“Arrrgh!”He fell back, groaning and grabbing his junk.
Coughing and panting for air, Leya rolled away. Skinny snarled and crawled to her, his dagger swinging toward her throat.
No!A dark rage unfurled, swamping her. She flung out her hands to shove him—
Power flew like lightning, and the sizzling bolt sent him careening. His head cracked against the edge of a rock, and he collapsed to the ground, twitching and crackling with silvery sparks, before going dead-still. His pal, with the spelled arrow shaft sticking out of his chest, lay nearby, face down in the rising tide lapping into the cave.
Leya clenched her buzzing fingers and hoped like hell the jerkwads were dead!
Panting for air, her throat hurting, she scrambled to Aerén. Blood drenched his wet shirt and pants. His breathing had slowed, his chest barely moving. His features had taken on an ashy hue and his lips a bluish tinge.
No, no!
Did using his power weaken him further?
Hastily, she lifted his shirt. The hole above his heart still seeped.
“Shit…” She stroked his unshaven jaw, fear squeezing her gut as she glanced around.
He groaned, and his eyelids lifted to half-mast. “What…?”
“You’re losing too much blood.” She grabbed the last arrowhead from her pocket, the spell not so strong now, sliced the end of his tunic, then ripped off a strip.
“Now, you undress me,caeli.” Despite their precarious situation, his scratchy, baiting humor surfaced.
Tears flooded her eyes as she dropped the arrow. “Told you, I-I liked my men incapacitated when I have my way with them. I’m gonna tie this—”
“No.” A low growl. “Me. Justme.” He grunted, eyes shutting again.
“Only you,” she whispered. “Always you.”
Swallowing back the emotions that would consume her, she pushed the strip of fabric under his back, wrapped it around his chest, and knotted it.
“We have to get out of here. The tide’s coming in. Can you get up?”
His bloodless lips thinned as he heaved upward to sit, then sank back. Or, he would have, but Leya clutched him under his arms. Jaw clenched, she yanked him backward. He fell against the rock.
At least he was moving, even if it was a little.
“Leave me. Go… Find a way…out of here.”
Scowling, she knelt next to him. “Did you think I-I went through all this to leave you here, a sitting duck for more damn rebels to find?” Her attention shifted to the incoming tide splashing over his boots. “Please, please tell me what I can do to help you recover faster.”
“A mage… Time.”
“We don’t have those!”
“I know.” His gaze dropped to her upper arm, where her sleeve was ripped apart. “You’re hurt.”
She sank down on her ass. “Just scrapes.”
He lifted a shaky hand and grasped her wrist, and she moved closer. He licked her blood-smeared scrapes, startling her.
“You can heal me?”
“Trying to…” He stared at her lacerations.
She waited, eyeing the advancing tide warily.
