Page 50 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

Adrian’s hands shook as he pushed Bex away from him.

The shaking got even worse when she stared up at him with her lovely eyes—the real Bex’s beautiful, fiery eyes—full of hurt and confusion.

She was looking at him like he’d just pulled the plug on a miracle, which was a hundred percent accurate.

This was a miracle—them being here together, the fire that had defeated the princess, the fact that any of this was happening at all—but Adrian couldn’t let her run to him like that. Not until he told her…

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Bex demanded, glaring at him like this was a joke in very poor taste. “Adrian, you were kidnapped . Boston told us what happened. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do,” he insisted, determined to tell her the truth and be the person she thought he was. “Gilgamesh didn’t kidnap me out of nowhere. I went to him.”

“He tricked you,” Bex argued, glancing around his shoulder at Boston, who was still crouching on Bran’s broom handle where Adrian had jumped off a good fifty feet away, staying the hell out of this. “Like I said, Boston told us—”

“Boston doesn’t know everything,” Adrian said.

“He’s my familiar and my friend. It’s his job to think the best of me, but I’m the idiot who let himself get tricked.

I allowed my desperation and ego to override the common sense that is the core of witchcraft.

I was taught to see things as they are, not as I want them to be, but I was so desperate to get out of the trap I’d put us in that I ate up everything Gilgamesh fed me.

I took the easy power, took the quintessence.

I thought I was better than the average person, that I could handle it, but I ended up under Heaven’s boot just like every other idiot sorcerer before me.

My ego put us all in danger. I put you in danger.

If I’d stayed at the Anchor and helped you instead of trying to outsmart the rules, everything would’ve been different.

I’m the reason we’re in this situation, and I’m sorry.

” He squeezed his fist around the severed hand he was still clutching. “I am so, so sorry, Bex.”

He didn’t dare look at her after that, but she was still close enough for Adrian to feel her long sigh.

“Maybe it would’ve been different,” she admitted.

“But you’re not the only one who got tricked.

Heaven played me too, so if we’re apologizing, I’m also sorry that I piled so much on you.

It wasn’t your responsibility to fix the locked Anchor problem all by yourself, but I got caught up in my own stuff and left you in the lurch.

You turned to Gilgamesh because you were desperate, but I’m the one who left you alone with your back against the wall. ”

“Only because I volunteered,” Adrian reminded her angrily.

“Attacking the Anchors was my idea, if you’ll recall.

I told you I could handle it, and then, when it turned out I couldn’t, I panicked and jumped right into Gilgamesh’s trap.

This whole disaster could’ve been avoided if I’d just owned my mistakes and told you I was wrong, but I didn’t want to admit I couldn’t do it.

I was a cocky, impatient fool who made the wrong choice at every turn.

If I’d been thinking even a little, I never would have—”

“I don’t care,” Bex snapped, reaching up to rub the ash off her face, which was even paler than he remembered. She looked absolutely exhausted, but before Adrian could work himself into a fresh frenzy of guilt over that, Bex continued.

“I don’t care if you could’ve done it better,” she said, her voice heating with the passionate, loving anger he’d never heard in the princess’s voice.

“There’s no such thing as a perfect fight.

Everyone goes to war with the army they’ve got.

We all have to make field decisions based on imperfect information, but no matter how much you think you’ve messed up, there’s still nobody I’d rather have at my side.

So if you’re done telling me how much you suck, I’d really like a hug.

It’s been a very hard week, and you would not believe how much I’ve missed you. ”

“I think I might,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Because I missed you just as much.”

He felt her smile through his shirt, and Adrian pressed his face against the top of her hornless head.

Great Forest, he really was bad at this boyfriend thing.

Here he was shoveling his guilt onto her when all Bex wanted was comfort.

She deserved better, and Adrian was determined to be better.

He’d be a true partner to her from this moment forward, starting with the healing he should have done as soon as he ran over.

“Here,” he said, pulling away just enough to offer Bex her hand. “Let’s get this back where it belongs.”

“I don’t know if it’ll make a difference,” she told him tiredly. “I already tried calling Drox, but he’s not answering. I don’t think he’ll be able to hear me until I get my name back.”

“You still want your hand, though, right?” Adrian asked, arching an eyebrow. “Hundred-foot pillars of fire notwithstanding, having two hands is pretty useful.”

“Of course I want it back,” Bex said, her cheeks coloring beautifully before she went pale again. “I just don’t know if it’ll return. That’s the hand Gilgamesh used to make his princess. What if it’s as unresponsive as Drox?”

“There’s nothing Gilgamesh can do that I can’t undo,” Adrian told her with the same cockiness that had gotten him into this mess in the first place. The risk was worth it this time, though, because Bex looked so upset.

“I can do this,” he promised, looking straight into her bright eyes. “Trust me.”

“I do,” she said in a tiny voice. “How could I not at this point? You’ve healed the unhealable twice now, it’s just… that’s my sword hand.”

She finished with a pointed look, but Adrian didn’t understand. “So?”

“ So , if I go back with two hands and Drox’s ring on my finger, people are going to expect me to be the full Queen of Wrath again,” Bex explained.

“Fire is a good start, but a divine blade is proof of Ishtar’s blessing.

It was one thing when Gilgamesh had it, but if I’ve got Drox and still can’t use him, what does that say about me?

What if people stop believing I’m Rebexa? ”

“Bex,” Adrian said, biting back a smile. “You just lit up this entire cavern with a gigantic pillar of fire. I’m pretty sure people are going to believe you’re the Bonfire of Wrath, and I know Drox would be much happier sleeping on your finger than he would be in my pocket.”

She still looked unconvinced, so Adrian played his final card.

“Think of it as insurance,” he said gently. “If your hand’s back on your wrist where it belongs, it’ll be a lot harder for Gilgamesh to turn it into a princess again. Do it for my sake, if nothing else. If I ever have to see that creepy fake Bex again, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

That got a smile out of her. “Glad you weren’t fooled into thinking it was actually me in there.”

“Not for a second,” Adrian promised as he reached down to gently touch the stump at the end of her right arm. “May I?”

He waited until she nodded, and then Adrian slowly pressed the severed hand against Bex’s cut wrist. Considering the massive injuries he’d seen her recover from without so much as a scar, he fully expected her body to snatch the hand out of his grasp, but that didn’t happen.

Nothing did. The hand just sat limply against her stump like it belonged to someone else, and Adrian felt Bex start to shake.

Oh no. He wasn’t letting her go there, not while he still had a say.

Other than the cut in her side from the Blade of Gilgamesh, Bex’s body had always repaired any wound dealt to it, but he’d never seen her reattach a completely severed limb.

The problem could be that—since the stump was healed—her body thought its work was already finished.

If that was the case, then Adrian just had to get her natural healing going again.

Solution in sight, he slid his hands up to cover the gap where her wrist and hand connected.

When the wound was completely encircled by his fingers, Adrian closed his eyes and reached out with his magic.

Not with his father’s quintessence, but with the witchcraft he’d loved from the moment he’d realized what it was.

Healing was the first magic his mother had taught him, and it was still the part of their craft he enjoyed the most. Doing the impossible and fixing the unfixable were what made witchcraft feel like true magic, and Adrian poured himself into both of those now.

He even had help, because while the forest in his heart was still blocked by the lion Gilgamesh had placed inside his chest when he became a prince, Bex’s fire came straight from the Blackwood.

Adrian himself had been the funnel that had poured it into her, which made him intimately familiar with every aspect of it.

He used that connection now. Since he couldn’t reach his forest with his own heart, he reached through Bex instead, sliding down the channel the Great Blackwood had created when it’d poured through them both to pinch back a bit of the fire they’d put into her last summer.

The flames leaped to meet him the second he got close, raging into his hands like the forest fires they’d been originally.

If he hadn’t been so familiar with every bit of Bex’s magic, they would’ve burned him to a crisp.

Fortunately for him, this was a dance Adrian had done before.

The raging fire barely had time to flash in his mind before he passed it on, pressing the all-consuming fire of life he’d plucked from Bex’s body into the cold flesh of her lifeless hand.