Amma bit her lip, gaze lingering down his sleeping form, his chest rising and falling. She put his belt and pouch down away from them and took a deep breath. “I hated when you were gone. I tried to do my best, to learn things, but the entire time, I just wanted you back. I know it’s selfish, but I…” Her voice trailed off, but telling him how she had failed to get the talisman out,again, when he definitely wouldn’t remember, wasn’t right anyway. She shook her head, checking the bandage on his arm once more, and when she was satisfied, she turned to climb off the bed and find a suitable place to sleep.
Plucked from the spot like she were a pillow herself, Amma was suddenly dragged backward by her middle. Breath caught and balance lost on the squishy surface of the bed, she found herself on her side, Damien’s good arm snaked around her tightly. Heat came up against her back as she was pulled into his chest, his knees pressing to the backs of her own as he curled and fit himself around her.
“Stay with me,” he mumbled into her hair, words clear so close to her ears and breath warm—all of him so warm.
“Damien,” she whispered, trying to look back but caught in his tight embrace, “did you really mean to do this?”
“Just stay,” he said again, nuzzling tighter against her.
Amma really had no other choice—not that she would take it if offered—but she did listen for more, just in case. There was only his heavy breathing and the warm pulse of his chest against her back. His arm was heavy over her, still holding on, but had lost its urgency. She could have wiggled away, but she felt herself only relaxing, and then her own eyes closing, and soon Amma was asleep too.
When Amma woke, she found Damien’s arms still around her, his breath still heavy as it fell over her face, but she’d flipped toward him, nestled against his chest. She blinked up at his face, expecting him to wake alongside her, but he remained heavily asleep even when she pressed up onto an elbow and ran a finger over his nose.
No reaction, just the gentle rise and fall of his chest. She whispered his name, but got no response. She pulled up one of his eyelids, and a violet iris stared back without seeing her. Amma wiggled herself out of his arms and assessed the bandages, now darkened, and quickly left the bed to gather clean linens and the salve from before. As she opened the container, she noted the Key that she was sure had readMay cause drowsinessbefore had changed itself to state,Most definitely will cause hibernation for at least three days.
She clicked her tongue, but when she unwrapped the old bandages from Damien’s wound, the salve had done its job quite well, the skin mostly mended, and his veins nearly back to normal. She cleaned his skin, reapplied the salve, and rewrapped the injury in new linens. He remained unconscious, but Amma still explained what she was doing as she worked, just in case he could hear.
Then the hair on the back of her neck raised, and Amma sat up very straight. She snapped her head to the side, just catching a set of bulbous, black eyes leering over the foot of the bed. “Oh, Kaz, you’re feeling better?”
The imp grunted, claws coming over the icy edge and pulling himself up. Over his shoulders, he had tied one of the furs like a cape, and it dragged long behind him as he planted himself firmly on the foot of the bed. “What did you do to Master?”
“I’m taking care of him,” she said, running a hand through Damien’s hair. “He’s hurt, like you were.”
Kaz made a wary, irritated noise.
Damien remained unmoving, and Amma pulled a thick blanket over him. “Look, Kaz, I know you don’t trust me, but I’m not going to hurt him. I care about Damien, all right?”
“Humans say lots of things like that,” Kaz grumbled, absolutely not believing her. “But they lie. And they leave.”
She huffed, standing from the bed, and smoothed down her ripped up tunic. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities to leave, Kaz. I could have run away while the two of you were gone in The Wilds or left with the Righteous Sentries either time they came around. Even back in Faebarrow, I could have just stayed. The vampires offered me a place with them too. But I’m still here.”
The imp glared back at her, and if he were considering anything she said, he didn’t show it. “Because you are ordered to be.”
“Because I want to be,” she said so quickly she didn’t realize the words had come out at all. Amma cleared her throat and focused hard on pulling on her boots. “Now, you can stay here and watch over Damien while he sleeps, or you can come with me to make sure I don’t do anything you disprove of, but I’m going to go and barter our way back to our plane, somewhere safe for all of us, you included.”
Kaz’s arms uncrossed, underbite moving around in thought. “Master would want me to keep an eye on you.”
She nodded, checking on Damien once more and tucking him in before heading for the door. “That’s fine with me.” With the imp just behind her, she let them out into the chilly hall. “Together we can go speak with the fae king, and I’m sure we can come to some reasonable agreement.”
Just as Amma pulled the door shut behind them, a freezing gust blew down the corridor. Her vision clouded as snow swirled past her, and then it was gone, leaving behind The King of the Winter Court in all his beautiful, sparkling glory.
“Reasonable,” he said, voice like a cracking sheet of ice. “I have been called much worse.”
CHAPTER 26
THE INCESSANT DESIRE FOR A PASSAGE BACK
The world was cold and empty and dark, but there was a flicker of warmth, a small source of heat, and Damien reached out to it, pulling it close. It cuddled back into him, and he was, for perhaps the first time in his life, completely content.
“Stay with me,” he said, and she did.
But as he tightened his grip, the warmth shrank. He tried to catch it, but it slipped away, leaving him to curl in on himself, empty again and alone.
The darkness around him shifted, a shadow in it, familiar, frightening. Then a laugh, so like Xander’s, and the glint of a sword, swinging down at him with a divine light. It slashed into his chest, opening him like some prey animal gutted by a wolf, and life flooded out as he crumpled to the ground.
He lay there in nothingness for a long time, maybe forever, feeling all the pain and none of it at once. Then a nudge, just enough to make him move again, and the warmth returned.
It’s only a dream,a voice cooed directly into his ear with a sweet lilt.You’re safe. It’s all right. He couldn’t respond though he tried, but he knew it would protect him, it had promised, and he simply reached out again and held on.
