Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(50)

She reached out a hand. “Shh, little master. I will not hurt you.”

He growled again, but his lips closed. Again, his features changed. His nose dipped down, his pupils turned to slits, and whiskers grew upon his cheeks.

“Can you control it?” she asked. “I’ll need you to pick a form before I can heal your arm.”

He turned his face from her, scooting on his butt towards the other side of the table.

There was little time. Blood smeared his front and slicked the table. Red like hers. Red like a human.

She lunged forward and wrapped a hand around his ankle. The other Fae hissed at her movements reminding Sorcha just how dangerous the situation was. These people liked her, but they did not trust her. This was the one youngling they had. They would not tolerate mistakes.

“Easy there,” she whispered. “Let me see your arm. I can help.”

The boy stared back at her with mistrusting eyes. He had a reason to, she supposed. Sorcha’d had very little opportunity to earn his trust.

“I know I’m a stranger,” she breathed, turning her voice into a coo. “You are right to be scared. It is a good thing for you to be wary of those you do not know. I can make your arm feel better if you’ll let me.”

He inched towards her. The movement was slight, but it was there.

Sorcha let out a relieved breath. “That’s right, come to me. What a brave boy you must be! To break your arm like this, you must have been doing something terribly heroic.”

“No,” he grunted through blunted teeth. “I was climbing a tree.”

“Oh well, that is very heroic! There’s plenty of heroes who climbed trees, do you know any of them?”

Pooka shook his head and moved the rest of the way. She gently positioned him so his legs hung off the edge of the table. He moved his hand from the broken arm, stark white standing out amidst all the blood.

“It’s hurt real bad,” he whimpered.

“Yes, yes it is. But I’ll help. While I’m working, I’ll tell you a story.” She gestured over her shoulder, and Pixie leaned in. “Yarrow, as much cloth as you can, and perhaps a little liquid courage. Is there anything different about Fae bodies I should know?”

“Not that I can think of, is he going to survive?”

“Of course he is,” Sorcha leaned back in shock. “I’m here now.”

The collective sigh rocked through Sorcha. Why would they think the boy would die? A severed limb, or perhaps impalement yes, but a broken arm? He hadn’t bled out, now she could fix him.

She hesitated and asked, “What did you do before?”

“Well,” Pixie glanced at the boy and lowered her voice. “Usually we’d let it be and hope it healed on its own. A wound like this usually festered. We’d do what we could with honey compresses, but most times we’d lose them.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m here.”

Sorcha shouldn’t have said the words, but she did. These people needed her strength, her courage, her understanding. They didn’t need to know she planned on leaving as soon as possible. Or that she was leaving at all.

She turned back towards the boy and plastered a smile on her face. “Have you heard the story of Macha?”

“Yes,” he said with a sniff. Two large tears rolled down his face and dripped onto his bloodied pants.

“Did you hear how she cursed the line of Ulster?”

“No.”

“Good. Listen to my voice and nothing else, all right? This will hurt, but I want you to hear the story and not focus on the pain.”

They had waited a long time to come get her. The muscles of his arm had wrapped around the bone’s new position and did not want to release. Thankfully, it was a clean break. She was gentle with the sensitive bone and ragged edges of flesh.

Sorcha viewed the entire injury before deciding she would need to stretch the muscles before they would allow the bone back in its place. Theoretically, it would be easy. For her.

The boy she worried about.

She set about the surgery in the best way she could. The entire time she told the story of Macha. How she had married a mortal man and carried his child. How the foolish man had bragged about his wife to a rival king who forced her into a foot race. When she beat him, and lay near dying on the finish line, she cursed nine generations of his family to experience the pain of childbirth.

Although the pain must have been great, he listened. The boy repeated sentences of the story as she made three passes of stretching the muscle. He asked her questions as she snapped the bone back into place with an audible crunch. He bit back tears as she packed the wound with yarrow and wrapped it tightly with cloth.

They were both covered in blood and exhausted by the time she finished. She tugged the knot of his sling and nodded. “That will do. You have been brave enough to claim the title of hero, young Pooka. It’s been an honor.”

He sniffed hard, but straightened his spine. “It didn’t hurt a bit, ma’am.”

On impulse, she leaned forward and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I couldn’t have asked for a better patient, sweet boy. Now ask your mother to tuck you into bed with a full jar of honey.”

“I’m not allowed to have that much!”

“I think under the circumstances, you’ve earned it.”