I could barely shake my head, unable to speak the words.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his eyes finding the wound. My skin felt slick where the beast had punched its claw into me. There was blood. Lots of it. “Can you still feel anything?”
I just stared at up at him, my neck no longer responding to my pleas to move. The world seemed nothing but a dusty haze around me. Gone were the sounds of fighting and the brutality of all that blood and death. All that existed was Alastair’s concerned face, his glittering earrings, and that ponytail of midnight hair. Such lovely, silken hair for such a powerful warrior.
It was then I realized the pain was gone. All of it. The aches that had been plaguing me these past few days—my shoulder, my back, the lack of sleep that had pressed heavily on my eyes—gone. But I knew that as good as I felt now, it probably wasn’t a good sign.
I must be dying.
Footsteps came closer, and something beside my head hissed. Alastair lifted his eyes and growled at whatever stood beside me now. I tried to follow his line of sight but only caught the vague outline of a towering creature in dark robes. A single hand was outstretched, long and thin and bone white. It pointed a finger right at me.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Alastair stood and raised his sword. “That beast didn’t get her, and neither will you.”
Dully, I knew I should probably panic at his words, but my fear was gone, just like everything else. Earlier, that shadowfiend had come straight for me. Alastair seemed to think the wraith had, too. Were they targeting me? Could they somehow scent the power in my blood? Did they know I was a descendent of Andromeda?
Steel whistled through the air, but all I could do was lie flat on my back, staring up at the mist that swirled overhead. It was so thick, I couldn’t even find the vague outline of the moon anymore. There wasn’t the hint of light anywhere. Just endless darkness, so deep it felt as though my soul might drift from my body and get lost in it forever.
But then—what was that? My finger twitched, and a dull pain radiated through my chest where the beast’s claw had dug into me. Then my foot shifted, just a flinch and nothing more, and another flash of pain went through my shoulder. Sights and sounds and a million different scents pounded down on me all at once.
Suddenly, it was all soloud, loud, loud. The shouting and screaming, the thundering of massive paws, the slice of steel through flesh.
Kalen appeared, his face full of anguish. He dropped to my side and grasped my hand, bringing it to his heart. “Tessa.”
Everything within me reached toward him, but my body hurt too much to respond. His face was caked in dirt and blood, and his familiar, Boudica, shivered on his shoulder, but he’d never looked better. He’d survived.
“One of the pookas got her,” Alastair said. “And the venom spread. She won’t be moving for a while.”
“No,” I managed to scrape from my throat. “I can move. A little. Don’t worry about me. Go fight the shadowfiends. Where’s Nellie?”
“Nellie’s fine, and the beasts are all dead. The ones we didn’t kill have fled,” Alastair said with a wolfish smile, his eyes burning brightly. “We defeated the bastards. Even the wraiths. Just be careful where you step when you get up.”
“You can move?” Kalen asked, sweeping his eyes across my prone form. Then his sapphire gaze latched on my torn leathers and the wound underneath. “That shouldn’t be possible. The venom doesn’t wear off for hours.”
Alastair had the audacity to grin. “What, did you suck some venom out of her again?”
Groaning, I pushed up from the ground and held my head, ignoring the spinning world around me. My whole body ached—again. But I could move. A little. Kalen held onto my arms and helped me stand, confusion in his eyes.
“Is that where the pooka cut you?” he asked, pointing to my sliced leathers.
“Yes, and it hurts like fire.”
“I can see the blood.” He arched his brow. “But the wound has already closed up. You’re healing.”
I blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Huh.” Alastair took a step closer and peered at my chest. “Kal’s right. If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I’d assume you were covered in the pooka’s blood, not your own.”
Frowning, I pushed the leathers aside and stared at the cut—or where the cut had been only moments ago. Just like Kalen had said, my skin was slick with the bright color of fresh blood, but there was only a small scar. It was barely the length of my thumb.
With my heart thundering, I lifted my eyes to meet Kalen’s gaze. “How is that possible?”
“Andromeda’s power,” he said. “It’s starting to come to you.”
Nine
Kalen
Tessa paled when I mentioned Andromeda. “That isn’t true. I tried using that power against the shadowfiend when it attacked me. Nothing happened.”
