Thrall of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 4) by Bella Klaus (elon musk reading list .txt) 📕

up every other candle within the wall sconces and on the tables. A soft light filled the space, making it more like the atmosphere I’d become accustomed to with Istabelle.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Our Lord specifically commanded—”

“I might not have any power, but I know how to draw out dark magic.”

She shook her head. “Don’t.”

“Did Kresnik say we couldn’t use non-magical methods to heal your wounds?” I asked.

Aurora didn’t reply, which I took to mean that Kresnik had probably only ordered Healer Calla not to use her power to treat the flame whip. I turned to the exit, where two large cupboards stood on either side of the exit.

“Miss Griffin,” said Hades. “The healer just left the reception area to tend to another injured fire user. Now’s the time to visit her quarters.”

I shook my head, continued toward the storage cupboards, and pulled open its door. The Tibetan sound bowls sat on a shelf at eye level, along with all the crystals Healer Calla had removed from the display. Ignoring them, I turned my gaze to a roll of gauze.

The disembodied voice spluttered. “You’re going to risk your life for this lost cause? Kresnik probably wants her dead because he wants the secret of his power to die with her.”

My fingers paused over a container of salt. “What?”

“Forget that woman,” Hades drawled. “I’m the one who seized his magic for half a millennium and kept his soul in Hell for decades. It’s me who knows all his secrets, including his origins.”

I took the gauze and salt to a worktable on the right of the room then tore off several large strips to make a poultice.

“You’re being incredibly short-sighted,” he said. “There is no point in easing the suffering of a woman who is going to spend an eternity with me in Hell.”

“And you wonder why I ignore you,” I whispered.

The candles standing on the edges of the table flickered with annoyance before returning to their usual yellow flame. Acting like I hadn’t noticed the outburst, I continued toward the cupboard, searching through its contents for something that might help pull heat from a wound.

Healer Calla had a refrigerator or at least some form of cool storage. She could have extracted something from there to place on Aurora’s wounds, but she chose to dab sweat off the other woman’s face with a handkerchief. I shook my head. Why was I surprised? The old lady was completely under Kresnik’s thrall.

“If you’re angling for me to spare her soul along with those of your little friends, it’s a bargain,” Hades hissed. “Now stop pandering to the whimpering of a woman who will never give you an ounce of motherly love and come with me.”

I clenched my teeth. Hades could say whatever he wanted, but he wouldn’t distract me from helping Aurora.

After putting together the ingredients I needed—activated charcoal, bentonite clay, and baking soda—I extracted a mixing bowl from the cupboard along with a pestle and mortar and a wooden spoon.

“What is that?” he whispered.

“A healing poultice.”

Hades snorted. “Hedgewitch magic?”

I shook my head. “Mock me all you want, mighty King of all Demons, but don’t forget who’s the disembodied spirit begging for the help of a powerless Neutral.”

The candles flickered again, and one of them extinguished. Perhaps Hades had floated off in a huff. Right now, he could sulk because I wasn’t going to endanger Valentine and myself to collect his ashes without a solid agreement that he wouldn’t turn against us.

After grinding the charcoal tablets into black dust with the pestle, I poured the contents of the mortar into a ceramic bowl, adding the Dharma salt, the clay, and the baking soda. They all served the same purpose in herbal medicine—drawing out impurities—but the Dharma salt focussed on pushing out dark magic.

I took the gauze to the small sink in the corner of the room, soaking its fibers and wringing out the excess water. After laying the fabric flat on the table, I spooned out the ingredients and created enough sausage-shaped poultices for each of the glowing whip marks.

“Aurora?” I carried the first in my hands.

She groaned.

“It might sting at first, but it’s going to help.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

I set my jaw. Something peculiar was happening with Kresnik’s magic. I didn’t know what, but he wasn’t satisfied with his resurrection. Valentine also wasn’t slavishly following his commands, and Kresnik knew that but needed Valentine’s continued existence to maintain his army of preternatural vampires.

It was the only thought that kept me going as I lowered the poultice onto the worst of the whip marks.

The sound of sizzling filled my ears, accompanied by a rush of steam. On instinct, I staggered back. This was like the times I’d dropped something into the shallow fryer without drying it properly and oil had splashed up my arm.

I wrapped my arms around my middle, waiting for the noise and vapor to subside. When it did, Aurora exhaled a long sigh. “Thank you.”

Over the next few minutes, I applied poultice after poultice on the woman’s back until I’d covered every strip of molten flesh. Aurora panted on the treatment bed, babbling an incoherent thanks.

My throat thickened. It was nearly impossible to even fathom the level of pain she suffered. I’d burned myself cooking and ironing but never from the inside out.

I returned to the cupboard, looking for papaver honey, which contained both pain-killing and calmative properties, but there was none on the shelves. Instead, I found a tub of aloe vera, dumped its entire contents into my bowl, and stirred it into the rest of my salty mix. Aloe was a human remedy that soothed first- and second-degree burns, but combined with the other ingredients it would create a healing gel Aurora could apply to her wounds for extra relief.

“Sorry,” she croaked.

I turned to find her head turned in my direction, and tears streaming from her eyes. She had to be feeling betrayed. It wasn’t her fault that Jonathan had infiltrated