She whirled around and fixed him with a furious glare. “You made a mistake. An apology is due.”
“I don’t owe him one. I was defending myself.” Cassiel’s scowl faltered at the disgust rising to her face.
“I’ll not have you threaten Zev with that knife any longer. If we are to continue traveling together, you will get rid of it here and now.”
He seethed, jaw clenching. How dare she make demands of him? “I’ll not be ridding myself of anything.”
Dyna released a long exhale and held out her hand for the journal. “Then this is where we part. Now, hand over my journal. Please.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t realize how dangerous he is.”
“The only danger I see here is you.” Dyna looked at him with an expression that left no room for arguing.
Cassiel never imagined that he would bend to the will of a human, but as her distant eyes bore into his, he retrieved the journal and placed it in her palm. She turned on her heel and went in the direction Zev had gone. With each step she took, Mount Ida slipped further and further away.
“Wait,” Cassiel called faintly. He swallowed his pride and it settled bitterly in his stomach. The knife glinted as he held it out to her, hilt first.
If that surprised Dyna, she didn’t show it. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, brushing against his. It left a tingle on his skin, but he didn’t receive a glimpse of her soul. She had closed herself off from him.
Dyna retreated, slipping into the bushes out of view.
Grumbling, Cassiel packed up his belongings and rammed them in his pack. That look she wore plagued his mind. He didn’t understand why that bothered him. He only knew that her disgust had nothing to do with his lineage.
She had not believed for a single moment that Zev had attacked him.
Well, did he?
As soon as Zev had touched him, Cassiel’s reaction was to strike first. He groaned and kneaded the knots in his stiff neck. Had he made a mistake? In any case, Dyna thought the worst of him.
He hiked his pack over his shoulder and looked around the empty camp. They had already packed their belongings. Only the dead campfire was left and a small puddle of a congealed, black substance. Zev’s blood had reacted to the silver, turning black as it had clotted.
That would kill anyone.
If Cassiel was being honest, that had not been his intention. He only meant to hurt Zev enough to make him back off. Now he may have made things worse. Dyna had her journal and didn’t specifically say he could remain with them.
If she left him behind, Cassiel supposed he deserved it.
Chapter 19
Zev
To keep his mind off the pain, Zev listened to the burble of water and the trill of birds chirping in the surrounding birch trees. He laid by the bank of the stream while Dyna worked on washing out his wound.
If the knife had only touched him, it wouldn’t have had such an effect. But the edge of the blade had sliced his skin, seeping silver into his bloodstream. The poison blazed through his veins. It felt like he had dipped his entire arm in flames from his fingertips to his elbow.
How far would the pain have taken him if Dyna hadn’t forced another poison down his throat? Swallowing wolfsbane was like swallowing liquid fire, searing his stomach from the inside. Thankfully, most of the burning agony subsided after he spewed.
“Uncle Belzev told me to always carry wolfsbane extract with me,” Dyna said. “In case I needed to restrain your wolf.”
He had struggled with controlling his wolf after his first full moon shift at thirteen, and his father tried to treat its aggression with the poisonous plant.
That worked until it hadn’t.
“He had a theory that its toxic properties would overtake another poison in the bloodstream and push it out of the system.” Dyna placed Zev’s injured arm next to him and dried it off with the hem of her dress, careful to avoid the wound. “I also thought if I could put your wolf to sleep, the silver poisoning would have less of an effect.”
Zev closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and laid his other arm over his face. He didn’t need to search inside of himself to know his wolf was gone. It fell dormant from the wolfsbane.
