Kinked (Elder Races, #6)

But he had to start somewhere. He just had to keep it localized. First he worked on her leg, pouring the healing spell over the femur to ensure the break had fused. Then he worked on her wrist. As his Power reduced the swollen flesh, he ripped a length off the edge of the sail so that he could wrap it. That joint was going to need some support as it finished healing.

Next he turned his attention to her cracked ribs, placing a hand along the curve of her torso. He had barely begun when she took his wrist. “Stop,” she croaked.

Blood had dried all over her, so that she was almost unrecognizable. He scowled. “No.”

“It’s too much. You can’t spare the strength.”

“I can spare it. Just a little more.”

“Everything always has to be a fight with you,” she grumbled.

He cocked an eyebrow incredulously at her but didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply. Instead, sensing how her stressed, injured flesh soaked up the healing like a sponge, he eked out a little more Power before he had to concede that he was tapped, and he had to stop.

She struggled to sit up, and he slipped his good arm underneath her shoulders to help. Her arms slipped around his waist, and they ended up simply leaning against each other. He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and held her carefully.

After a while she reached for the wineskin of water, and when she drank her fill, he did the same. The skin was nearly empty when he had finished. He stoppered and shook it. “Gonna have to deal with that issue soon.”

“There’ll be fresh water at the top of the bluff.” She eyed the path tiredly. “We just have to get up there.”

“One step at a time.” He dug in the sack and pulled out wayfarer bread. The apple brandy bottle hadn’t broken. Fuck yeah. They ate slowly and took sips of the brandy as they watched the sunset. He said, “If I don’t see another wafer of wayfarer bread for a hundred years or so, I’ll be okay with that.”

She nodded as she looked around, and he did too. The current had washed Galya’s head onto the beach beside the nearest pier. A few minutes later, she said as she chewed, “I like to see her rotting.”

She sounded so peaceful. He snorted, which didn’t hurt quite as badly as it had before. He told her about his dream, and she gave him a dark look that was almost laughter. Of course, that also meant he had to tell her what the shadow wolf had told him, and she paled underneath the coat of her grime.

She whispered, “They were Wyr after all.”

“Yeah. Hopefully they’re at peace now. Have you ever heard of this Phoenix Cauldron that the wolf mentioned?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “I wonder if it’s one of the seven God Machines. Except all the stories say that Numenlaur had only one.”

He pushed the mystery aside, finished his wafer and said, “Paragliding is not stupid.”

She looked at him blankly.

“The shit fit you threw earlier,” he said. “You said—screamed—that paragliding is stupid, and it’s not. It’s not, sunshine.”

She ducked her head and muttered so low he almost couldn’t hear her, “It is if you’re not there to do it with me.”

His throat tightened. “That’s not ever going to happen.”

She turned to look at him, and everything was right there in her eyes. Fear, vulnerability, and a startled, fierce love. Uncertainty.

He stamped on that last bit with the whole force of his personality. “You made me a promise that you were going to make it, no matter what,” he growled. “And you will. You will not endanger your mate.”

He held her gaze until, blinking rapidly, she nodded, glanced away and then back at him. “You look terrible,”

she said, her voice unsteady. “Why haven’t you gotten out of that armor yet? You must be baking in this heat.”

He fingered the scab on his cheek as he told her, “I’ve been postponing it. I think the tunic underneath has stuck to my chest.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “You just left it stuck to you? Oh gods, where is a knife?”

“You can’t cut it off,” he said, baffled. “I think it needs to be soaked.”

She waved a hand impatiently at him as she looked around. Eventually she settled on one of the short swords and knelt on her good knee beside him, her other leg awkwardly propped to one side. They used the tip of the sword to cut carefully at the fastenings between the plates, which had swollen from his swim in the salt water. Then they stripped the pieces off of him one at a time. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as the last piece, the damaged breastplate, came away without any trouble.

They looked down at his chest where the tunic was indeed stuck to the giant scab.

Aryal’s good hand snaked out. She ripped the tunic off of him.

Fresh fire exploded across his chest.

“GAAAAHHH!” he roared furiously, his fists clenched. “Why did you do that?!”

“Isn’t that better?” His demonic mate held up both hands in a placating gesture. “See, it’s done now, it’s all done. We can put it in the past and move on.”