Page 61

Her blood touched my tongue.

Heat rushed through me. My throat softened enough to swallow, followed by my chest. My heart began to beat faster, each contraction painfully hard, before settling into a steady rhythm. Air filled my lungs as the stone receded down my arms and across my stomach.

Robyn gasped when my hand closed around hers.

“That’s it,” she murmured. “You’re coming back. Just keep drinking.”

I swallowed again, taking only what I needed. My legs warmed. Feeling returned to my wings and tail, followed by the sharp ache of muscles forced to remain still.

When I released her wrist, Robyn immediately pressed her fingers over the wounds.

“Can you move everything? Don’t just say yes because you want me to stop fussing.”

I flexed both hands, moved my feet and cautiously opened my wings. “I appear to have survived the petrification.”

Relief softened her face. She leaned forward until her forehead rested against mine.

I had flown away because I feared she would never choose me while my survival depended on her.

She had followed me and given me her blood anyway.

“Do you think you can fly?” Cairn asked.

“Yes. Soon.”

“Then I shall leave you two alone. I think you have some talking to do. Unless you want me to stay, Robyn?”

“No. Go back to Georgie. Thanks for the lift. And you’re right, Sten and I have to talk.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. But she was right.

He opened his wings and launched himself from the ridge before either of us could object.

Coward.

Robyn watched him fly away, then turned back to me.

“Did you know this would happen? That you’d turn to stone again?”

“No.”

“But you knew it might.”

“I thought your blood would protect me for longer.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I knew there was a risk,” I admitted. “When my finger began to stiffen, I turned back, but I had flown further than I realised.”

“And at no point before that did you think it might be a good idea to come home?”

“I needed to fly. I needed the silence, and I wanted to know how far I could go without you.”

“Well, now we know. You can go just far enough to turn into a statue on a freezing hillside.”

Her fingers remained pressed against the punctures on her wrist. The bleeding had almost stopped, but the sight of her blood made guilt twist through me. She had come after me even though I had left her angry and confused. Then she had offered me the very thing she wished I did not need.

“Let me,” I said softly.