“You have no idea how many times I’ve patched this maniac up,” Beaufort says, allowing his shadows to crawl across Dray’s flesh, knitting the damaged flesh together.
“Does it hurt?” Briony asks, her brow creasing.
“Nah,” Dray says, totally lying.
Briony watches Beaufort’s work.
“How are you doing that?” she asks him.
“It’s hard to explain. I’m letting my shadows feel for the damage, letting them find the broken skin and mend it together.”
“Can I try?” she asks.
Beaufort looks up at her. “Of course you can.”
“Dray?” she asks.
“Go ahead, Kitten. You mess up, I’ll happily wear a scar from you.”
She frowns harder at that, clearly not liking the idea of disfiguring our bond brother. Then she shuffles closer to him on her knees, hovers her hands above his chest and lets her light envelop him.
His face relaxes and swims with bliss and he sighs.
“That feels so freaking good,” he moans.
Briony chews on her cheek, concentrating. I can’t see if it’s working under the radiance of her light, but when she falls backwards with a huff and yanks her magic away, I see Dray’s chest is completely healed.
“Well, look at that.” Dray strokes his hand across the perfect skin. “Even Beau’s never fixed me that quickly before.”
“It was actually pretty easy,” she says, with a slight blush, like she finds it hard to admit her own talents.
“And useful,” I say, thinking it is unlikely this will be our only injury.
I sweep my gaze around, checking that my initial assessment was correct and the demons really have gone – for now at least.
“They’re gone,” I confirm.
“Shouldn’t we move on before more of them arrive?” Briony asks.
“Yes,” Beaufort responds, “let’s move quickly.”
“Where to?” she asks.
“We move on to the fort and we hope Tudor is there.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Briony
“Have you ever faced that many demons before?” I ask as we hurry onward on our journey.
The landscape looks all the same to me. Only the odd mangled tree stump, the odd incline, the odd scuff in the earth. However, Beaufort appears to understand where we are and where we should go.
“No, never that many,” Thorne says.
I don’t know what to make of that information. Should I be feeling more hopeful? We saw off all those demons. We survived. Maybe we can find Fox and escape with our lives. And yet, I can’t help thinking the further we stray into their territory the more demons we will find.
I wrap my coat tightly around my body.
