn’t be disturbed.”

With that, I force myself to walk out of the room—which is easily one of my most difficult undertakings yet, since leaving my mate while she’s vulnerable feels like my own personal version of the underworld’s worst bowel.

***

It takes forty hours for Sierra to wake up. Forty hours in which I find it exceedingly difficult to function. Leisel, unsurprisingly, stays by Sierra’s side the entire time. The little healer sits next to her all day, reading or thinking, and sleeps beside her as well. I have no doubt she’s simply mimicking the behavior Sierra has displayed towards her—unfailing loyalty.

I check on them over a dozen times, disregarding Leisel’s irritation and demands for me to leave Sierra be while she rests. Little does the young witch know, that what I’m doing is the bare minimum contact that I need to stay sane.

When Wyatt informs me that a servant, delivering food for Leisel, found Sierra awake, I push aside my instinctual urge to go to her and visually confirm she’s alright. Instead, I bury myself in work, trying to drown out my need to see her because I doubt that she wants to see me.

That comes to an abrupt halt when Wyatt strolls back into my office a few hours later, saying, “Thought you should know; Sierra’s down at the stables, taking care of her horses.”

My head snaps up from the map I’m pouring over—which has known locations of militant groups of vampires pinned down—and hope to gods I’ve heard my brother wrong. “What?”

I can see Wyatt’s amusement from the twinkle in his eyes, the bastard. “After eating, she had one of the servants show her to the stables. Now she and Leisel are running their horses in a round pen—something about giving them necessary exercise, from what was passed on to me by a stable hand.”

I exhale an irritated breath. “She’s supposed to be resting. Does she want to fall ill again?”

My instant urge is to track her down and demand she stay within the castle and take it easy on herself, but she’d likely do the exact opposite just to spite me.

Wyatt looks at the bookshelf behind me, his expression thoughtful. “Honestly, Cam, I’m pretty sure that is her version of rest—or, at the very least, something that calms her.”

Infuriated that my mate is tiring herself after only just having woken up from a deep sleep caused by exhaustion, I snap, “Working with horses is not resting! We pay people to do that for us!”

Wyatt, who’s normally the less level-headed out of us, gazes at me steadily. “What do you think her daily tasks were back in Aesara?”

I pause to think. Running a farm single-handedly couldn’t have been easy for Sierra, and I highly doubt she allowed Leisel to do much work. The list of what she was forced to do every day is doubtlessly extensive. For one, she had a sister to raise and teach on her own. From the textbooks I’ve glimpsed, as well as Leisel’s eloquence and vocabulary, I’d guess at least a few hours were dedicated to just her sister’s studies. On top of that, she had to keep the horses’ stables clean and the horses fed and exercised. She also had to keep her lands up to par—from the little I know of smaller shifter villages that supply grain and produce, that involves planting, turning over soil, fertilizing, and harvesting. Then there’s the hunting and trading several times a week in Aesara’s market. I also have no doubt there was constant maintenance around her land that she had to do.

So, put in perspective, merely spending a bit of time with her horses probably is Sierra’s version of rest. It still boils my blood that she’s up and about so soon after being passed out for nearly two days.

I push away from my desk, stand, and stalk past Wyatt on my way out of the room.

“Going somewhere?” he asks sarcastically.

I spare him a brief glance. “To ensure my mate’s okay.”