The muffled voices of healers and soft footsteps whispered through our silence as we sat deep in thought.
Alexei dropped his magazine. “How is it possible that they’d be coming from the Immolation Circle, then leaving? Some kind of witchy magic? A portal so small it doesn’t give off a power signature or visual cues?”
Cato glided into the room at that moment.
“I’m so glad you asked, Lex.”
He carried a stack of tomes from chin to fingertip, somehow still looking tall and unbothered while doing it.
“The books you asked for, General.”
He set them beside Alexei’s bed on the end table.
“Will that be all?” Cato asked.
“For now.”
He dipped his head and left.
Alexei eyed the towering stack with raised brows.
“Don’t tell me those are for me.”
I stood, needing to talk to Sam.
“We need answers. That’s every text Cato has—not just on doorways and portals, but anything that could move or hold a large amount of souls while still being inconspicuous.”
He groaned, dropping his head between two big-breasted ladies displayed in his magazine.
“I’d rather search for Ridigar and use him as a pincushion for my knives, but this will have to do.”
“We can always cut off your wings. I can numb you, take them off, heal you, and you’ll be on your way by tonight,” Sam suggested as he walked into the room.
Alexei dragged himself off the bed, his damaged wings covering his ass as his gown opened.
“Or you could clear me, and I could get back to work.”
Disapproval tugged Sam’s lipsinto a flat line.
“Say that without a grimace and without your fingers twitching to help hold up your wings, and I’ll agree.”
Alexei crossed his arms, wincing as his shoulder blades pulled at his wounds, then dropped them.
“Hell’s going to shit, Sam. Grounds melting, demons are demoning, armies are growing. Ronen needs me back. So how about I deal with my pain, and you deal with the rest when I come back in the mornings?”
He glanced at me.
“And we put MJ on reading duty.”
Sam’s expression never changed.
“Please,” Alexei added.
Sam moved behind him and attempted to extend one of Alexei’s wings. He made it an inch before Alexei tensed, teeth baring and fists clenching. Another inch and he hissed.
“Okay! Okay!”
“Twenty percent of your ligaments are shredded—half barely stable, the rest likely gone. Seventy percent of your muscles have just been torn and healed, needing at least another day to stabilize. Then there’s the matter of healing from your last injuries. So please, ask me again to leave.”
