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“Mircea was in the back of my mind, saying he could help.He needed the connection.”

“And if he hadn’t?”I pulled back so I could see his eyes.

“I would have done as you asked.”

The voice was steady, but the green gaze flickered away from mine for an instant before returning, and his already high color crept further up his face.Honestly, I could have done better, and I was a shit liar.And I guessed my thoughts showed on my face because he suddenly exploded.

“Damn it, Cassie, what do you expect?For me to let you die in this godforsaken hellhole?Or worse, to dieforit, and then I have to return to—”

He broke off and hugged me close again.“I won’t let that happen.I can’t!”

“You have to, or else we’re going to get each other killed, trying not to get each other killed.I didn’t know what you were doing tonight; you didn’t know what I was.We can’t keep that up.The witches say that Vegas is ten times worse than anything we’ve seen so far.Do you honestly think we’re going to get through that if we’re both more worried about saving each other than we are theplanet?”

Pritkin said something rude about the planet and looked like he’d like to hit the wall again.But he knew I was right, just as I was starting to suspect that he was.That damned camp had left him overly cautious and turned me into Revengebot 2000, and neither was okay.

“I have to let go of my anger,” I said.“Like you have to let go of your fear.Or we’re not getting through this.”

“So, I’m to let you die, then?”It was hoarse.

“If we work together, maybe we don’t have to.But if it comes down to it...yeah.You do.”

“And the reverse?Will you let me go if the worst happens?”

I looked up at him.And unlike he had done, I held his eyes.“I will.”

And once again, the strange, mercurial man I loved surprised me.“Then you were wrong before,” he said, kissing my dirty forehead.“YouarePythia.And stronger than I am.”

Chapter Fourteen

That wasn’t an answer, but I knew Pritkin well enough to know that pushing him anymore tonight—or today or whenever it was—wouldn’t help.If anything, it would only make him more stubborn and me more tense because I didn’t want to fight.I wanted to hold him and forget that this whole day had ever happened!

So I let things lie for the moment, grabbed the soapy rag he was still holding, and got to work cleaning myself up before the hot water gave out.

It took some doing.But I managed to scrub off most of the remaining grime, except for some that had welded itself to my skin around the joints of my suit.Then I turned to find him still standing there like a clay statue—a melting one, as the water had softened up the disaster but had not yet made much of a dent in it.

He was looking like he couldn’t decide whether to take the reprieve I’d offered or continue the conversation, so I decided to help him out.

“On your knees,” I said, and got a filthy, raised eyebrow in return.

But that powerful body slowly sank to the floor, something that would have had my heart pounding a bit under other circumstances, but in these...God!The problem was even worse than I’d thought.It was like he was made out of mud!

And when I finally got through some of that dirt, I found the same lacerations I had, only far worse.His bottom half was mostly okay, as the fey trousers he’d been wearing were tougher than they looked and had blocked most of the whipping sand.But his torso...

“Shit,” I said softly.Tiny red lines crossed and crisscrossed his body so thickly that it looked like he was wearing a plaid shirt.Most of the marks had stopped bleeding but were raw and angry looking and probably hurt like a bitch.And they were about to hurt a lot worse.

“The soap is going to sting,” I warned.

“It has healing properties,” he said, his eyes closed, and his face turned up to the spray as if he was enjoying this.And maybe he was.

How long had it been since anybody took care of him?I wondered.He was usually taking care of me instead of the other way around, but a partnership didn’t go just one way.It was time I reciprocated, although I wasn’t sure how.

I started tentatively, but some of the sand had been ground into the wounds.Removing it was likely to hurt, but he couldn’t heal with it in there.Damn it, the Circle’s welcome mat was harsh!

I guessed most war mages were expected to have shields, but Pritkin’s had failed when they never did, showing me just how out of power he’d been on that crazy rescue.It made me mad all over again, but I just kept working, being as gentle as possible and using a lot of soap to help coax the dirt out of the lines.And wondered how he’d managed to summon all those demons when out of juice.

“That’s why I’m drained,” he said when I asked.

“I thought that was helping me at Zara’s.”