“What?”
“Ow,” I finally croak.
“I know.” Zadyn breathes a grateful laugh, tipping his head down to mine. “I know.”
41
ZADYN
Afucking Hound.
We need that right now like a hole in the head.
“No magic from here on out. Everyone. Do you hear me?” I don’t dare take my eyes off Serena, monitoring her healing. Mar’s blood seems to be working fast.
“We don’t know if they’ve been tracking Furi or one of us. After this, no more. We need to move, and we need to do it fast.”
“We’re not getting anywhere fast on foot. We used magic to get here. And you’re using it right now,” Kai counters.
“Do you see much of a choice?” I snap.
Smartass.
“My point,Zadyn, is that they could be on our asses in a second.”
“So we only use it when absolutely necessary,” Eaton cuts in.
I smooth Serena’s hair back off her face, thankful to feel that she’s cooling down. Dover bends to Mar, wiping the blood off her chin and wrapping the slice on her palm with a scrap of his shirt.
“Don’t ever push her like that again.” He casts a seething look at me.
I know I was asking a lot of her, but what could I do? We had no other option.
“Dover, stop.” Mar slumps back and dips her head to his shoulder. “She needed it.”
“No, Mar, look at your nose. Siphoning that much isn’t good for you. If something had happened to you?—”
“What did you want me to do, let her die? Nothing happened to me. I’m fine. I just need to rest.”
Once Mar is strong enough to walk, we head toward a port town on the coast of Bleakwater Bay. Serena dozes in my arms as we check into a rustic inn off the main road.
Exhaustion nags at me as I carry her up the stairs and tuck her into the bed beneath the slanted ceiling. Then I collapse into the low-backed leather chair, keeping tabs on her breaths until my tired eyelids win and fall closed.
42
SERENA
“Wake up,” I sing, tickling the tip of Zadyn’s nose with my finger. He twitches in his sleep, and I bite back a laugh.
He is outcold.
I lean in close, bracing my hands on my knees, and blow on his face. He jerks awake at long last, clutching his heart.
“What the hell?”
I flop back onto the bed, laughing. “I’m sorry, I had to. You were sleeping like a baby.”
“Is your first instinct to wake a sleeping baby?” He sits up, smoothing his blousy shirt. “How are you feeling?”
