Cole shook his head, and I chewed my lip a moment. “Okay, doesn’t matter. Hopefully the magic goes for the most serious injuries first.” Hopefully the magic wasn’t already too depleted from healing my own body.
My skin still prickled and pulled with magic, but I shoved it aside and focused on the two dying boys under my hands. I wasn’t entirely sure I had enough juice left to heal them both fully, so I sort of hoped that by doing them simultaneously, it’d be just enough to save their lives. Hopefully. Or that was the theory.
Unlike with the little wolf girl, this healing required no coaxing or encouragement. It knew exactly what was needed. The second I opened my mind to it, I felt the odd sensation rush through my body and extend down through my fingers, pressed to the boys’ chests.
Under my left hand, it felt wet and sticky, like I had dipped my palm in a bucket of blood. Under my right, it was the distinctively silky feeling of a bird’s feathers.
Time passed with no measure as I crouched there, not daring to move until I was certain I had done everything in my power to save these two guys who had come to mean just so damn much to me. Even as I felt the magic weakening, like I was almost drained, there was still no sign of life from either of them.
As the world spun and my eyes rolled back, I sent up a quick prayer to... I don’t know who, desperately hoping that I’d done enough. That they would pull through long enough to just get some normal medical help. As I face planted into the grass, my last thought was that I hoped I hadn’t changed them.
4
When I woke, it was to the crisp, linen smell of Wesley, and I realized that it was his warm body wrapped around me like an anaconda.
Cracking my eyelids open, I found my cheek pressed into his bare chest right above his crow tattoo, and I raised a hand to stroke a finger over the delicate ink. The level of detail was exquisite, as all of the boys’ tattoos were, and I wondered again about which artist they all went to. Maybe they could take me sometime. I’d wanted a tattoo of my own for ages but hadn’t found an artist whose work I loved enough to permanently ink into my skin.
Wesley’s soft snores vibrated his chest, reassuring me that he was alive. My magic must have done more than I’d expected before I had passed out because I’d expected him and Caleb to be in a hospital or something.
He made a cute-sounding sort of snuffle, then his breathing changed slightly, indicating he was awake. His arms tightened around me, and he murmured something in a sleepy voice that I couldn’t make out.
“Wes?” I whispered, splaying my hand across his chest and admiring his physique. There was absolutely no sign of him having just been in a fatal car crash, and damn if his typical oversized T-shirts and hoodies were definitely not doing him any favors. The boy was ripped.
“Sweetheart,” he sighed with a contented sound.
“Are you okay?” I asked, tilting my head back to look at him.
“Me?” He snorted a laugh, but a small smile played at his lips. “Are you okay? You scared the crap out of everyone!”
“Yeah, of course. I just ran out of steam. Is Caleb...?” I sat up a little and looked around the room we were in. It was a basic sort of bedroom with a queen-size bed, dresser with a mirror, and two doors leading off it, presumably one to a closet and one out to the rest of the house or apartment or whatever it was that we were in. But no Caleb.
“He’s fine too. He recovered faster than me, apparently, and took off to take care of something. The guys said I was still out when we got back here, so they tucked us in together in the hopes of you soaking up a bit of energy while we slept.” He peered at me from the short distance, looking strange without his glasses on. “Did it work? You’ve been out for most of the day.”
“Oh, I’ve been out? You weren’t taking a little siesta as well?” I teased, and he grinned back at me.
“What can I say? You’re really good to snuggle.” His hand ran up my back, and he tugged me back down to the pillow. “So, are you feeling, like, recharged?”
“Um, no?” I admitted. “Not really. Definitely better than I was, given the whole no-longer-unconscious thing, but still pretty drained.”
“I thought as much.” He made a humming noise like he was thinking. “I figured you might get a small amount of energy transfer from skin to skin contact, but it’s not really enough for a full charge, right? For that you need, um, more.”
His academic curiosity was clashing with his awkward nature, and I knew he was blushing again, so I shifted onto my side. Tucking the pillow farther under my head, I snuggled in so that we were face to face.
“More. Yeah, pretty much. Seems like lots of, um, contact is only necessary from big healing, like bringing people back from near death or healing major injuries for myself. Both of which probably contributed to me passing out earlier.” I tried to keep the discussion factual so as not to make Wesley uncomfortable. “Do we know what happened? Was it an accident?”
“Not an accident.” His lips turned down in an angry sort of pout. “The truck that hit us was gone even before River got out of the car.”
“Huh.” I bit my lip as I pondered that fact. First a car bomb in New York and now a hit and run car accident in Seattle. “Someone’s trying to kill me, huh?”
“Or us...” Wesley met my gaze with a sympathetic look and stroked a long strand of my copper-red hair from off my face. How it wasn’t a tangled mess was beyond me. “I had a suspicion after the car bomb that it might be someone who was testing your powers, trying to see if you could heal anyone else. But now I’m thinking they’re deliberately targeting us. Maybe trying to force you into choosing your dianoch so that you will gain your full powers sooner? I don’t know. Just a theory.”
“Probably a pretty good theory, though. Except then they would need to have some idea of how to gain control of, well, me in order to use the power. Which can’t be good. So yeah, it definitely makes sense... but who?” I frowned, considering all my many enemies that I suddenly seemed to have. Dupree was dead, of course, but she had said there were other interested parties who were aiming to be the ones who restored the magic. Some sort of bid to become a supreme ruler, I assumed. There was Mr. Gray, my childhood abuser who had tried to purchase me in the Onyx Auction, but did he have any knowledge of the Ban Dia? I sort of had the impression that they, or we, weren’t a widely known race.
“Hey.” Wesley broke through my thoughts, smoothing his thumb over the creases in my forehead. “We can discuss it with the guys when we’re all together. Right now, though, you look pretty damn terrible.”
“Ah, thanks?” I laughed, and Wesley blushed red.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know. I’m just teasing.” I smiled at him because I knew what he meant. I felt awful. Like I had just donated way too much blood at the Red Cross.
“I should go get Cole or...” He ran a hand through his hair in a nervous gesture but made no move to get out of bed.
“If you want...” I raised my eyebrows at him in an unspoken challenge, and he held my gaze steadily, no blushing this time.