Grove crouched and poked his head through the space under Brody’s arms. “I brought potions! Extra special ones—very potent with absolutely no poisonous materials mixed in. I was that worried for you.” He pushed his way into my room, his leather satchel close to bursting.
Sarge placed his hand on Brody’s muscled shoulder. “Brody, could you go in or get out of the way?”
“Ah—sorry. It just smells weird in here.” Brody took a few steps in, then sneezed.
Sarge, followed by Captain Reese, stepped into my room.
“Blood—glad to see you’re awake.” Sarge folded his arms across his chest and nodded awkwardly at me. “You seem… cognitively sound.”
“I’m, I’m,” I stammered under the scrutiny of so many people, so I paused and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. A bit banged up but doing fine.” I shifted in my bed, then remembered I was still holding Considine’s dagger, which was red with Gisila’s blood. “Uh…”
“Gisila was here.” Captain Reese tapped her nose. “That’s what you’re smelling, Brody: dragon shifter.”
I nodded, and Captain Reese eyed my borrowed dagger. “I take it she is also the recipient of a fresh stab wound?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She didn’t hurt me—she didn’t get the chance. Considine Maledictus warned her off.”
Sarge rubbed his forehead. “I’d be surprised by his actions if I hadn’t received a phone call from Killian Drake himself to tell me where you were and what your condition was—which was a good thing. Tetiana was going crazy, as she knew Considine had you but didn’t know where he took you.”
“What happened with Gisila?” Captain Reese asked.
“Ah-ah—no.” Grove shook a finger at our boss’s boss and set his satchel down on my bed with a thump that I felt through the mattress. “Potions first, questions later. We must make sure that weird goth bat didn’t do anything to her.” Grove turned his attention to me, then curled his hands in a fist. “Blood. How many fingers am I holding up?” He shouted at me.
Brody slapped his hands over his ears. “Bro—warn a guy before you use that volume!”
Juggernaut shook his head. “She hurt her head, Grove, not her ears.”
“You can’t know that—she didn’t answer the question.” Grove flipped open the flap of his satchel and started digging around in it.
Captain Reese turned her back to the chaos that was my teammates and studied me. “Are you really okay? You’ve been through a lot tonight. I can clear the room.”
“I’m okay,” I assured her. “I don’t know what happened while I was out of it, but I feel a lot better now than I did after the fight.”
“From what His Eminence says, Considine poured a fortune’s worth of potions on your arm so I imagine that helped you a great deal,” Sarge said.
Why was he so concerned? I mean, he fended Gisila off for me, that’s big. But the whole Connor-Considine thing…
The situation was so weird—and wild—I still didn’t quite believe it.
“Seems like he went a bit overboard, considering he thinks of you as a toy.” Captain Reese rubbed her chin as the lights in her prosthetic leg glowed shedding more light in the room.
“I discovered he’s also my neighbor,” I said, staring at the dagger.
Sarge straightened upright. “Neighbor?”
“It means he lives next door to her,” Grove said in a know-it-all tone. “Here, Blood. Drink this.” He passed over a tiny, candy-apple-green-colored potion.
I took the small vial with my free hand, tilted my head back, and drank the miniature vial in one gulp. I didn’t taste it until I swallowed, and I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet but sour taste that reminded me of sour apple candy.
“Considine Maledictus is your neighbor,” Captain Reese repeated.
“Yes.” I nodded, then awkwardly held the dagger up. “I can tell you about him, but Gisila’s actions are probably more important to discuss first given the wolf mercenaries. She didn’t confess to or say anything that would give us any kind of grounds to arrest her. She didn’t even directly threaten me, just made lots of vague statements.”
Captain Reese grimaced as she pulled out a tiny pad of paper and a pencil from her jacket pocket. “I swear Lady Gisila is almost as bad as a fae. Alright. Lay it on us—Sarge and I would like to get the preliminary reports done tonight.”