Cloak and Scalpel

ABERLEEN ARC: Lover

"Are you absolutely crazy?!"

I jumped up and immediately took Aamon's hand in my own. He'd cut right through his palm, a deep gash that gaped at me. Blood pooled in his hand, falling to the grassy ground with a muffled drip.

The mad urge to smack him welled inside me. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself. "You're mad," I grumbled as I gently angled his hand to better catch the light.

It was a three-inch laceration right down the middle of his palm. My mind reeled with all the structures he'd cut through. "Lumbricals...abductor pollicis brevis..." God, Aamon was crazy. "Can you feel this?" I gently pinched the tips of his thumb and little finger.

"...no. Should I be worried?" A lazy smirk curled his lip. That insufferable smirk that made my heart stutter. Despite the question, there was something in his tone of voice that told me he wasn't at all concerned.

"You cut deep enough to damage your nerves, you moron!" I screeched, looking up at him in panic.

He raised an eyebrow. Glancing down at his palm, I watched as he attempted to wiggle his fingers. His little finger twitched subtly, but that was all. "And so, I did," he said insouciantly.

I resisted the urge to whack him. "Doesn't this hurt?" I asked, worry in my voice. It was a deep cut. Normally, I'd drag his sorry ass to the operating theater to irrigate the wound, debride it, and check how deep he'd cut exactly...

"Of course, it does," Aamon admitted.

"Duke Paxley, I can't decide if you're a masochist, or..." Xavier muttered, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Whipped?" Gusion offered as he and Lesley approached us.

"That looks really painful," Yin added, shaking his head at the sight of the blood dripping from Aamon's palm.

"Good." Melissa nodded her head in approval.

Despite the hubbub around us, Aamon kept those arctic eyes fixed on me. Amusement flashed in his eyes. What the hell was he so amused about? He'd deliberately injured himself, damaged nerves, muscle and blood vessels. Was he mad?

"I'm certain my darling fiancée will be able to handle it," he began. "Heal it, Diana."

...What?

I blinked up at him. "Heal it? You're asking me to repair this hand, using magic I barely know how to use?"

"Exactly." That amused look in his eyes again.

I glared at him, resisting the urge to whack him.

Sensing my annoyance, he grinned at me, a minuscule movement that barely tilted the corner of his lips. "Well, doctor? I'm waiting."

"You...you...!"

"You spent a good portion of the evening and the morning discussing magical healing theory with Xavier," he went on, as though he were talking about the weather. "Time to put his little lectures into practice, yes?"

I glared at him, before turning helplessly to Xavier. The mage sighed and made his way towards us. "Well, he has a point," he said with a shrug. "Since the duke has kindly offered to be your guinea pig, might as well practice."

"There's a big difference between learning about it, and putting it into practice," I pointed out.

Xavier arched a brow at me. "Well...I'm assuming that's how you learned to heal back in your world, no?" He crossed his arms.

"Point very well taken," I conceded.

"C'mon, Diana, you can do it," Gusion encouraged. He grinned at me. "And if you can't, well...Aamon will just have to get used to using one hand for the rest of his life."