The monster’s screaming focused my attention again into a diamond-sharp point. Spurred into action, I shot through the ocean, the water rushing around me. The pain in my limbs was forgotten.
As I swam closer to Salem, I grimaced. His wing had been nearly torn in half. He was fighting against the waves, his wing ripping further.
Despite everything I knew about him, my heart constricted a little at the sight of the blood clouding around him. He was swimming for the surface, but his broken wing dragged in the water.
When I reached him, I gripped him around the waist and kicked. His muscular arms wrapped around me, and his body heated me in the water. His heart reverberated in my chest.
When he met my gaze, I saw his eyes had gone a murky red. Unlike me, he needed air. He wouldn’t die—not without the sea glass in my hands—but his lungs probably felt like they were on fire.
As I swam, the Ollephest’s shrieking grew louder. He was closing in on us. Like me, he might hunt underwater by sound. I closed my eyes, trying to tune in to the feel of solid land anywhere nearby.
After a moment, I felt it.
An island close by, solid in the raging sea. Less than a mile away, I thought. We just needed to get there, drag ourselves onto land. Dizziness whirled in my head as blood flowed out of me.
I closed my eyes as I tuned into the water. Letting my sea magic course through my body, I created a fast current. Roiling around us, the current began ushering us to the shore.
As the cool waters carried us, my mind was going darker, cloudier. I rested my head on Salem’s chest, and he pulled me in close. While the sea carried us, my legs tingled with pins and needles, and my body started to feel cold. Slowly, my hands were growing numb.
But through my mental fog, I could tell the screeching of the Ollephest was growing more distant. Everything was growing more distant, and I started losing my grip on Salem. He still held me close, his heart beating against mine, body radiating warmth. His grip on me was firm, unwavering, and gentle as a father holding a child. Like I was his salvation. Of course, he didn’t know what I had planned for him…
I was dimly aware of the feel of the air, and of Salem carrying me from the water. His powerful arms curled around me. The saltwater stung my wounds. I could no longer feel my legs.
When I opened my eyes, I saw droplets of seawater beading on his skin. He looked determined, and laid me down gently in his lap.
“I’m fine,” I said, but my eyes were closing again, and my head rested on his firm chest.
When I opened my eyes, I saw him kneeling over me. I was flat on my back, on something soft. He pressed his hand against my chest, and heat radiated out from his fingertips.
My gaze landed on his wing, brutally broken, feathers cracked in two.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His dusky gaze met mine, the colors in his eyes shifting from blue to violet-grey. Heat beamed out from his hand on my chest, washing over me. “You were losing too much blood. This will help, a little.”
Seawater ran down his golden skin in rivulets as he healed me. He was a healer? I didn’t expect that in the skillset of a rampant sadist.
Mostly—right now—I was doing my best to ignore the fact that his hand rested between my breasts. His eyes were on my wounds, his brow furrowed.
As his magic slid along my body, the warmth carried along with it emotions. A sense of longing, maybe.
He yearned for something always out of his grasp, a heat and brightness he’d once possessed. He no longer felt complete, and all the fire in the world couldn’t keep him warm.
As his magic coiled around my body, his torment moved along with it. The sound of drums beat in my mind.
This was too close, too intimate, until the feeling of longing dimmed. Slowly, a deep sense of relaxation took over, and the pain ebbed.
My eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and I felt Salem’s hand pull away. When I opened my eyes again, he was kneeling above me, holding moss and strips of cloth. His wing looked half torn from his body.
Kneeling by my side, he gently lifted my arm. This was all getting too… close.
“I can bandage myself,” I muttered.
“Aenor, you’re not going to bandage yourself up with a single arm. I need to get this done properly, since you’ve already inconvenienced me enough by allowing the Ollephest to shred your limbs open.”
“How rude of me,” I said wearily. “And you allowed your wing to get shredded. Does it hurt?”
“Are you concerned for my well-being? I’m touched.”
“It’s just a detached curiosity. I’ve never had wings before, so I don’t know what they feel like.”
“It hurts like you wouldn’t believe, but I can heal myself once I’m done here.”
He pressed the moss against my arm, then bound it in the cloth. Sunlight streamed over him, gilding his shoulders and wings. It took me a moment to realize he’d ripped up his own shirt to make the bandages. He knelt bare-chested, the eight-pointed star beaming on his abs.
A little light flitted around him—a bright sphere with a twilight sheen. It flitted and bobbed around his head like a lightning bug.
“What is that?” I asked.
He went still for a moment, watching it. As he did, his chest went taut, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. Whatever that little thing was, it unsettled him.
He turned to me again. His expression was sharp, even though his hands were gentle as he wrapped a strip of cloth around my arm. “Never mind that little bug. I’m fixing you only so you can bring me where I need to go. You’ll need to rest now. As soon as you can produce this soul cage, it will all be over. We will never need to see each other again.”
It will all be over when you’re dead.
“What did you see?” I asked. “What’s the worst fear that the Ollephest showed you?”
He paused in his bandage wrapping and stared at me. “Death.”
Surprise flickered, and maybe a little guilt. “That’s it? You’re scared of death.” It seemed too… ordinary for him.
“Not exactly. But you haven’t told me what was in your vision. It only seems fair that you share, too.”
My eyes snapped open; I was suddenly alert. Nope. No way in hell was I telling Salem my vision. Gods, what was that about? Had there been… spanking? I’d sooner boil myself alive than tell him. I’d rip my arm right open again just to distract from this line of questioning.
Come up with a lie. “Parakeets,” I blurted.
“Parakeets,” he repeated.
I swallowed hard. “They terrify me. With their vaguely human voices, repeating words ad nauseam. It’s just not right.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Is there a reason you’re blushing?”
“Look, I’m not going to tell my worst fears to the devil. Anyway, what do you care?”
“It’s nothing more than a detached curiosity. It’s just that I’ve never had shame, so I’ve never blushed.”
The sunlight filtered through leaves above us and streamed over his wings. Every time I caught sight of them, of the fragmented bones sticking out, I had a sense of wrongness. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of them. Looking at the shattered wings felt like having a jagged knife scraping on the inside of my skull.