His intestines were shoved back into his body.
With ragged breaths, Saer’s gaze snapped to the nearest raven-haired female.
Her hands were still buried in his abdomen.She stared down at him, challenging.Saer bared his teeth to bite her head off at the neck…
The pain in his guts had lessened.
His breath left in a steaming huff as he growled at the female.The sound clipped short when he registered she, too, growled in return.
Growled?
Humans didn’t growl.
Saer had trained himself out of the habit whenever he tried to blend in.
The girl, whatever she was, dared him with her glare.This tiny, insignificant, delicate humanoid matched his ire without a sliver of fear.Touching his blood.Carrying no heat of her own.
Bafflement, then—to his surprise—amusement flushed through him.Saer settled his lips over his bared teeth and changed the tone of his growl to one more assenting.Dipping his head in a movement made difficult by pain and stiffness, he offered a faint nod to the female.She leveled him with her gaze, then withdrew her hands from his abdominal cavity, her pale skin slick and dark with his blood.No blisters.Not even a hint of pink shining between the scarlet trails.
Her two companions leapt into action after the exchange.The man brought a blazing torch forward and, after a brief glance towards Saer’s bestial face, he angled it towards the egregious wound at his torso.
Saer concentrated on the fire and siphoned it.The gaping injury sealed with fire, even if exhaustion remained.After consuming the torch, he fought to sit.The wings at his back hung, broken and shredded, more hindrance than help.
Hellsfire.
He’d heal faster in this form.He knew that.Yet, he despised the thought of feeling better in the shell Lucifer originally crafted for him—though hadn’t the mind to wonder why.
Saer grimaced and made a sweeping motion, gesturing to the non-humans to step away while he willed hisDaemoenicform away.The mangled wings sucked into his flesh, drawing a hiss from his lips, but he endured.
The other female brought a thick, scratchy blanket and draped it across Saer’s shoulders.The man, pale of skin and with dark brown hair just past his ears, leaned down to put an arm around his torso.
With a grunt chasing another quiet growl, Saer allowed himself to be assisted to his feet.
Some of his ribs shifted uncomfortably with stabbing, crunching pains.His innards cramped and twisted.Arguably the worst headache he’d ever experienced roared behind his eyes, one of which had almost swollen shut.His left forearm had fractured up next to his elbow from a particularly vicious blow Runeak landed after they’d each shifted.These were the worst of his injuries, though she’d covered the rest of his body in a multitude of deep lacerations and bruises.
Collapsing next to a roaring bonfire for several days sounded exceedingly appealing.
Perhaps because of the hurried insistence of his entourage, Saer managed to limp to Runeak’s tent before the sun crested the horizon.They ushered him to a cot against one of the walls with the blanket thrown over his body.The three non-humans left in a rush after giving him just enough time to recline and groan.Next to the cot, more torches blazed, yet not enough to quicken his healing.
“You almost made my blood drinkers late.”
Saer released a sound—somewhere between pain and annoyance—and rolled his head to the side.For the first time since entering, he saw his sister leaning back in a chair at the war table.She’d been silent upon their entrance, and while he hadn’t scanned for anything or anyone with his heat sense, he should have expected her—careless of him to have missed the presence.
Runeak appeared untouched and clad in another set of armor, save a swelling of her lower lip with scabs overlying.Trace outlines of a few bruises shown on her visible flesh.
“Blood drinkers?”Saer’s voice sounded like he dragged it through a pasture of razor blades.Was she talking about the cold humanoids who brought him there?
Something flashed across her onyx gaze, and he couldn’t tell if it was mirth or alarm.“You don’t know them.”
Saer grunted.“I’ve been preoccupied tracking you down, not focused on what new tricks humanity has concocted.”
“They are not a human trick.”Runeak’s tongue tapped at the hard syllables with delicacy, the simple words dripping with correction and quiet umbrage.
When he attempted to lift an eyebrow, his headache soared.He barely stopped from wincing for fear of the same result.
Embracing the pain would clearly take more practice.
“If not human, I request you explain,” Saer muttered.
