Once the wound was treated, the combination of excruciating pain and the immense magical energy I had expended earlier to maintain my mental barriers pulled me back under a wave of unconsciousness. In the final moment before darkness claimed me, I felt Luke"s hand still gripping mine, as if he feared I would vanish if he let go. His low, gravelly voice sounded by my ear, a vow forged in steel: "I will never let anyone hurt you again… Never…" *** I drifted in a hazy world of pain and fractured, feverish dreams. At times, I heard Luke"s voice, a hushed, anguished murmur at my bedside, filled with endless self-recrimination and promises. Other times, Jim"s furious roars and arguments with the medical staff pierced the fog; he was berating himself for not sensing my distress through our blood
