Page 21 of Hunted (Love and Revenge #5)

Ruya

T he quiet that fell over the room was like the held breath before a scream.

After Sanka’s last failed attempt at a protection charm, my sorcerer had been obsessed.

He had seen that his attempts could work, and it drove him to solve the puzzle—like this was some personal challenge he refused to fail.

He had disappeared for a few days, and no one could drag him out of the workroom.

But he insisted he had it now. That he’d figured it out.

I was equal parts hopeful and terrified, given his track record.

He had requested my presence in case my healing magic was needed. That said enough all on its own.

This had to work. I couldn’t bear to see Josh collapsing in on himself the way he had been ever since Acacia turned him.

I waited as Sanka directed Josh to stand in the center of a protective spell circle.

I could just make out the faint shimmer of Sanka’s new prototype charm, a waver in the blur at the center of the workroom.

I could hear Josh’s shallow breathing from across the room.

And for the first time in weeks, I couldn’t sense Acacia coiled behind his aura like a snake poised to strike.

My heart beat so loud I thought everyone must be able to hear it. It was working, so far.

Cicely sat cross-legged beside me on the edge of the outer ring of protections Sanka had set up to shield the rest of us in case his magical solution... backfired. Cicely didn’t speak, didn’t move—he was just there . A fixed point of calm, using his empathic abilities to nudge us all toward hope.

Sanka paced in slow circles around the ward perimeter, muttering equations and incantations under his breath.

He had tried to exude confidence when he told everyone the plan.

But I could sense how wound-up he was. Sanka wasn’t an alpha, but he was a caring man—a protector in his own way.

And it was killing him that he had failed to use his notoriously strong magic to save Josh—this time it had to work.

I silently said a prayer in my mind, asking the Goddess and any deity who was listening to bless this ritual with success.

I knew from the voices of the people around me, and a comment Robin had made, that Richard lounged on a stool in the corner, chewing an unlit matchstick and pretending not to care.

It seemed he was always gnawing on something.

I had a hunch that his cravings for blood had increased with his time and distance away from the coven.

He never mentioned it. But his entire aura flickered with unease to my magical senses.

He could have left by now. The charm he wore around his neck had worked for him much better than it had for Josh.

And yet here he was. He liked to pretend he was this unattached drifter who didn’t care about anyone or anything but his own hide.

But that was just an act. He wanted us to succeed.

I thought maybe he wanted to stick around long enough to help this court make the world a safer place for people like him.

Sadavir’s powerful alpha presence called to me from behind where Josh was standing, just outside the spell circle.

I didn’t need Cicely’s empathic skills to be able to feel the desperation rolling off the naga.

I sensed Dusek’s dark presence not far from Sadavir, a black shadow guard hanging motionless, watchful.

“It’s working,” Sanka said, his voice coming from somewhere nearby as he apparently stopped his pacing and muttering. “How do you feel?”

Look. Cicely spoke into my mind, giving me warning before he performed the high fae magic he’d been practicing just for me. For one brief, flickering moment, he was able to push a vision into my mind, to let me “see” what he saw.

Josh’s eyes opened.

I could feel Cicely’s emotions—his interpretation of what he was seeing.

For a moment, Josh looked like himself. Not the fractured, blood-starved shadow everyone had been avoiding contact with.

Not the barely-holding-it-together consort to a royal naga and potential spy. Just... Josh. Relieved. Human. Whole.

He smiled. Just a little. The kind that barely curled the corner of his mouth, but still felt like the sun rising.

I almost cried at the sight of his relief—and at the fact that Cicely had managed to show me this.

Then Josh gasped, and the strained, flickering mental image Cicely had provided slipped away.

A flash of light flared from the vicinity where Josh was standing, and I knew it was the charm, bright and suddenly wrong . I felt Cicely jolt beside me in surprise.

“No,” Josh whispered.

The word wasn't his. I knew it before the sound even finished leaving his lips. Acacia’s presence, her sick aura that had previously been dimmed, surged back into the room like a flood. Josh screamed.

Then he lunged.

I moved too slowly, not realizing the threat was aimed at me, until the rushing blur was already in front of me.

Cicley moved faster than I had. He threw himself between Josh and me before I could even blink.

Josh slammed into him with unnatural force—a snarl tearing out of his throat like something feral had taken over.

The scent of blood hit the air. The copper tang of it burned in my nose. My healer’s senses flared in protest, flooding me with the knowledge of pain and torn flesh.

Cicely and Josh knocked me aside as they tumbled across the floor, nothing but a blur of shifting colors and shadows to my blind eyes. I rolled to my hands and knees and scrambled to my feet. I had to get to Cicely. He was bleeding...

A strong hand wrapped around my upper arm and yanked me to a halt. “No,” Martina bit out. “Stay back.”

“Josh!” Sadavir shouted, the word rough and harsh. I couldn’t track who was doing what now—there was too much motion to sort out what the shifting light and shadows and colors meant. But I assumed Sadavir was going after Josh, trying to break up the fight.

One mass of shadows was darker than the rest, a cluster of black that radiated fear. Dusek, materializing somewhere near where the two men continued to grunt and shuffle—probably still wrestling on the ground.

Sanka’s magic flared and he snapped, “Move. Binding spell.”

Josh screamed again—high, guttural, awful—and there was a thump. Then the room went silent, except for the sounds of harsh breathing.

“What happened? What did you do?” I demanded, ripping free of Martina’s grip and stumbling across the room to where I could feel Cicely’s life fading away. I couldn’t feel Josh’s lifeforce at all. Had Sanka killed him?

“Don’t worry about the vampire,” Robin said, grabbing my wrist and helping guide me to Cicely’s side. “He’s just magically contained. Your faun needs you.”

She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

Cicely. A song started to rise in the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down with sheer willpower.

No. I would not sing his death. My healing magic reached for him before my questing fingers found him, touching his arm, sliding my hands up to rest on his chest, which barely rose and fell, his breathing was so shallow.

His throat was torn open. Hot blood soaked the fabric of his shirt beneath my fingers. Too much blood. The artery in his throat was damaged. His breathing stuttered under my hands as I began to pour healing magic into him. Seconds. It would only take seconds to lose him.

Ruya ... the voice in my mind was barely a whisper, a fading thought. Lov...

“No,” I said, my voice cracking. “Cicley. Don’t you dare! Stay with me!”

My healing magic surged, hard and fast. Desperate to save him, I didn’t bother with control.

My aura opened wide, flooding the space with light, and life, and something primal I had never felt before.

I inhabited every cell of Cicely’s body, flooding him with health and vitality, knitting the damaged tissues back together, amplifying his body’s ability to produce blood and replace what was lost.

Cicely’s body arched beneath my hands. I dimly heard the gasps of the others around me as I accidentally bathed the entire room in healing.

All of my attention was for Cicley. His torn throat began to knit, too slowly.

Josh—or Acacia through him—had done something to the wound.

Some kind of vampire venom was doing its best to keep him bleeding and prevent his healing.

But my magic was stronger than that evil parasite’s desire to cause pain. I pushed harder.

I felt the wound fight me—felt the venom in Josh’s bite trying to stay , to fester, driven by Acacia’s poisonous intent. I bled my own energy into the spell, trying to draw the poison from her intent. I gave him warmth, oxygen, heartbeat, my own aura— everything I had to give.

Time blurred. When I finally sagged back, panting, Cicely was breathing. Unconscious, but alive. Barely. Goddess, that had been so close. Only a few more seconds and he would have been gone.

Sadavir knelt beside me. And he didn’t bother with a translator, voicing just for me and Cicely, the words filled with anguish. “He didn’t want to. Wasn’t him.” Josh, he meant.

“I know,” I whispered, my hand starting to tremble a bit from the aftereffects of terror, emotion, and such rapid and unusually strong healing. Josh hadn’t meant to hurt Cicely. And yet... he had.

Cicely’s voice in my mind was stronger now, shaken, but nearly back to its usual strength. And he used it to comfort me. As if I were the one who had almost died just now. I’m okay. It’s okay, Ruya. You saved me. I am whole. Thank you, my sweet mate.

I clung to Cicely’s hand, but I felt Sadavir shift next to me, moving toward Cicely before I could do more. “He’s saying he takes full responsibility for Josh’s actions,” Martina said from nearby, translating for my benefit as Sadavir apparently signed to Cicely.