He wasn’t breathing. His lips were blue. The death whispers turned to shouts.
She shoved down her fear. Sweat beaded on her skin, steaming in the cold air. She collapsed beside him, rolled Teddy onto her back, and pressed to stand. She staggered the ten feet to the riverbank.
The second her feet touched dry land, the river crashed back into its normal rhythm behind her.
Stella’s magic sputtered, her eyelids growing heavy. She was so tired.
She dumped Teddy’s limp body on the ground and knelt beside him. She pulled hard on their bond, but nothing happened. She placed her hands over his chest in the way her father had taught her years ago and pressed hard against his sternum in a percussive pattern.
“Please,” she rasped. “You can’t die. I won’t let you.”
She was so exhausted. Every muscle in her body was burning, the pain so bright she knew she was close to passing out. She stopped, pinched his nose, and blew air into his mouth. Then she continued her compressions on his chest.
She used the last thread of her magic to reach down his throat and into his lungs, and she tugged as gently as she could manage. She pulled all the water from his lungs. It was difficult to trust herself with such delicate magic when she was so panicked.
If he slipped away, he would take a part of her with him.
Finally, Teddy coughed. Stella frantically rolled him onto his side as he sputtered water. She continued to pull with her last thread of magic until she was certain there was nothing but air left in his lungs.
A sob tore up Stella’s throat as he rolled onto his back and looked up at her. His eyes were luminous in the late afternoon sunlight, but his lips were still purple.
“It’s annoying that you look this handsome when you’re half-dead,” she rasped.
Teddy’s eyes softened, and he took her hand.
Stella’s eyes burned as she gasped for air. “You weren’t breathing. I hate you for scaring me like that.”
But she didn’t hate him at all. She hated that he made her care. Hated the unbridled terror she’d felt when she thought she wouldn’t be able to save him. Hated how she couldn’t stop shaking now—not from the adrenaline still pumping through her blood, but from the fear of losing him.
For so long, she’d thought Teddy was cold and judgmental. But he wasn’t either of those things. Away from courtly eyes, he was incandescent—lit up by the lack of critical assessment—focused, attentive, and funny. She was startled by how much she likedspending time with him—how something that had seemed impossible when they set out had become almost intuitively easy after just a few days.
“I’m fine now,” he soothed as he tried to sit up.
Stella tried to help him, but a sharp pain tore through her. She gasped. When she pressed her hand to her side, it came away bloody.
“Stella—”
A wave of pain rolled through her and the world went dark.
24
TEDDY
The wound on Stella’s side was bleeding again. Warm stickiness coated the arm that cradled her against Teddy’s body.
Teddy was exhausted from nearly drowning, but Stella’s shirt was soaked in blood. She’d saved him, and if he didn’t find shelter, she might die for her efforts.
Even with the Godsbane in her system, the bleeding should have stopped by now. The fact that the wound wasn’t clotting was a very bad sign.
The forest was silent. The only sounds were the breaths sawing in and out of Teddy’s lungs and the chirping of birds in the pines high above them. Teddy’s muscles burned from exhaustion and shivering. It was unseasonably cold for not being very high in the mountains.
“Stella, I need you to try to stay awake,” he said.
She groaned and snuggled closer to him, mumbling something into his neck.
“I know it hurts, but I’m going to find somewhere for us to stop and rest soon, and I’ll wrap your wounds and get you warm.”
She shivered, her cold fingers slipping inside his torn shirt to press against his chest.
