“Of course.” He turned back for the vans.
After I slipped on the muumuu, I assessed Austin with my magic. Gashes and teeth marks and a broken pinky. He had blood all over, carving out the cut muscle and glistening in the low light where it was still flowing.
I set to healing immediately, not yet stopping his pain. I wanted him to get comfortable first.
“Here we go.” Mr. Tom laid a blanket beside the road on a tuft of grass before setting a water bottle on top of it. “Just what you need, miss, a little rest and some water to quench your thirst. Why don’t you have a break while the other pack composes themselves.”
Behind Austin’s back, he made an arc with his hand before pointing. “That is really for him,” he mouthed, only it came out in a whisper, and he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Thanks, Mr. Tom.” I put my hand on Austin’s arm to direct him that way.
“Protocol says I should stay standing if I am able,” Austin grunted.
“Protocol doesn’t trump your mate asking you to please sit on the blanket with me while I rest for a moment. I’ve done a lot of magic, and I’m tired. I could use your company.”
He issued a little smile before acquiescing. “If it pleases milady.”
I let him painfully situate himself before sitting down next to him and slipping my hand in his. My touch helped him heal faster, and it also gave him a pass for lounging.
“I couldn’t have stopped the fight any sooner, right?” I asked, looking at everyone else. The basajaunak were all lounging in the trees, mostly out of sight and content. The other pack was still clustered together in their animal forms, closer now to their alpha. The beta was watching over him. He lay as he had, his eyes closed. Tristan had flown back to the other gargoyles. Cyra was with him, and the rest of my crew were idle, waiting, except for Edgar, who was randomly wandering around in the woods for some reason.
“No,” Austin replied, leaning a little harder into me.
He turned his head for a kiss, and I met his lips, falling in and losing myself for a moment. He pulled back and grunted. The pain was getting to him. I eased it a little, but just enough to make him comfortable. He clearly needed a reminder that he was a long way from being healed.
“You did perfectly. Exactly as we needed and better than anyone else could’ve.” He smiled at me and then let his gaze roam toward the others. “That was a hard fight.”
“The hardest ever?”
He huffed out a laugh and then winced. “It was just one guy. A tough guy, with a powerful beast, but still just one guy. A shifter guy, at that. The toughest ever might be Cyra…or it might be one of those hunting parties back in the day. Cyra certainly hurt worse.” He took a deep breath. “No, Drex wasn’t the hardest, by far. I wondered if he could take Brochan or Tristan, but now I don’t think he could. He has the potential to be exceptional, but it hasn’t yet been realized. He lacks experience. Hiding up here, for whatever reason, has stunted him. He’s been out of the game for a while, and it shows. I didn’t need to take so much damage, but I wanted to see his range. His kill shots. Hehad some good moves, but he couldn’t tell when I was baiting him. Still, he’s a damn powerful shifter with an inspiring drive to keep going at all costs, and his people showed courage in the face of half a dozen charging basajaunak.”
“Yeah, I noticed you didn’t bother running to help with that,” I teased.
“I didn’t want to be dragged behind one of them like Brochan.” He laughed. “I wish I’d gotten a picture of that.”
“So, you were testing him, baiting him, and then you nearly killed him to prove a point? Because I very nearly didn’t get there in time. I don’t think you realize how close it came.”
“Yeah. That.” Austin rubbed his thumb across the bottom of his lip. “I baited him, and he reacted a little better than I expected. He got too close to my jugular and…”
“The beast took over.”
“The beast dragged me all the way in and swallowed me whole.” He dropped his hand again. Love soaked through the bonds, and he looked at me with reverence in his eyes. “And only one person in the world can stand in front of me and use mere words to bring me back to the surface. To bring me back to her.”
“Well…a spell that covered half of you in burns and some words, sure.”
He gave me a cute lopsided grin and shrugged before wincing.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Cyra might’ve been the hardest fight, certainly one-on-one, but she wasn’t the most pain I’ve ever felt. That honor goes to the spell that closed off the cave where you met Dave. Do you remember? It burned off an entire layer of skin. Not blacking out was a miracle. I still have nightmares sometimes.”
I did remember, and Ihadblacked out. I’d been out for a day or two while he’d gotten up and kept going. His pain tolerance was legendary, and the fact that it came from a hard life beforethis choked me up. Still, he was here now. It had all led to this. I said as much.
“Yes, and I’d do it all again to be sitting beside you right now, taking in this somewhat decent day in a desolate part of North Carolina while Edgar hides in the foliage staring at everyone.”
“What?” I looked around and saw Edgar. He was standing in the middle of a bush with the leaves of a tree branch framing his upper half, doing just as Austin had said—staring at everyone, his gaze unblinking. It was incredibly creepy. “It must be a joke. There are levels to weirdness and that one just doesn’t exist.”
“He’s created an entirely different plane of weirdness,” Austin agreed.
“And for some reason, Drex thought he was as dangerous as Cyra.” I shook my head slowly. “Joke is on him.”
