“Two.”
He gave me a reassuring half-smile, and I clenched my jaw, afraid I’d somehow kill us both.
“Three.”
In a smooth motion we tilted up from our sides—the pain making both of us hiss through gritted teeth. As we righted ourselves, Endymion released a cry of pain, and I forced back the violent nausea, trying to focus on him.
His lids fluttered as he fought to keep his head from lulling back in unconsciousness. Something was wrong.
“What is it?” I said, my words fast and searching.
He tried to speak but couldn’t, his eyes pleading with me to understand what he couldn’t voice—and damn if they didn’t look the exact same every time he asked me to trust him.
It only took me a few seconds to realize what he had; we hadn’t accounted for being on Luca when struck, or for our height difference.
I assessed how to right it, then paused, slowly closing my eyes when I realized what needed to be done.
Endymion’s breaths become labored, and I knew I’d be next if Ididn’t do this. Chest tight, I dug my fingernails into the flesh of my palms, praying to whatever gods were listening for my body to obey me—not my trauma.
I can do this. Imustdo this.
Forcing cool confidence that I didn’t own into my voice, I opened my eyes and said, “I’ll need to adjust so that we can slide you off, okay?”
His head wobbled in assent.
My fingers dug in deeper, and the sharp sting was the only thing that allowed me to move forward.
With great care, I shifted to my knees, careful to keep the arrow as steady as possible. Acid stung at the back of my throat, my body anticipating what had to come next. As if on reflex, my gaze shifted past his shoulder until our surroundings were nothing but a blur. Breath abandoned me as I finally slid my right leg over Endymion’s lap, effectively straddling him.
The instant his warm, muscle-clad body pressed against mine, my entire being screamed for me to move; my instincts clawing at me to flee, even if it meant death. I sat there, breathless, heartbeat pounding in my ears as the feeling of a thousand insects crawling under my flesh scraped at my sanity… and all I had to do was step away to make it stop.
I hated this. Hated that there was no other choice. Hated every fiber of myself for being so weak—for allowing Thaddeus to haunt me in such a way. Hated that we were in this situation, tethered. Most of all, I hated Endymion for the way he silently pleaded for me to trust him—because unlike everything else, I knew deep inside that if I wasn’t careful, he held the power to finally break me.
“Get it together,” I muttered under my breath, forcing myself to focus past my terror. “He is not here. No one is pulling your magic. You are in control. You are getting this damn arrow out.”
Trembling, I finally dropped my full weight onto his lap, righting the arrow so that it no longer bowed. Still looking past his shoulder into the abyss, I felt the tension in his muscles unwind enough that ithad my head tilting up to see if he was okay, only to find him staring down at me, eyes clear once more.
“Nyleeria,” he whispered, and I almost lost my grip on my quivering body from his concern, silent tears now streaking down my cheeks.
“Now what?” I rasped, trying to ignore the deep sadness reflected back at me.
Endymion unfastened the leathers protecting his torso and, in one fluid motion, ripped away a long strip of fabric from the fitted white shirt hidden beneath, then wrapped it around the arrow’s shaft.
“I need you to hold here,” he said, indicating where he’d just covered the silvery barbs poised to bite into our flesh.
Releasing the death grip of my clenched fists, I crossed my uninjured arm and did as he asked. He paused for a moment as the fabric drank in the crimson slowly seeping from the four crescent marks my nails had left behind. A dark fierceness that might have bordered on anger shifted across his face, and it seemed a great effort for him to bring his eyes back to mine—as if he couldn’t look away from the damage.
His tone was calm, but something else lingered in his voice as he continued to explain what needed to be done. “I’m going to slide myself backward. Your job is to grip the shaft as hard as you can to keep me and yourself still. Make certain you hold your balance as I free myself. We can’t have you falling back.”
I couldn’t help the image of me toppling back, the tiny barbs shredding through my flesh as the point of the arrow hit the ground, forcing the bolt back in. But as he stared at me with cold, hard resolve, I nodded.
“Right then,” he said and shifted slightly. “Ready?”
Heart in my throat, I nodded again.
Jaw set, he pulled himself back slowly enough that I could adjust my grip as needed, ensuring the arrow followed its natural path through his body while keeping me safe from the movement, lest we accidentally pull it backward through me and trigger the poison. Onesilent, agonizing inch after another, he slid away from me with a precision that had me questioning how many times he’d done this before. Mercifully—if one could call it that—a good portion of the bolt had already traveled through him, meaning there wasn’t much to pull through.
His muscles shifting under my thighs from the effort did nothing to quell the tremble threatening to annihilate my rational understanding that immediate distance from him did not equate safety—no matter how hard my trauma tried to convince me otherwise. Morbid as it was, the only sense that quelled my revulsion to his proximity was the grudging squelch of flesh giving way, like mud releasing a boot it was loath to yield.
