Claimed by the Primals

Chapter Twenty-Six

I spent three nights as a patient in the hospital before I was discharged. Fun fact about primals, not all of us can heal rapidly. It's very dependent on the individual and their breed. For example, take me, Warrick, and Kade.

Kade, a shifter, does have some minor accelerated healing. It has to be 'manually' activated in that he can only heal if he can shift. It was super convenient for him as he was able to heal all of his minor injuries with a complete shift into, then out of, his tiger form. The best part was that he stripped completely naked beforehand so that he wouldn't rip his clothes again. God, he's hot.

Next, there's me; a... demigod? Khaos entity? Oh right, I remember... as a Supreme Dipshit Extraordinaire, I have a bit more of a rapid yet passive ability to heal. As soon as my life is threatened by an injury, the magic kicks in until I'm out of immediate danger, then slows down the more I heal. The doctors and theorist people who work for Thorne think that explains the sudden burst of energy when I nearly died at Lana's, and probably why my injuries weren't significantly worse after coming out of purgatory.

Upon closer inspection of the imaging, they realized that five other ribs and most of my thoracic spine showed signs of recently healed breaks. Despite Menes's acting to save my life, what he did probably should have killed me.

Side note; don't you dare tell Warrick that part. Menes was right, and Kade and I agreed that if he knew, it would destroy his relationship with his sire. With the rest of the anubi on their way, we didn't want to risk there being strife between them.

Speaking of which, Warrick has the third type of magical healing. Which is virtually none at all. I was genuinely shocked to hear that, seeing as he, like me, is directly descended from a god. The thing is, my sire is a god of creation and life. Warrick's god is one of purgatory and death. When the anubi die, they can 'come back' in an incomplete form to fulfill their duties to Anubis. We, the living, still lose him forever. But he, in death, lives on. I guess in magical terms that translates to not needing extra help with healing.

Which meant Warrick was heavily reliant on modern medicine for his injury. He needed a blood transfusion from his sister and regular monitoring of his liver function as the blade had gone straight through it. After the sedatives wore off, they had him on a drip of really strong pain meds that made him drowsy and loopy as hell. He would still heal faster than a human with the same injury, but not by much and the doctors warned us that he would be up for several weeks of taking it easy until his muscles and organs stitched themselves back together.

The only thing that made me forget how worried I should be was the pure hilarity of Warrick on drugs. Imagine the most wholesome, sappy, sickeningly sweet things you could say to your significant other. Now multiply it by, like, ten. He said things to me and Kade that had everyone's cheeks turning red. I basked in the attention when I could, and he weaned off most of the meds by the time I was discharged.

That same day was the day I finally met Thorne face to face.

I'll be honest, I didn't like him all the much right from the beginning. Oh no, you write that down. He needs to know the impressions he has on people. I don't care if he thinks he knows and that's why he gets smoking hot guys like Warrick and Kade to do the in-person work. He needs to understand.

General Archer Thorne is a military guy in the way that 'military' became his entire personality inside and out. He is big and buff, with cropped white hair, a permanent scowl, and three old scars down one side of his square face. Call him Chip Hazard for how robotic and cartoonishly military he is.

Aside from his looks, however, it was the way he walked, talked, and demanded the attention of the entire room wherever he went. He reminded me of Godric in all the worst ways. So, no, I'm not a fan, and it has not changed since.