Free Damian's Oracle by Lizzy Ford Page B

body to cease the transfusion
and pulled the tube from his neck, healing the tear. He gently
removed the tube from the oracle and placed his hand over the wound
to heal it. He touched her face, exhausted for the first time in
years. He leaned against the cabinets behind him.
    “Move, D,” Dusty ordered, snatching the
defibrillator from Laney.
    He cut her shirt open while it charged and
placed the paddles against her chest. Her body bucked, and her eyes
flew open. The oracle gasped.
    Dusty felt for her pulse before resting
against the cabinets opposite him. Damian met his gaze, and they
sat in comfortable silence in the small kitchen, breathing hard as
they recovered.
    “Jule’s gonna be pissed we didn’t invite
him,” Dusty said at last and pulled off his gloves, tossing
them.
    “He would’ve tried to talk us out of it
anyway,” Damian said. “He’s not as violent as us, bro.”
    “I think you mean as me, ” Dusty
corrected him, then chuckled. “Congrats, ikir. You figure out how
to train an oracle?”
    “No fucking clue,” Damian admitted with a
ruthless grin.
    “May the gods help you. I sure can’t.”
    “What is she?” Laney asked, returning to the
kitchen.
    Damian rose and pulled Dusty to his feet.
    “That, Laney, is my oracle,” he said. “Watch
her for a bit while we go back and clean up what’s left of Czerno’s
goons.”
    Laney’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at
the unconscious, blood spattered woman.
    “Yes, ikir,” he murmured and knelt, lifting
Sofia off the ground. “I’ll take care of her.”
    * * *
    She stared at the sunbeams moving across the
ceiling, not remembering where she was or how she arrived. Her
memories wiggled their way out of the mud of her mind, and she sat
upright. She was alive! She touched her face, her arms, her body.
At the memory of the pain, she began to shake.
    It’s over!!
    Yet the sensation of fire creeping through
her remained. She suddenly realized the curtains were open, and the
sun streaming into her window didn’t hurt her eyes. Her memories
overshadowed, she threw open the curtains. She shoved the cracked
balcony door all the way open. She bathed in the mid morning sun.
Morning air had never tasted so wonderful! She didn’t have to wear
sunglasses indoors anymore, didn’t have to hide from moonlight!
    “You look good.”
    She whirled, heart leaping at the sound. Han
sat in the corner of her room nearest the door.
    “I can go outside!” she exclaimed. “I’m
cured!”
    She looked again at the sunlit courtyard
beyond her window.
    “I’m here again,” she murmured,
troubled, and faced Han. “I’m … transformed?”
    Han nodded grimly.
    “Isn’t that good?” she prodded. “Isn’t it
what you all wanted?”
    “It is,” he confirmed.
    “You don’t look happy.”
    “It all turned out well, I guess,” he said at
last. “As long as you’re ok?”
    “I am. I can go outside again.”
    She sat to pull on shoes and saw the scars
around her wrists, evidence of her fight against the bindings
Julian used to strap her onto the table.
    “Han, what happened to me?”
    “It’s better you don’t remember.”
    “I do remember. At least, part of it I
remember. Jilian injected me with something to kill me,” she
paused, shuddering at the flash of residual pain from the memories.
“Did he succeed?”
    “Yes.”
    “So I died?”
    “You did.”
    Her eyes closed at the bizarre news. How many
peopled lived to hear they’d died?
    “What happened then?”
    “Ask Damian.”
    She shuddered, afraid to face him after
ditching him as she had before. No doubt he’d had to do some
terrible things to free her from Czerno.
    “Is Jilian dead?”
    “Damn straight.”
    “I told him so,” she said softly, disturbed.
“Is Damian ok?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why are you upset?”
    “We lost Jake.”
    Jake’s death flashed through her
thoughts.
    “Jilian killed him,” she said.
    “Yes.”
    Because of me. Sofia slumped. As much
as Jake annoyed