A beat of silence as the newly hatched bondheart seemed to crawl through Ariadne’s unprotected mind in search of an answer. Part of Azriel didn’t like the idea of his wife’s psyche being invaded so thoroughly until Almandine’s voice returned, this time with an answer: “Salt.”
Bile rose in his throat, and his mind went blank. “What?”
“There’s salt in there.”
“They’re coating their swords,” Razer rumbled, a fresh fury rippling out from the dragon as Azriel had not felt in years. The next moment, Razer sent the information out to all the other bondhearts in the area—a warning for anyone fighting on foot.
The only saving grace was time. What would have taken Azriel an hour to run on foot while cradling Ariadne took the dragon mere minutes. Before he even had time to settle his heart from the well-aimed bolt, they descended with a warning roar from his bondheart.
Dhemons, fae, and lycans cleared a path for Razer’s massive form to settle down long enough for Azriel to drop from his back. Shooting a feeling of gratitude for the dragon, he adjusted Ariadne’s too-still body in his arms before racing toward the medic tent. Anyone in his way leaped back, turning wide eyes to them and asking one another the same question: “Was that the Queen?”
Doing his best to ignore the questions, Azriel hurtled through the entry of the tent. “Phulan! Phulan—please!”
All eyes turned to him as he reeled to a halt. Soldiers lay on cots in various levels of pain, sporting injuries of all kinds. Those assisting the mage paused their bandaging, salve spreading, and stitching to look up.
It was the pair of ocean eyes that matched Ariadne’s that widened the most as Emillie launched to her feet, leaving behind a half-wrapped arm. “Ari?”
But Azriel didn’t respond to her. Instead, he found the brightly-dressed mage and charged between the rows of cots. “Phulan.”
Panic flared from the mage as Phulan turned to take them both in. She pointed to a cot nearby, and Azriel changed trajectory to lie Ariadne down. Even in the presence of the healer, he couldn’t bear to release his wife.
“Azriel.” Phulan’s voice sounded too far away. “Let her go—”
“Salt.” The word fell from his lips like a curse. “They salted their blades.”
The mage nodded. “I know.”
“She isn’t healing.”
“That makes sense.”
“Fix her!” Azriel roared, the monster inside him cracking through the surface and snarling at the mage. The tent went deadly quiet, not a soul moving as he glared at his friend with fangs bared. “Fix her,now.”
Magic flared from Phulan. “Ican’tbecause you’re stillholding her.”
Azriel blinked and looked down. Indeed, he knelt beside a cot yet continued to cling Ariadne tight to his chest as though mere proximity to her could accomplish what the mage was attempting. Instead, he only hindered what could be done.
Lowering Ariadne’s body to the cot, he peeled his hands from her. Each movement felt like an eternity as he grappled with his own self-control to just let her go.
“Give her blood.” Phulan cut through the straps of the leather armor and tugged it off over Ariadne’s head, jerking her body with each motion.
Another unconscious snarl ripped from Azriel’s chest at the roughness. He grappled with the bond to keep himself from wrapping his hands around the mage’s neck. Rather thanattempt to murder the woman who was trying tosavehis wife, Azriel bit into his own wrist and held it to Ariadne’s mouth.
When she did not immediately respond, his breathing hitched. “Please, Ariadne…”
The next moment, another voice joined the fray—one that sounded too much likehers. “Drink, Ari. You have to drink.”
Azriel swung his attention to Emillie. It’d beenherwho’d managed to reach through his haze of pain after Ariadne left with Loren. Perhaps she’d be the one who could also reach her sister.
Then a small sound left his wife’s sister that Azriel had never heard from her before. She whimpered.
Heart jolting not for the first time, Azriel’s lips parted in shock. Emillie did not cry like this. At leasthehad never witnessed it before. Especially not for Ariadne. And the very fact that she now sounded ready to break alongside him made him choke on the air in his lungs.
“She’s not drinking,” he gasped.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Emillie followed up with, an unfamiliar fear lighting in her eyes. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d witnessed inside this tent to know exactly how much blood her sister needed to survive.
Survive…
