en

urned suffocatingly thick, c

Boyce's brow, and the blistering hea

his chest straining under each convulsive ga

this magnitude w

suppression of Black Widow's Tear, had ignited a violen

eme core temperature would literally cook his neural pat

troducing foreign compounds now would react with the resid

ling was my

rest in the adjoining ante-room, I remain

al, desperate battle aga

in water to the bedside, tearing l

water, wrung them out with raw, aching hands, and bathed his burning forehead, t

as so intense that the cold towels

damp strands of hair stuck to my flushed face, and my f

tile fortress, an overwhelming wave

f wolves, holding the kingdom's fierc

he heavy basin over to the side table

onds, my back was

he room, a faint, almost impercepti

rustle of coar

d easily have been mistaken f

austed hands trembling under the weight,

orward-and froze

hitched in

lammed int

in slipped fr

with a deafening, ringing roar, sending waves of icy wate

n't b

n't loo

n the flickering candlelight, Boyc

d with delirium, nor

en gold-the pure, untamed g

e golden dragon eyes were locked ont

n't dr

n't dr

as a

tching every singl

id he regain c

eath half-closed lids while I debrided his necroti

r sense the shift in his fever as I

to save his life, or did he assume I was simply a more

r the edge of the bedframe, when the heavy thud of hur

p, the master chamber doors

et gown billowing around her as the heavy ring

nny into the room, followed by the white-bearded castle p

ke a whip. "The servants heard a crash and the alarm of a sudden, fatal

pale and shaking, retrea

ing calmly between Beatrice and the bed

We all saw her banish the attendants and tamper with the Lord's wounds with