The Crystal Moon Curse: Book 5: TAKEN

Chapter 46. Life

QUILLA

This place is so familiar and yet I’m certain I’ve never been here before.

I think I would remember being in a gigantic cave with a high ceiling that sparkles with brilliant purple amethyst crystals.

The air is cool and damp and part of me wonders how I got here, and another questions why I’m naked and why I sit with my bare ass cold on a throne of stone?

Quilla.

My name echoes, bouncing off the vaulted ceiling, and I look around the mysterious place trying to find the source.

Deep and resonating, the voice whispers and wafts around me and I tilt my head trying to catch clarity in its murmuring.

Quilla.

The voice whispers again, and a sense of recognition brings awareness to me. I know this voice.

I feel warmth in my limbs traveling from the top of my head to the tip of my toes.

Suddenly, I open my eyes and I wince at the artificial brightness in the room I find myself in.

His back facing me and my left bare leg in his hands, a massive male slowly bends my knee while massaging my calf. I catch the tail end of what he says.

“..it’s probably the worst beer I ever made, tasted like a sweaty sock, but I’ll tweak the recipe, I think it will be one of my best brews when I’m done with it.”

He lowers my leg and rounds the end of the bed to the other side. There he picks up my right leg and massages my calf  with a gentleness that seems impossible for such a large male.

“Who are you talking to, Udyr?” I choke through the dryness in my throat.

His large hands still, his head lifts abruptly and before I know it I am engulfed in a burly chest, massive biceps and the thick scent of bear.

“I knew you would pull through, you are too stubborn to die,” He grumbles into my hair, his deep voice thick with emotion.

My throat is too parched to laugh and it comes out as a dry cough.

I’m shocked to my core to see his dark eyes well with tears as he pulls away to pour me a glass of water.

“You need to hydrate, can you sit up on your own?” His gruff voice is as I remember it, and I pull myself up frowning at the dull tenderness in my belly.

“Drink slowly,” he says as I sip the water and it gurgles down into my empty  stomach.

I notice for the first time the drip on my arm, the strange smell of the room which I immediately recognize as a hospital room.

“Udyr, what happened, why am I here?”

He pulls a chair beside me, and I nuzzle my head under his heavy palm as he strokes my hair.

“What is the last thing you remember?” He asks, and I frown.

Strange things blur in my head, cloudy faces and voices and names, I feel a stirring in my head, and Kyra whines.

Kyra, are you okay? What happened to us?

I close my eyes at the burst of memories flashing before me, one after another, and with each one my heart races, my skin tingles and I flick open my eyes to Udyr with a gasp, clutching my belly.

“Where’s Viggo?”

Udyr nods with a sigh.

“Your mate is fine. He was here about an hour ago, he needed to leave. What are you doing?” He growls as I slowly pull the drip from my arm and swing my legs off the bed to the floor.