Page 67 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Not if they hadn’t spent months studying that face.

Watching him observe. Protect. Laugh…

Lust.

My heart clenched, but my hands continued working through muscle memory, demanding that I return my attention to my patient.

To the black arrow with gold fletching.

August or Alec, I assumed.

“Through-and-through puncture along the lateral margin of the deltopectoral groove. Exit posterior to the shoulder,” I reported to absolutely no one.

Old habits died hard.

A pang of longing slammed through my chest.

“In English, pet,” Adrastos chastised dryly, earning my most dramatic eye roll.

My personal feelings about Moros Balaskas aside, this son of a bitch was a body. A body destined to survive with or without my intervention.

But perhaps, if I played this correctly…

“Bellamy, Barry—I need hands.” I replaced Moros’ fingers with my own and applied pressure to his neck. My magic surged forward, silver light emanating from my palm as I settled the other beneath the arrow impaling the monster before me.

Those black eyes locked onto my chest as though he could see my magic working there.

“Trajectory appears anteromedial, sparing the subclavian vessels.”

“English, sunspot,” Adrastos drawled again, the corner of his mouth lifting when I glared at him.

“The arrow went clean through—” My magic surged through Moros’ body, searching and probing for information. “—beneath the collarbone and out through the back. It missed the lung. Tore a vein, but missed anything vital—assuming we can remove the arrow, cleanse the wound, and stop the bleeding before hypovolemic shock sets in.”

The king’s eyes snapped to my face, but Adrastos wasn’t the only one of us who’d mastered a well-trained mask.

I’d spent years in school and then in emergency rooms. I’d operated on serial killers and rapists under full police supervision. This sick creep wouldn’t rattle me any more than the sting in my cheek did.

“We have to remove the arrow. Now.”

“Marlana,” he wheezed.

“No time,” I snapped, shaking my head as Adrastos and Bartholomew knelt beside us.

My gaze landed on those dark brown irises, but white-hot anger immediately boiled through my veins, and I turned to Bartholomew instead.

“Both of you move at once. You snap off the arrowhead, and the prince pulls out the shaft. On three. One⁠—”

“Wait,” Moros growled.

“—two, three.”

Moros barked in pain as they obeyed. Barry’s hiss barely registered as I pressed my hands to both sides of the wound and funneled light down and inward.

A peculiar sting snapped against my magic.

I scowled at the wound, offended.

“Burns,” Moros grumbled, his gaze still fixed on my face in that eerie, otherworldly way of his.