And say, “Just a little thirsty, actually.”
The man’s smile lifts at the corner, and he claps me on the back hard enough to shove a groaning admission from me. One that I was doing great at hiding before that.
Saint cocks a dark eyebrow at me. “You know, I’d still think you were hot even if you wanted to cry a bit right now,” he mocks, folding his arms tightly against his bare chest.
“I’m not going to fucking cry.” But when I stand, it’s a limping motion, and I stumble past Malek and right into Saint’s arms. I feel lighter and heavier at the same time. Without the heavy weight of wings at my back I feel lost,alien.I’m in too much pain to test my magic right now, to see if that man gave me back my wings or just healed what was probably too broken to repair.
I wonder if death would have been a better option, but I’m too frightened to voice that aloud without having first seen if they’re gone or not.
My head leans against his smooth shoulder, and I wait for his teasing, but it never comes. His arms wrap around me instead.
“I—I love you.” My heart warms at the sound of his hesitant words, words that I’ve already heard him say several times tonight among my blur of consciousness. “And—do not ever fucking scare me like that again,” he adds in a cracking whisper against my ear.
“I love you too,” I groan against his neck, and he shivers so hard that I’m certain the intimate sentiment has never been considered dirty foreplay before Saint Von Hunter was involved with it.
He reaches out for Izara, and I don’t even think he cares that this stranger is still here or that I almost died in his arms.
Or maybe that’s exactly why he’s doing it.
Izara takes his hand but doesn’t come to us.
“There’s this little thing happening right now that we have to do,” Malek reminds him with an annoyed growl.
“Hell will still be there when I’m done with her, I promise,” Saint says with a charming smile.
“Actually, there’s something I need to do first,” the stranger says.
I pull back from Saint, and he reluctantly lets me go, releasing Izara’s hand as well. Even if he is pouting.
“Let me lure my ring of demons back to our home. I’ll get the horned hellions and the dire demons out of the way. That’ll thin the grounds for us. It’ll make it easier for us to face Lucian in the end.”
“And the pixies. Don’t forget your pixies,” Izara says with a hateful glare.
Seems the pixies have really rubbed her the wrong way or something. I catch sight of a few buzzing like mosquitos on shimmering dust in the form of motorcycles. They twirl around and around the top of her head, and with an annoyed huff, she smacks the thing away, and it falls straight to the ground with a splat.
I wonder if that’s considered animal cruelty.
“Right. Phoenix is on his way. Talk to him about what I told him, Izzy,” the man says quickly as he opens the door, and his words are a rushed string of sentences. “Just give me an hour.”
“One hour.” Malek nods in agreement.
One. Hour.
I have one hour to figure out how to function without the one part of me that was my biggest asset.
One hour or a million hours, I don’t know if I’ll ever know how to be whole again.
Fourteen
Izara
Minutes pass like years. I can’t stand being up here and watching demons thrash across the academy lawn while I just…
Ugh!
Where is Phoenix?
My heart pangs as I think of him again. He’s been gone for too long. They said he followed a professor, but what if—
