“Because death is an analgesic.”
I frowned. “This doesn’t have any side effects, does it? Like necrosis?”
He smiled slowly, pulling his hands away. “No. You’ll be fine.”
The pain had completely left my body, replaced instead with a warm, tingling excitement. I could get addicted to his touch, like a drug fiend craving opiates.
Pretty sure the last thing I needed was to let Adonis’s seductive beauty lure me in. I’d be keeping my Thanatos drive well and truly suppressed.
Chapter 9
I stared out over the wildflower-dappled field. “I might not have healing powers, but I’m supposed to be the Bringer of Light, right? And the Old Gods will provide. All we need to do is tune in to their beauty.”
“Is that right?” I heard a faintly mocking tone in his voice.
“They’ve given me what I needed so far: poison, sap from the trees to light my arrows, the power of light.” I sat up straight. “Let me try it.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on the sounds around me—the rustling of the wind through the grasses, the gentle lapping and splashing of the river. A faint whispering floated on the breeze, the words unintelligible. A vibrating power seemed to move up my feet, up my limbs, lighting my body from the inside out. Something faintly floral wafted through the air—an unusual scent for February.
I opened my eyes, scanning the tall grasses around me, until I spotted a faint smudge of yellow in the distance. “There,” I said.
“What?”
“They’re giving us a remedy.” I rose on my newly healed legs. I bit my lip. “I don’t suppose you have any bandages though?”
He nodded at Thanatos. “You can find a blanket in the satchel. Tear a strip off it.”
I crossed to his enormous, bruise-colored horse, who reared back his head, snorting as I approached. Gingerly, I stroked his silver mane until he quieted. Then, I reached into the leather satchel, pulling out a thick woolen blanket. I slid my knife from its holster, then sliced a long, thin strip from the wool. I stuffed the rest of the blanket back into the satchel.
With the bandage ready, I hurried over to a patch of white and yellow wildflowers blooming among the grasses.
When I was a kid, my mom took me out on long treks into the New England forests. We’d walk through the forests, her pale hair gleaming in chinks of streaming sunlight, her hiking boots and jeans muddied. She always wore long sleeves, even in summer. She had some kind of brutal scar she didn’t want anyone to see. An attack from a wild beast that had disfigured her—a reptile, probably. She’d never tell me the whole story.
In any case, those long nature walks were my salvation.
I smiled, then plucked a handful of the weeds and stroked my fingertips over the delicate, fern-like leaves. I remembered Mom’s voice as she told me yarrow was a styptic—a substance that can staunch bleeding.
I stripped the leaves from the stem, piling them into one of my palms. Then, I closed my eyes and held my palm up to the sunlight. Warmth blazed from my palm, the sun’s rays using my hand as a brazier, and an herbal smell filled the air. When I opened my eyes again, the leaves had been heated, dried to a crisp.
I grinned. Maybe I didn’t know what the hell it meant, but I felt blessed by the Old Gods. This was the way of the ancient fae—live in the moment; merge with the beauty around you.
I scanned the earth for moss until my gaze landed on a bright green patch among the rocks and grasses nearby. I knelt down next to it and pried off a cool, damp chunk.
Clutching my handfuls of moss and dried yarrow, I crossed back to Adonis. When I reached him, I plopped down next to him on the rock.
He was studying me with an intense curiosity. “Communing with the Old Gods, I suppose?”
I opened my palm. “I have my own healing treatment for that shattered wing of yours.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“It will heal a lot faster than if you just rely on your own magic. And what if it heals all crooked?”
“I must admit. I want to know what your hands would feel like on my wings.”
My cheeks flushed. “What, is that some kind of sex thing for angels?”
A slow shrug.
“I’ll try to forget I just learned that.” I examined his midnight blue wings, cascading gracefully over the back of the rock. Streaks of blood pooled from the jagged break at the top.
“So I’m supposed to trust the healing skills of a deceitful, feral fae?” A seductive purr softened the harshness of his words.
“Yes. I know you hate the fae, but we have our own set of skills.” Carefully, I laid out the moss and crushed herbs on my makeshift bandage. “I spent my formative years with my mom, learning about the trees, the plants, the herbs. We found a broken sparrow once, and she taught me to treat and set his wing.”
A wicked smile. “And you think I’m like a broken sparrow.”
“Same idea. You’re just bigger.” Gently, I ran my fingertips over the top of his wing.
Adonis inhaled sharply, his wing twitching, pupils dilating.
“Did that hurt already?”
“No. But wings are a sensitive area. I don’t normally let anyone touch them.”
“It’s a closed fracture,” I said. “I think the open break has begun to set itself already. This will help with the tears in your skin and muscle.”
“How ever did I survive four thousand years without you?”
I leaned in closer to him and began pressing the dried yarrow against his wing, his feathers soft and silky against my fingertips. As I pressed the herbs against him, he gasped faintly, and his lids lowered. I couldn’t quite tell if he was enjoying this or hating it, but I tried not to think about it either way.
“Yarrow will staunch the bleeding and clean the wound,” I said quietly. I picked up the moss from the rock and gently held it over the broken wing’s surface. “And this will help pack the wound.” Holding the moss in place, I reached for the bandage.
Carefully, I tied it over the top of his wing, pressing the moss and yarrow to his feathers. He winced slightly, but as I threaded it gently around his muscle and bone, through the curtain of midnight feathers, his stormy eyes were locked intently on my face. I was pressing in close to him to reach his back, and his body radiated warmth.
I sat back on the rock, admiring my work. He drank me in with his gaze.
“There. Good as new.” I took a deep breath. “See? Fae skills can be useful. We’re not just beasts.”
A twitch of his lip. “You didn’t grow up around them, did you?”
I shook my head. “My parents left the fae realm long before I was born.” I swallowed hard. “What did you mean when you said you lived among the fae, helping them kill for fun?”
Any trace of a smile disappeared from his face. “They’re savage and driven to dominate.”
My wild antics obviously didn’t do much to dispel that notion—not that he’d seemed to mind at the time.
“If they were so savage, why did you help them kill?”