I shivered.
We sat there in silence for a minute. But only our silence wasn’t actually silent. The dragon, which I realized was either Fable or Julian, was still terrorizing the third floor. The floors below us were filled with screams, roars, shattering glass. And the building continued to shake.
“The demons are here, aren’t they?” Saar asked.
Torin smiled, getting to his feet and brushing his suit off. As if he was covered in dust, the goo from the magic wiped away. “Ryker is hungry,” he answered.
Saar sighed as he looked around. “Thank you.”
His smile was smaller this time. “We were prepared to let you do this on your own, Igarashi. But sometimes, strength is knowing when to ask for help.”
“I would have, but we were doing this in retaliation. Not for some noble cause. We wanted to cause them pain as they did us,” he argued.
Torin touched his arm. “Honey, if you wanted to do this because it’s a fucking Thursday afternoon and you’re bored, we got your back. Just as you have ours.”
I jumped when the dragon rounded the corner and paused.
“You’re pretty badass, Jules,” Kohara said, resting a hand on the dragon’s long snoot. Julian snorted, a puff of smoke filling the hall, but closed his eyes as Kohara rested his forehead against him. “Thanks for rescuing us. Feeling like foolish damsels right now.”
“Don’t,” Torin said as he headed for the stairs. “Despite how it feels, you were doing pretty damn well. If you’d have heard us warn you about the things coming your way, I think you’d have fared better. But when it was clear that you couldn’t hear us, that’s when we joined in. Not because you couldn’t handle this. But because you didn’t have all the information you needed to succeed anymore.”
I rubbed my face and winced.
“Torin,” Tara said, causing our royal witch to pause. “Check Bronte?”
His eerie green eyes landed on me, and I paled. “Always playing with big monsters, hm?” he asked as he came back into the hall and moved towards me. “I always knew you were a size queen.”
Hadley giggled as my skin heated. He cupped my face, grinning at the way I continued to flush. “You’re truly adorable, Bronte. Come tell Papi where it hurts, hm?” He winked, and I pushed him away.
“Stop mocking me,” I grumbled, crossing my arms. The way it pulled at all the different puncture wounds had me hissing and wheezing.
Torin’s teasing stopped as he pulled me near, and his hands went to my chest. He moved behind me and I could feel his fingers touching the wounds. Jolts of pain streaked through my body, and I swayed on my feet. Fuck, that hurt. Especially when he touched there! I lurched forward, gasping. My vision darkening completely.
He caught me before I did a face-plant. “Shhh,” he hushed soothingly. “You’re okay. Gimme a minute. I need to feel them all.”
“Just admit you have a torture kink,” I bit out.
Torin chuckled, but I barely heard it when he pressed against a particularly tender spot and burning pain overtook me. When I came back, clearly having lost consciousness or something, I was heaving for breath as he held me up. Still touching all my claw wounds and sending rivulets of pain through me.
“I’m glad you asked for help,” he murmured in my ear. Disoriented and sweating from pain, I blinked blindly as the faces of my husbands and wife slowly came back into focus. I had no idea what he was going on about. “We’ll always be here when you need us.”
Letting my head fall back on his shoulder, I concentrated on his poking and prodding. My body was beginning to feel numb. The pain was dissipating. Still there as a constant thrum in the back of my mind. But much more bearable.
“There you go,” he said. “Did I miss anywhere?”
“I don’t know. I think you added a few more,” I said.
He chuckled. “I didn’t know where to concentrate first,” he admitted. “So I might have missed one or two. I dulled the pain, so if there’s somewhere that still hurts like you’ve been stabbed repeatedly, tell me.”
I shifted my body, taking inventory of my aches and pains. “No. That’s it.”
“Good,” he said, gently pushing me into Taranis’s arms.
“Thanks, Torin.”
He looked back at me and winked. “Alright, storms. I think it’s time to rejoin the hell you’ve started and see what’s in the basement.”
Hadley
