Beside me, the male panthers have skidded to a stop, their eyes wide, their claws retracting, and their nostrils flaring. Rumble makes a soft, chirping sound that gives me some reassurance, since it’s a sound I associate with the panthers’ happiness, but then he falls silent again.
The keeper, too, has stopped in his tracks, but instead of focusing on the scene ahead, he’s studying his hands, turning them back and forth, his forehead deeply furrowed.
Barely able to peel my eyes away from the woman, I whisper to him, “What did you do? What magic is this?”
He shakes his head before he looks up from his hands. “I have no fucking idea.”
Well, while he may have gained complete control over his power in some respects, it seems there are still some aspects of his power he’s yet to master.
“Could this be another illusion?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Of that, I’m certain.”
Up ahead, the woman’s mouth closes over the tips of Lucian’s fingers, her tongue darting out as she licks every drop of sweat and blood off his hand.
“You’re tasty,” she says before her mouth closes over the side of his palm—the fleshy part beneath his thumb.
Lucian seems to have lost his ability to speak. “Uh…”
She leans down over him, her pale-lilac hair brushing across his chest as she draws his left hand to her shoulder and presses it there. She catches his other hand, which she presses to her other shoulder. After which, she lowers her face to his.
He appears to hold his breath as she drags her tongue across the wound on his forehead and down the side of his cheek where the light magic scorched him.
“So very tasty,” she says before she leans back and licks the last smears of his blood from around her mouth.
He stares up at her, his eyes wide. To his credit, he’s focused on her face and not on her naked body.
It seems she isn’t done with him when she leans across to his broken wing—the one on the far side. I can’t see exactly what she’s doing because the curtain of her hair falls forward and pools across his chest. All I’m certain of is that she seems to have lowered her head to the location of the break near his shoulder.
He flinches, visibly pulling away from her as if he could scooch across the floor with her still on top of him. “What are you…?”
I step forward, ready to intervene, but then he visibly relaxes.
A sigh passes his lips, the tension leaves his shoulders and chest, and his eyes slowly close.
They stay like that for a long moment while I hover uncertainly and the panthers watch warily and the keeper continues to take unhappy glances at his hands.
Then the woman sits slowly upright again and her voice is gentle as she says to Lucian, “All better now.”
He opens his eyes, a serenity in his expression that I never expected to see on his face. His cheeks have regained their color and, if I look closely enough, it appears that the wound on his forehead and burn across his other cheek are gone.
The flutter of his broken wing and the way he lifts and lowers his shoulder on that side indicates that his wing may not be broken anymore.
My jaw has dropped. Even the keeper seems surprised, his eyebrows now raised.
Lucian’s hands have remained on the woman’s shoulders where she put them and he seems transfixed. “How did you do that?”
“Heal you?” She slowly bares her teeth, revealing two pointy canines. They aren’t as long or as prominent as a vampire’s fangs, and it’s not immediately clear to me if they can extend or retract, since they don’t grow longer or shorter as I watch.
She runs her tongue over the tips of them. “My teeth secrete a healing solution. A little is good. A lot is bad.”
“You bit me?” His voice is startled, but then his forehead creases. “I didn’t feel you bite me.”
She gives a soft laugh. “Biting isn’t necessary. I just need to lick you.”
His eyes are wide and his voice is a whisper. “Fuck me.”
A slow smile grows on her face. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can remember how.”
