“Those are Dark Fae out there with your people.”
“My people?” she repeated and gave a snort as she looked at his shirt riddled with bullet holes and blood. “As if I would claim the ones putting bullets in you.”
“You could be working with them. How do I know otherwise? Everything that happened in my cave could’ve been planned.”
“Yep. You found me out. I set up my own betrayal, knowing you were in the cave and would take me back to the manor so Con, with the magic I knew he had, would heal me, only to get shot again.” Denae rolled her eyes. “Get a grip.”
He sighed loudly and looked around the crates as the bullets slowly exited his body and the wounds healed right before her eyes.
“How bad is your wound?”
“It won’t kill me.” Denae raised her eyes to his face. He thought she was part of the trap. As if. But that didn’t upset her nearly as much as the kiss. The kiss that had shaken her to her core meant nothing to him. It had been a distraction for her as well as their enemies.
She felt used, manipulated. And it hurt.
She scooted around the other side of the crate and took aim at a second agent on the roof through her scope. In one shot, he was dead.
“I’m trying to keep you alive,” Kellan stated as he moved her out of the way.
“The Dark Fae want you,” she told him.
“I know. Rhi heard it all as she was following you to keep you from harm.”
“So you knowingly walked into an ambush while thinking I’m a part of it?” Denae shook her head. “And here I thought you were smart.”
“I am,” he ground out.
Her retort died on her lips when the Dark Fae who had been eyeing her earlier rose up behind Kellan.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kellan saw Denae’s widened eyes and knew there was someone behind him, and by the look of stark fear on her face, he knew what—a Dark.
If it wasn’t for Denae, he would turn and battle the Fae, but there was the female to consider. Instead of fighting, he clasped her arms and pulled her on top of him as he dove to the side as a blast of dark magic came at them.
Kellan rolled them until he was on top of her. His body, already heated from their kisses, roared to life when nestled against her soft curves.
There was no time to think about it, however, with a battle going on around him. Kellan looked up and saw something slam into the Dark One from the back. Rhi appeared for just a moment as nothing but a shimmer as her magic gathered and she focused it on her enemy. It sent the Dark from the realm, leaving only three others to fight.
Rhi glanced at him just before she faded again. Kellan jumped to his feet and pulled Denae up with him. “Are you all right?”
She was nodding her head when her body jerked and she fell forward. Kellan grabbed her against him, his hand going around to her back and meeting something sticky and wet.
He dragged her to safety and pulled his hand away to see it covered in bright red blood. Kellan knelt with her in his arms and gently turned her onto her back, careful to keep his hand covering the wound to stanch the blood flow.
Her face was pale, her lips colorless.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promised you wouldna die today.”
She smiled wanly. “Even you can’t keep such a promise.”
“When will you stop doubting me?” he whispered.
Her lids slid closed over her whisky-colored eyes. Even with the kernel of doubt that she was part of the ambush, Kellan called forth his dragon power and found the metal bullets within her. He focused all of his concentration on the metal and extracting them from her spine and her leg.
The bullet in her leg fell first, and then the one from her back. But that didn’t stop the blood. Before he could call to Con, the King of Kings stood before them.
Kellan glanced up and saw Rhys, Banan, and even Henry surrounding them as they fended off the Dark. Con knelt beside Denae, and without a word, healed her.
The fear that had turned his blood to ice was new. It had been so long since he had felt that particular emotion and he would be happy never to feel it again.
Denae’s eyes fluttered open, a frown marring her forehead. “There’s no more pain.”
“Because the injury is gone.”
“How?”
Kellan spotted a Dark Fae coming for them, so he got them on their feet and running. He paused beside another set of crates and peered around the corner. “Con is the only one who can heal a wound, and he did just that.”
“You did something, I know it. What was it?” she asked as he jerked her after him as they ran to another spot.
“My gift is finding metal.”
There was a beat of silence before she said, “The bullets. Thank you.”
Kellan glanced at her, surprised to hear such words. Then again, she constantly astounded him. There was steel beneath her delicate frame, extreme intelligence behind her sexy eyes, and gentleness within her.