Oh, seas . . .
Paxton bolted forward, splashing into the surf and crouching at her side. To his relief, she was breathing, but knocked out cold. He grasped Aerity under the shoulders and knees, and carried her ashore. At his back, the beast let out a vicious wail.
Tiern was the first to reach it, jumping on its back as the raging creature attempted to turn. Tiern’s legs flung out as he hung on tight, pulling its head upward to expose the dark, red wound. Lief reached it second, sending a strong punch straight at the beast’s throat. As Paxton neared, the beast bent with a quick downward snap of its body, sending Tiern flying, landing on Lief with a grunt.
Before Paxton could stop it, he watched as if in slow motion as the beast reached down, claws flashing, and slashed Tiern deep across the abdomen.
Paxton barely heard Tiern’s strangled cry through thewhooshingin his ears. Tiern’s lifeblood poured from his wounds as Lief pulled himself out from under the lad’s body, yelling. Tiern’s head fell to the side, a look of innocent dismay on his pallid face.
“Paxton, kill the beast!” Lief bellowed.
The creature had stumbled to the side, disoriented, but Paxton had seen it injured before. It would be up and running in less than a breath’s moment. He had to choose. If he could simply get his hands on the beast for a solid couple of moments, he could use his magic to stop its heart. Then he would focus on Tiern.
Paxton grasped the handle of his wicked dagger and yanked it from its sheathe on his chest. He charged, preparing to jump, but the beast swiped outward with shockingly fast reflexes, batting Paxton’s chest. He landed on his arse in the surf. He jumped to his feet and ran again, this time with Lief attacking from the other side. Paxton leaped up, his hands seizing the back of the creature’s scales, but, curses, he was flying to the side again, this time with a face full of sand.
As he pulled himself up, his eyes landed on his brother’s still form. The blood glistening. “Tiern . . .”
“He’s gone, Pax!” Lief yelled. “Kill the beast!” The creature roared, swatting at its injured neck and stomping the ground in a fit. Panic flared through Paxton’s chest, panic that had nothing to do with the beast. He threw his dagger into the sand by Lief’s side. “The kill is yours.”
The lord shot him an incredulous look before snatching up the blade and jumping to his feet.
Paxton barely registered what was happening around him as he fell to his knees at his brother’s side. So much blood. Tiern no longer breathed. His light brown irises were dull,empty. Paxton pressed his hands tightly against the seeping wounds and shut his eyes.
He felt Tiern’s blood and skin heat as the burn of life force flowed from his fingers and palms.
“C’mon, Tiern,” Paxton murmured through gritted teeth. Heal, mend, fuse, revive,live. He felt that extra sense of his seeking, trying to make sense of the mess created by those claws. The rest of the world ceased to exist. He imagined blood moving back to the places it belonged, the walls of organs sealing themselves, muscles rebinding, flesh stitching as if by an invisible seamstress.Please. He focused again, pleading, urging Tiern’s wounds to heal. And then he imagined Tiern’s lifeless heart zapped with a jolt of power.
Under Paxton’s hands, Tiern’s chest rose with a sudden heave and he turned on his side, gasping, coughing out blood. Thank the seas! Paxton breathed out, fisted his hands, and pressed them into the sand, his heavy eyes falling closed, even as a bolt of energy filled him like the purest, sweetest bliss. But his mind knew better than to enjoy it.
“Pax . . .” Tiern whispered.
Paxton let out a dry laugh of relief at the sound of his brother’s voice. He stretched out his hands to touch his Tiern’s face, but halted, staring down at the thick purple lines on several fingernails where the paint had chipped off.
He blearily turned his head to the scene beside him on the shore, blinking as it sank in. Lief stood over top of the beast, breathing hard. The hilt of the dagger stuck out of the beast’shairy throat, where it had been deeply lodged. It was unmoving. Their foe was dead, killed by the Ascomannian lord.
Lief turned his head and froze when he saw Paxton watching. He shook his head. “You could have been a prince.”
Aye. He could have been a prince with a dead brother. But Aerity . . . deep seas. She would be Lief’s wife. Paxton’s gut clenched with lost hope.
Lief’s eyes went to Tiern, who pushed up onto his elbows, and the lord’s mouth fell open. He gawked back and forth between Paxton and Tiern, then his mouth clamped shut, and he chuckled without humor, shaking his head.
“Pax . . . ?” Tiern took in the situation, glancing down at the blood surrounding him, and at Lord Alvi standing over the beast. “What have you done? You . . . you shouldn’t have . . .”
“Quiet.” Pax got to his feet and brushed the sand from his body as best as he could. His heart raced. His stomach rolled. He looked over at Princess Aerity’s passed-out form on the shore. He’d made his choice. What’s done was done and now he had to live with it.
Chapter
39
“Princess. Princess Aerity . . . can you hear me?”
The deep masculine voice seemed to come to her from afar, like a soft dream of foreign lands she’d read about in books. She tried to move, and a shooting pain sang out from her ribs, urging a moan to rise from her throat. She’d only felt this sort of pain when the horse had broken her arm all those years ago.
“Sh, Princess,” said the deep voice again. But it wasn’t the voice she sought. “The beast is dead. Boats are coming. Be still for now.”
Dead? Boats? Aerity blinked her eyes, feeling the grit of sand and salt covering her body. She tried to sit up, but gaspedagainst the pain and grabbed the spot under her breast. Definitely broken ribs.
Slowly, the horrific events came back to her—the beast’s dull, trusting eyes; the feel of tough flesh as she’d shoved the knife into its neck. Her stomach turned, remembering. And then she’d watched it react in pain, recalled its great hind leg rising, and felt the crack of her ribs, the wind at her back, the water filling her ears.
