Her touch siphoned away his melancholy, making way for gentler things. The tension in his shoulders eased, the knot in his chest with them, the sharp knife of sorrow dulled to a manageable ache. He’d lost Faldir, but he’d foundher. She couldn’t replace him, but her presence was a balm, nonetheless. A light in the darkness.
“I don’t know,” Brand admitted.
“I’m sorry, too.” She moved to stand in front of him, tucking a wayward lock of hair behind his ear. “I feel responsible for cutting our time in the chasm short. We might have found him if I hadn’t?—”
“No. We should’ve turned around as soon as he went silent. Even without your injury…” He brought her hand to his lips, laying a swift kiss on her fingers. “I can see now it was a fool’s errand. At least we can say the beast is no more. That both Faldir and Glynmor have been avenged. It’ll have to be enough.”
Luna swallowed, averting her eyes. Her guilt was misplaced, as was Mag’s, neither of them responsible. Sometimes things were just fucking shite.
“Come,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody famished. We’ve not eaten in almost two days, and the faster we retrieve our things, the sooner we’ll find ourselves feasting at home.”
Her head snapped up, an almost wild look about her as she blinked. “At… home.”
“Yes,mate.Home. Together.”
Brand pulled her against his chest and buried his fingers in her hair, seizing her mouth with his own. It was tame, meant more for comfort than anything else. To reassure her that he’d meant every word he’d said in their cave.
She pulled away, teeth sunk into her lower lip, her eyes still closed. “Okay. I… um…” She shook herself. “I wanted to fetch the talons. We might find something useful in them, or… I don’t know. Even if they’re just a trophy for those it would matter most to, it feels like we should take them.”
It made a strange sort of sense, and he could deny her nothing.
“You go on with Mag and Thad,” he said, running a finger over her brow. “I’ll get them for you. I don’t want you near it again, dead or not. Please.”
She lifted those perfect, sea-water eyes to his and nodded—a wealth of understanding passing between them before she left to join the others.
Brand jogged over to the beast and yanked the talons from its lifeless body. He considered hacking off the others so they’d have the full set, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He’d had enough violence the last few days, and he was tired down to his bones.
He gathered the spikes in one arm and moved to follow the others?—
A whistling sounded behind him. High-pitched. Ominous.
Slowly—as if it might make a difference—Brand turned around and froze, dumbfounded, dread forming a pit in his stomach.
The dreadbeast was crumpling in on itself, shrinking by the second. With a blinding flash, it imploded, the aftershock knocking him flat to the ground.
A tidal wave of wind followed, battering against the earth and his body, a feminine scream shattering the looming dawn in its wake.
The keening sound was enough to make his ears bleed. Brand groaned against the force of it—against the dark power it ushered in, bathing the land in shadow and pressing him into the dirt and mud. The staggering weight of it only allowed him to pant in shallow breaths, so like his episodes it choked him.
“Brand!” Luna’s scream pierced the maelstrom around him.
It snapped him out of the mire of helplessness. He bucked against whatever was holding him down, desperate to be free, willing his body to obey. He had to protect her, had to?—
With a final shove, the pressure lifted from his body, gone quickly as it had appeared.
Brand tried to gulp air into his burning lungs as the sky and his vision cleared, capable of nothing more than blinking up at the dwindling stars. Every inch of him was in agony, and he couldn’t…
Luna’s hands were there a second later, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Shite.”
Her healing glow encased him, burrowing in to the broken places. He gasped as cracked ribs realigned, the sudden rush of breath like cool water after a day spent in the desert. Could actually feel the threads of her magic as they sought out every bruise and bleed, every break, erasing the injuries like they’d never existed.
It wasn’t until she slumped back, his strength returned to him, that he saw the toll it had taken. Her entire body was trembling, purple smudges under her eyes.
She flinched when he sat up and gathered her close, her own breath hissing through clenched teeth.
“What the fuck?” Thad slid to a stop through the mud, but he wasn’t looking at Brand.
Mag hurtled in, only a few steps behind, gaping. “Sisters save us.”
