Page 114 of A Dance of Water (Moon Song #2)

HEALING HER

THAREN

T haren’s shoulders knocked against the stone of the thin servants’ passage. He growled, turning his body so he could fit.

Fuck, fuck !

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The sense of doom in his gut was suffocating.

Finally, the path twisted down and around. He knew he was nearing his apothecary, where it was nestled deep within the castle.

The call in his soul roared with pain and urgency, driving him faster through the narrow corridor. He had to get back to her.

Tharen knew she was giving in to the pain—just as he knew he could never run from her.

He shoved the small, hidden doorway to the side, grunting as the stone slid away, revealing the dim mess of his apothecary.

"What…" The mage’s lip curled at the sight before him.

Ransacked.

Scrolls were strewn across the floor, books splayed out in disarray.

Tharen walked into the room, unsheathing one of the swords crossed over his back and holding it before him. He did not quiet his steps. If someone was hiding, he wanted to be known. Wanted whoever dared to break into his apothecary to know that their time was limited.

He let his Spirit magic seep into the air, eyes lighting with an unnaturally light blue as he swept the room for hints of an aura.

Nothing.

It was bare.

And that made his hackles rise.

Even the most skilled of beings left behind a trace of an aura. So for there to be none… he was dealing with no ordinary thief.

"Well played, Merath," Tharen intoned. The words fell into the room, with no answering sound.

The lover of his former Prima was long gone, but she had left him a gift.

His eyes fell on his worktable, relatively untouched. There, a small dagger was notched into the wood, blade keeping it upright, as a small scrap of paper was trapped under the blade.

Tharen lowered his sword, ripping the paper away from the dagger.

Resting his sword on the table, he waved his free hand, using Ignis magic to ignite a small fire at his fingertips to read by.

The note was simple:

Come find me, M.

Tharen crinkled the paper in his fist. "I would if you’d told me where you are, bitch," he seethed. "I don’t have the fucking time for this." He stuffed the wadded-up note in his pocket, quickly gathering the things he had come for.

In no time, the mage’s arms were laden with tinctures and bottles, a satchel he stuffed with dressings and materials for suturing—just in case. He didn’t know what manner of care his lamb would need. Better to be prepared.

The small door of the servants’ passage opened into the King’s room.

Tharen felt Luella before he saw her.

And the sight of her made his knees grow weak .

His grip on the supplies in his arms shook. The low murmur of voices from the bedroom greeted him as he stepped inside.

At once, they all turned to him. But the mage could only stare at Luella. On Vale’s bed, the Princess lay on her stomach. Graves’s cloak was tangled around her legs, her pale face pressed into the pillow, eyes closed, and mouth slightly open as she rested.

Her wings were no longer hidden away now that they were in the privacy of the King’s chambers. It was the first time Tharen was truly able to look at them without being clouded by disbelief.

Closing his eyes, he tried to find a way to run from the godsdamned feelings inside him.

But he only saw the Stella, as it had curled over her skin, blessing her.

The wings had erupted from her back in a spray of blood and broken skin.

How she had arched away from the altar, into him, as if seeking safety.

But he had caused it—hadn’t he? How could she find comfort in him?

He knew it wasn’t true. There was much more at work here, but her screams echoed around him, the ghost of her body was still pressed against his, trembling in the aftermath.

Luella had not even been able to relish in her release before it turned to anguish.

"Tharen." Graves’s low voice forced Tharen’s eyes to open.

The male’s face was uncovered, and tension lined his body. He kept reaching up to clutch the amulet at his chest before he released it, looking to Luella, then repeating the motion. This would be a grand shock for the male, Tharen knew.

Graves passed a hand over his lower face in a rare display of agitation. "You have what you need?"

"Yes," Tharen replied. If his voice shook, he just hoped they attributed it to exhaustion.

The demon was sitting on the floor at the foot of Vale’s bed, a hand resting on Luella’s ankle, as if he could not part from her even as she fell into dreams. Bastian stood at her side, brows crinkled, as he swirled a glass filled with thick red blood.

He brought it to his mouth and took a sip, lip curling as he all but ripped the glass away in disgust. The vampire pinched the bridge of his nose, a small drop of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

And the King... Tharen watched the rigid lines of Vale’s back as he stood near the large balcony doors at the side of the room—the dragon shifter hated being away from open air.

The curtains were pulled tight, but his hand rested on the edge, as if flirting with the idea of revealing them all to the moonlit skies and cloud-covered stars.

Without turning, Vale hissed, "Heal her, Prima. Now."

Tharen started to unpack his supplies, slapping a hand on Azgorath’s large shoulder and yanking him away from the bed. The demon’s amber eyes flashed as he snarled, but he relented. Tharen felt his eyes burn into his back with a silent threat.

Luella whimpered as Tharen brushed a hand over the line of her shoulder, and a large plume of smoke filled Vale’s room. Leaning over her, he kept her covered with his body, not daring to turn to the hissing dragon shifter.

"Can we trust you not to shift, Vale?" Tharen gritted, hand hovering over Luella’s body. He would not touch her again until he received the King’s word—he very much would like to remain an uncooked mage.

A shuffling noise behind him, then:

"Yes. My dragon, we are…" Vale growled softly. "We both understand the importance of what she needs right now."

Tharen turned his head slightly, staring at Vale, who had drawn nearer to the bed. The mage studied Vale, finding no slitted pupils or onyx scales on his skin.

"If you cause problems, Bastian will make you sleep," Tharen warned. Hearing no rebuttal, he started to untangle Graves’s cloak from Luella’s legs, leaving her entire body bare, save for the scraps of her gown covering the soft swell of her backside.

In her fitful rest, she flinched away from his touch.

Azgorath growled. "Don’t you fucking hurt her."

"That little warning goes for all of you," Tharen spat. "The last thing I need right now is to be distracted. It’ll only make me fuck up and hurt her—which I’m sure you don’t want?"

The demon’s hands curled into fists by his side. His knuckles were busted, coated with dried blood. But he remained quiet.

As did the rest of them, after Tharen’s warning.

That left the mage with uninterrupted focus on Luella and the weight of what came next.

He was used to broken things—loved piecing them back together. But the sight of her… It was different.

But that didn’t matter right now.

Tharen got to work. Because he had to.

To preserve her modesty, he folded a sheet over her lower half.

He normally wouldn’t care, but something about her so vulnerable and fragile made his heart fucking twinge in his chest, and the only way to get it to stop was to cover her as best as he could without hindering his view of her bloodied back.

In warning, Luella’s heart rate increased.

Then she gasped softly, fingers curling in the sheets by her cheeks as her head started to lift. An ear-splitting crack of lightning echoed outside the castle walls.

She was waking up, dammit.

Digging into his satchel, he grabbed a small glass vial of deep purple liquid, uncapping it and pressing it to her lips.

She gagged, eyes watering, as he tipped the contents into her mouth, and he quickly pinched her nose, giving her no choice but to swallow.

The effects were instantaneous. Her lids drooped; her struggling limbs weakened.

Luella’s blue eyes grew hazy with the potion. "Tharen…" she breathed thinly, fingers curling weakly into the sheets.

"Don’t try to stop it," Tharen muttered, words reminiscent of their time in the Temples—had it truly been just a day ago he had her underneath him on the altar?

Finally, her breathing evened out, and he released a held breath with relief.

Tharen swallowed down a sorry as he gently grasped the bottommost part of her left wing, unable to stop his sharp intake of air at the softness of the feathers.

Even crusted with blood, it was the most delicate thing he had ever felt.

Surprisingly light, too. The wings were tucked close to her back, the long pointed tips at the bottom curling around her upper thighs.

Her breathing picked up at his touch, but she otherwise didn’t stir, so Tharen grew bolder, taking her wing and stretching it out.

The muscles in her upper back twitched, and he felt some resistance, so he laid her wing down against her back, once more.

That wasn’t good—he didn’t know much about wings, but her muscles were obviously weak.

An angel who couldn’t fly. Looks like her wings wouldn’t need to be clipped, after all.

Tharen shifted his focus to the gouges on her back where the wings had broken free. At the base of each wing, her pale flesh was angry and red. No fresh blood; she was healing.

For a moment, he simply stared at her, feeling out of depth; though, he’d never admit it aloud.

He allowed his Body magic to seep out of him, feeling her out. Her heartbeats were a steady thrum in his ears; he could sense no internal bleeding or injuries. That was better than he had anticipated.

First step: clean the blood away. Then, he would try to speed up the process of her healing. After that… he didn’t know.

Fuck.

Grabbing a cloth from his supplies, he used his Aqua magic to dampen it, tiny droplets falling from his cupped palm as he settled the cloth against the small of her back and started methodically wiping away the blood.

She was so soft under his palms, and his mind kept returning to how she had felt on his lap, then under him.

He wanted to be inside her so badly. Gods, it was wrong—fucked up—but the ache stole his breath.

She was so soft, so warm beneath his hands, and all he could do was clean her up like he didn’t know how she sounded when she shattered with pleasure.

Luella’s breath hitched sleepily as his fingers brushed against her spine. White wings fluttered softly as he worked—the picture of innocence.

This would be a long fucking night.