“I’m not having any part in this.” And yet a determined hand has me by the wrist, dragging me closer as I trip over my own feet. “Eres. Kaelen will cut my cock off if he finds me in your bed.”
“I strongly suspect that’s not true,” he mutters. “Take your damn clothes off, Dare.”
He’s yanking back the thick coverlet. Bowing down to the body heat gods, I mentally apologize in my head as I shuck off my shirt and unlace my trousers. Thankfully, some of us wear underwear on a daily basis. “What do I do?”
“Get in.” He slides his arms beneath her. “I’ll pass her to you and get in on her other side.”
Fuck. Fuckinghell. “Shouldn’t we ask her first—”
“She’s not conscious, and she’s not going to be if we don’t hurry up.Darian.”
Sucking in a breath, I slide beneath the covers of his bed. Barely a second later, the Lightbringer is thrust at me with all the finesse of a tossed potato. I glance at her face to assess, but there’s no sign of flame-filled eyes. Only faint white veins littering her closed golden eyelids.
“Skin to skin. As much as you can.”
“Right.” Carefully, I roll her so her back is against my chest. The ice in her skin registers, and I choke. “Fuck. She’s cold.”
Eres stops to stare at me, incredulous.
“Hurry up,” I mutter. I wait, burying my face in her damp hair while Eres climbs in. My heart thuds against her skin in an uneven rhythm. “You’re sure this will help her?”
“Better than anything else can right now. Once she’s warm, I can treat the rest.” He doesn’t hesitate before pressing himself against her front. “Closer.”
He drags the covers over us, and we wait.
“What else?” I ask quietly. My hand hovers, not knowing where to settle before I run it gingerly down her arm. Once, and then again, repeating it as I try to heat the icy touch of her skin. “What other treatment?”
He exhales. Our eyes meet over her head, and I realize just how close we are. His leg is pressed over her hip, my left leg between hers. The three of us are impossibly tangled, and I silently beg the old gods—bastards—that she doesn’t wake up.
But she’s so still. Worry stirs. “Tell me what happened.”
“She has a stab wound in her stomach. Gut wound, twisted on entry,” he whispers. “Her hands were staked to the ground, Dare. They left her like that to die beside a burned-out encampment.”
My body locks up. “Theystaked her to the ground?”
But then, the Lightbringers do enjoy their stakes.
He nods. “Both palms were pierced right through. I need to see if I can heal them, or she’ll never cast again.”
Is that such a bad thing?
It would be one less Lightbringer in the world.
But as I look down, I find myself saying something entirely different. “Nythen would hurt her.”
“Yes.” He shifts, propping his arm beneath his head against the pillow and examining her face. The tension in his frame relaxes. “Her breathing is improving.”
Listening, I pick out the small huffs between the two of us. “She feels warmer now.”
But I don’t move. And neither does he. “You feel protective over her.”
Not something I ever thought I’d say. Over a Lightbringer.
Eres sighs. “It was the way she looked at me, Dare.”
“What do you mean?” I consider the eyes that latched onto mine.
Black eyes of fire and ember.Witch-eyes, after the stories we were told as children to scare us into behaving.
