Chapter 10
For the next three days Derek was at Allison and Lydia's cottage everyday all day long and Scott and Jackson both insisted on always going with him. He knew the reason for that after the first day, Scott liked Allison and Jackson liked Lydia.
On the fourth day Derek was again seated next to the bed, holding Stiles' hand and Lydia was talking quietly with Jackson about a book she was reading.
"Excuse me Your Majesty but Allison would like to speak with you" Scott came over and whispered to him so Derek followed him outside where Allison was waiting.
"Your Majesty, if there was one thing my father always taught me it was to be honest and never be afraid to speak my mind so I wanted to tell you that you cannot continue to come here like this. Now before you say anything, my sister and I completely understand why you are here, King Stiles is your husband and it is only natural for you to want to be here…"
"But Sire you are not sleeping well, if at all, and you look terrible. Not to mention the kingdom still needs to be run and personally speaking I don't want to have to hear it from King Stiles when he wakes up and sees you looking like you do. He is going to be very upset with both me and Jackson for not taking care of you" Scott blurted out and Derek just looked at them both. He looked annoyed but also completely heartbroken.
"All I am suggesting is that you spend your mornings taking care of things at the castle and then come here in the afternoon and trust me Sire, if King Stiles starts to come around on a morning you are not here yet, I will get on my horse and come and get you right away" Allison added.
"Do I really look that bad?" Derek finally said after a few moments.
"You look very tired Sire" Scott said. After that day Derek agreed to only come in the afternoons after he took care of anything that needed to be taken care of up at the castle.
It was the middle of the night when both Lydia and Allison were woken up by moaning and they both looked and realized that King Stiles was starting to come around. Lydia immediately went to him while Allison got ready to ride up to the castle.
Stiles opened his eyes and looked around, "who are you, where am I?"
"Relax Sire you're safe, my name is Lydia and this is my sister Allison and you are in our cottage. We brought you here after you fell down the cliff."
Stiles just stared at her for a minute trying to get his bearings and then everything that happened to him suddenly came back to him. "I remember ducking to avoid a spear and falling off my horse but that is it. Where is my horse, where are my Knights?"
"Your horse is outside with ours Sire, after you fell I waited with your horse until your Knights came along and before you ask King Derek knows what happened and that you are here, in fact he has been here every day since your accident. Now if you'll excuse me I promised him that if you came to when he wasn't here I would ride to the castle to get him."
Stiles turned and looked and could see it was dark outside, "no please wait until at the least the sun comes up I don't want you out there alone and by the way how long have I been here?"
"Sire it is either late Friday night or early Saturday morning so you've been here about a week and I can take care of myself."
"Are we within the border of the kingdom?"
"Yes we are why?"
"Then as your King I am ordering you not to leave. I'm sorry I hate doing that, but I really don't want to worry about you so please just go at first light. Don't worry I'll pretend to still be coming around until he gets here" said Stiles and at first Allison was a little insulted at being ordered but she couldn't help but smile knowing he was only worried about her.
Stiles went to put his left hand on his head but stopped when he had pain in his shoulder so he tried with his right hand but Lydia grabbed it and stopped him.
"Sorry, but your left shoulder is sore because it was dislocated, it's fixed now but will still be a little tender. The reason I stopped you from moving your right arm is because you have some broken ribs on the right side and I don't want you to risk puncturing a lung" Lydia explained.
"What other injuries do I have? I mean I can feel and move my feet so I'm not paralyzed thankfully."
"You have a cut on your head and aside from the shoulder and ribs most of your injuries were minor and mostly healed at this point. You must have hit your head shortly after falling and your body was relaxed as you tumbled down. Had you been conscious when you fell you would have tensed up to brace yourself and may have done further damage, being unconscious you pretty much bounded down like a ragdoll."
"Are you a physician?" Stiles asked smiling at Lydia.
"No Sire I am not I just read a lot of books. I can tell you have broken ribs by the bruising and swelling but how many or how badly they are broken, I can't say."
Stiles looked again and saw it was getting lighter out, "you might as well go and get my clod of a husband up and don't worry I'll be sure to moan with my eyes closed so he thinks I'm seeing him for the first time, it will make him happy."
Both Allison and Lydia couldn't' help but chuckle and then Allison left. "Sire I need to ask you something and we don't have much time but do you see this?" Lydia asked showing Stiles her wrist where there was a small cluster of freckles in a swirl. "When I was putting the bandage on your head I noticed you have the same exact mark behind your right ear."
Stiles looked at her and instinctively went to touch behind his ear but the pain of moving his right arm stopped him. "I don't know what you mean? I mean I never looked behind my ears so I never knew it was there but what are you saying, we're related or something because if you are I need to have a serious conversation with my father."
"No Sire that is not what I'm saying, we are not related but it's what this mark means, from what I was told and from what I've heard, those born with this mark are magical. You see my sister and I fled our village one night in the middle of the night with our father. He couldn't explain anything at first until we were well away from there and then he told us. It seems there was a traveling band of people who claimed to be religious people and they felt it was their duty to cleanse the area of evil, including witches and warlocks. They stated that those born with this particular mark were children of evil and must be destroyed. Eventually some of them found out we left and were following us, we could only assume that somebody in our village told them I had this mark and that we left in the night. We were heading here because my father had heard great things about this kingdom and the Hale royal family and at one point my father sent us on ahead while he created a diversion to get the hunters off our trail, we never saw him again."
Stiles felt sick as he just laid there listening to Lydia's story and he could see a tear run down her cheek even though she was looking away from him; he reached over and touched her hand.
"Your father was right, this is a good place you'll be safe here and I will keep your secret."
"You know that was five years ago and I guess I should tell you we know about King Derek and his knights" she said and at first Stiles wasn't sure what she was talking about but then he realized she said this was five years ago.
"Wait you mean when I was taken…?"
"Yes Sire we were on our way here and had just come over a ridge when we saw the encampment. We were going to go down and see who it was and if they could help us but as we got closer we saw you and that knight chained up and then we heard the howl. We both climbed high up in a tree and remained there quietly, watching everything. We debated on if we should continue on because knowing there were werewolves here had us concerned but at the same time we saw that you were not harmed, they only went after the others. We eventually came across this place, it was abandoned so we decided to stay and fix it up and made it our own and we've been here ever since."
"Well it is a charming cottage but as you can see it's five years later and I went from being a servant to the King's husband and a King myself so you have nothing to fear from King Derek or his knights and you are both more than welcome to come to the castle."
"Oh we know, my sister has taken a shine to Scott and I like Jackson" she said and they both smiled.
"Oh I'm sorry I got off track about what I was talking about. Anyway this mark is a sign of magical abilities and yes I do have them Sire and I suspect you may as well."
"Trust me Lydia if I had any abilities to do anything magical I think I would have known it by now."
"Not if you never had any reason to use it. You see I could have had you completely healed the moment you fell and rolled down that cliff but my sister ended up bringing the Knights here to see you were alive and then one of them went to get King Derek so they all saw you and how banged up you were. If I had done any magic to heal you, it would have raised suspicion but I can show you how to heal yourself, if you'll let me?"
Stiles was about to say something but stopped as they both heard horses coming. Lydia got up and went around to the other side of the bed and sat there taking Stiles' left hand and he closed his eyes and started moaning. The door opened and Derek ran in and dropped onto the floor taking Stiles' right hand, "anything?" he asked looking at Lydia.
"No Sire not yet, he's just been moaning like this, but this is a good sign, he is finally starting to come out of it" she said and then she got up and went to stand with Allison. They both stood off to the side while Derek held Stiles' hand.
"Stiles, can you hear me?"
Stiles slowly opened his eyes and looked at Derek, "hey you, I know you, you're the clod that knocked me down one day and married me the next" he said and Derek laughed.
"Eight years together and three of them married and you still don't listen to me. Sometimes I wonder why I love you and then you do that. You smile and it still takes my breath away…well that and your ridiculously hot body" Stiles said groggily and Derek couldn't help but laugh and then he leaned over and kissed him.
"Where am I, what happened? Oh hello" he said when he saw Lydia and Allison standing there and they were impressed at how well Stiles was pretending to just be waking up.
"Stiles this is Allison and her sister Lydia, they found you after you fell and have been taking excellent care of you" Derek said.
"Well actually my sister did most of it, she is the one that reads all the medical books" Allison said.
"Thank you ladies but what happened? I remember riding away because we were ambushed and I remember seeing a spear coming at me and I ducked to avoid getting hit but I don't remember much after that."
The three of them each told them what they knew about what happened to him and told him that it was almost a week later.
"Wow, I've been out of it that long? The Knights are ok though right?"
"Yes, they were fine and they are fine" Derek said as he kissed the back of Stiles' hand.
"So doctor Lydia, any idea as to when I might be able to go home?"
"Well the only injury we need to be careful about is your ribs, I don't know how many are broken and how badly they are broken and my concern is one puncturing your lung but…"
"But what" Derek said looking at her and both Allison and Stiles knew where this was going.
"Your Majesty I might be able to heal him completely now but I'm afraid."
"What do you mean heal him now and what are you afraid of?" Derek asked.
"She is talking about magic, she might be able to heal King Stiles with magic but we both fear your reaction."
"Hey, I'm a King and I'm the broken one here and if you think you can fix me with magic then go for it, you have nothing to fear" Stiles said.
"Exactly, I don't care if you can do magic but why didn't you say anything earlier?"
"Fear Your Majesty" Lydia said and then she went into the same story she had to told Stiles before he arrived and Stiles even pretended to be hearing the story for the first time.
"I am sorry that you both went through that and you have my guarantee that we will never tolerate any such behavior in our kingdom" Derek said and Stiles squeezed his hand, "oh yea, that's another reason I love you" he said.
"Uh there is something else" Allison said and they looked at her and she looked at Lydia who nodded her head so Allison told the part of the story that Lydia told Stiles about them being there that night when Derek and his Knights rescued Stiles and Danny and Derek looked at them completely shocked.
"You mean you've known about us all this time? Have you ever…"
"No, we have never said anything to anybody that we can promise you" Allison said cutting him off.
"Well, it seems like there are no more secrets" Stiles said after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
Lydia stepped forward and placed her hand on Stiles' shoulder and quietly said "sana" and Stiles made a face.
"Did that hurt?" Derek asked.
"No, it just felt funny, like something tightened up."
"I read that when you dislocate your shoulder, the ligaments and tendons get stretched and you could easily dislocate it again, what I did was heal them which basically tightened them back up so you shouldn't have any further problems" Lydia explained and Stiles started to move his left arm around, "hey that feels great" he said. She then grabbed a knife and cut open the bandages around his chest, "wow" Stiles said when he saw the bruising.
"This might hurt" she said and Stiles braced himself and held tight to Derek's hand. She gently placed her hand on the bruising and when she did Stiles loudly sucked in air.
"Sorry" she said and then again she said "sana" and Stiles tried but eventually he screamed out in pain as they all heard bones popping and grinding. It didn't last long but it was very painful and when it was over the bruising was starting to fade away. Stiles didn't say anything but he knew why she made it a point to say the word out loud, still thinking about their conversation from earlier.
"Help me up?" Stiles asked as he slowly swung his legs around and then taking both of Derek's hands he slowly stood up. "Are you ok?" Derek asked.
"Yea, actually I am. My head hurts still but otherwise I feel fine" he said and he stepped forward and put his arms around Derek and hugged him. "I missed this most of all" he said and Derek gently hugged him back. Allison and Lydia handed Stiles his shirt and the rest of his stuff and he was ready to go back.
"Everybody is going to be thrilled to see you return, many villagers have been lighting candles and saying prayers for your recovery and return" Derek said.
"Ladies, I can't thank you both enough for everything you did but are you both going to be ok out here? I mean I know you've been here awhile now but I don't think we have had problems like these marauders before so please if you feel threatened or have any problems please do not hesitate to come to the castle" Stiles said.
"We know and thank you Sire but we'll be fine" Allison said and they walked them outside and Derek helped Stiles get on his horse and with a final good-bye he and Derek rode off to return to Hale Castle.