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KAITLYN

W e landed as soon as we saw the other Drakes take off. I wanted to try and fight them—to get Saint back from them. But Ari’s Drake told me not to.

“There are too many and we must tend to Avery,” he told me.

Reluctantly, I agreed. My coven mate’s limp form scared me. Saint, at least, was still alive—we had seen him shouting and kicking—trying to get free of the men who held him as they bundled him onto the back of a Drake. But Avery was just lying there in the mud, so still, his face so pale…

I Shifted smoothly to my human form and knelt beside my friend.

We should have come sooner, I thought. But we hadn’t wanted to interfere or agitate the Cursed Drake, which was already dangerously unstable.

I wondered if Avery had succeeded in breaking the curse.

I felt his throat and couldn’t find a pulse.

Oh God…Tears blurred my vision. No wonder Saint had been screaming and crying—Avery was dead .

A moment later, Ari was kneeling beside me.

“Oh, no.” His voice was ragged as he looked down at Avery. “Breaking the Curse must have drained him—the dark magic that the Brujas use was too strong for his heart to bear.”

“But did he break it?” I blinked away tears and looked down at his body, lying in the mud of the swamp. The damp, fetid water had wet his dark blond hair and his school blazer was dirty too. But one of his cuffs was red—it was wet with blood, not mud I realized.

“Look!” Ari saw it the same time I did—Avery’s hand still clenched around the Curse Breaker.

His fingers were still flexed but I couldn’t tell if that was because the muscles refused to relax, even in death, or if it was because the spines of the ball were stuck so firmly into his flesh they were keeping his fingers curled around it.

“Get it off him—get that damned thing out of his hand!” My voice came out in a sob. We never should have let him go alone. We never should have let him try to break the curse—it was too much for one person. The whole coven should have helped him!

Ari pried my coven mate’s fingers open at last and the spiked ball—now wet and red with Avery’s blood—rolled away into the mud.

I felt tears spilling from my eyes. Poor Avery—the flesh of his hand and palm looked like raw hamburger.

How could we have let this happen to him?

Why hadn’t I flown ahead and stayed near him? How?—?

A low choked coughing sound broke my train of thought. I looked at Ari but it wasn’t him. Looking down, I saw that Avery’s eyelashes were fluttering.

“Avery?” I gasped and then grabbed him and hugged him hard.

“Easy…Katydid,” he gasped. “Can’t…breathe.”

I pulled back and looked down at him, almost afraid to hope. But sure enough, he seemed to have come back to life, though he still looked extremely weak.

“It was the Curse Breaker—it was draining his life-force,” Ari said. “Once we pried it from his fingers, his life returned.”

I didn’t know if he was right or not and I didn’t care. I was just so happy that my friend and coven mate was all right. But I was afraid he wouldn’t be for long if we didn’t get him some help.

“We need to take him home—to the Healer at Nocturne right away,” I told Ari. “I’ll Shift and you put him on my back.”

“That’s probably for the best, since you are naked in front of a male who is not your Blood-bonded mate,” Ari remarked, frowning.

I looked down at myself.

“Don’t be ridiculous—Avery doesn’t care.”

“Katydid’s right—I don’t,” Avery said weakly. “But I would appreciate a ride back home.” He looked around. “Where’s Saint? Did I break the curse? I thought I did.”

“His father’s men took him,” Ari said grimly. “We couldn’t get him back—there were too many of them.”

“Besides, we were worried about you,” I told him.

“But Saint…” he said faintly and I saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“Don’t worry about him,” Ari said quickly. “I promise to go check on him once we have you safely back at the Academy.”

“You swear it?” Avery’s eyes were already closing again. I was worried but I felt his pulse and it seemed strong. He’d lost a lot of blood, though. I would have to fly as fast as I could.

“I swear it,” Ari promised. “Shift, Kaitlyn. We must be getting him home.”

I nodded and laid Avery’s head down gently. Then I took several large steps back and then a few more, just to be safe. Just because I was a girl didn’t mean my Drake was a small one. Once I Shifted into that form, I took up a lot of space.

As I let the scales flow over me and felt my wings burst from my back, I prayed that I would be able to get Avery back home in time.

I didn’t know what I would do if I was too late to save him.