Without thinking, he rushed toward it, only to have Caleb knock him away.
“Stop. It’ll kill her if you attack.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Itzal headed toward the tree slowly. Once he was close enough, he began to rub its trunk.
“What are you doing?” ’Cause a lot of things went through Nick’s mind, and he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
“I’m soothing it.”
The tree began to droop. Then, slowly, it lowered Kody back to the ground.
Nick rushed to her to help her get away. “What was that?”
“We’re intruding on their territory,” Itzal said. “Don’t step on their roots. It offends them.”
Nick stepped a bit further away from the root that was barely an inch from his shoe.
“Wish you’d told me that sooner.” Kody rubbed at her wrists as she eyed her captor tree. “Being yanked off my feet offends me. Thinking I should go Paul Bunyan on it and make a bench.”
“Would that make me Babe, the big blue ox?” Nick flashed a grin he hoped was charming.
“Nah,” Caleb said wryly. “I think it makes Itzal the big orange jackass for not warning us.”
Kody and Bubba burst out laughing. Nick chuckled, as he agreed that Itzal was a jackass. “That sounds about right. Anything else we need to avoid, Nemo?”
Caleb screwed his face up. “Uh! Why did you put that image in my brain? Now I can’t unsee it.”
Nick ignored him as he waited for a response.
Itzal looked at each of them in turn. “All of you think I’m leading you into a trap.” He said that as a statement and not a question.
Aeron crossed his arms over his chest. “The thought did come to me mind. Are you?”
“That’s what I told Lyseah I’d do.” Itzal’s gaze went to Caleb. “But I keep thinking back to the day you almost died protecting me.”
Caleb sucked his breath in. It was a memory never far from his thoughts. That was the wound that had led him to Lilliana.
Even now, he could see that day so clearly. He’d fallen to the ground and been trying to find some place to hide.
She’d been picking herbs in the woods when he stumbled upon her.
Fear had drained the color from her beautiful face as she saw him. He’d expected her to scream and call for help. To run.
Instead, she’d dropped her gaze to the blood pouring out of his side. “You’re hurt.”
From the moment she’d touched him to help, it’d shattered the icy organ in his chest that he thought had no use other than to pump his cold blood. Even after all these centuries, he could still see the concern in her eyes as she helped him to a cave, where she’d tended his wound and brought him food.
Day after day.
The other humans would have killed her had they found out what she was doing. Helping a demon.
She hadn’t cared. Nor had she betrayed him. Not once.
Her heart was beyond all reasoning.
Itzal met his gaze. “I owe you, brother. I haven’t forgotten. Nor have I forgotten that I’m the reason you betrayed us and were punished over it.”
