Page 68

Ivy

T he rain wouldn’t let up, so with some coaxing, we managed to get the shifter into one of the shallow caves hidden in the cliffs.

“You need to get looked at,” Rowan said, appearing beside me, voice strained. “He really tore into your shoulder.”

I tried rolling it back but winced. The flesh wasn’t entirely knitted together yet. I was pretty sure it had stopped bleeding, but I couldn’t tell what was rain and what was blood.

“I’m fine,” I replied, grimacing. “Really. It’ll heal.”

Eventually , was what I didn’t add. The slowness likely had something to do with my drained magic, and what was left needing to be…settled. It was one of those things that would be entirely inappropriate at a time like this.

And yet, it is something you need. Orion’s voice came through the bond, almost startling. When I looked towards him, he wasn’t watching me, but rather the shifter. You should take one of your mates and clean up, little flower. I think we can handle him .

My stomach twisted at the thought of leaving any of them with the shifter. He might not have been dangerous right now, but we didn’t know what Dante was capable of doing to him. How much influence he had over him, despite being so far away.

Go , a mhuirnín, Maeve said, her reddened eyes flickering to me. The longer we smell your blood, the more likely we are to harm him in retribution .

A shiver rolled down my spine as I looked between her and the male, now curled up on the ground of the cave. His eyes were wide and unseeing as he stared into the dark, rainy night. It made me wonder when the last time it was that he shifted.

Elias’s presence appeared in the back of my mind, soothing yet tense. He’s likely been the wolf for a long time. And I would rather you heal than deal with this.

I took a step back, rain hitting my back. I glanced at Rowan beside me, who bled tension, then over at Adrian.

But my prince shook his head. I want to see if I can build charms based on whatever Dante did to him. Green eyes the colour of shining emeralds flickered up to meet mine. As much as I would love some time with you, Sweetheart .

I couldn’t bring myself to feel even an ounce of disappointment at that. Be safe .

Always , he replied, a small smile curving his lips.

Tension radiated off of everyone as I entwined my fingers with Rowan’s. Even if I did want to go somewhere for…privacy, there really wasn’t a way out of this place without Damon.

The demon’s red eyes met mine. I expected some sort of wicked smile or comment, but when his eyes grazed my body before landing on my shoulder, there was only rage.

I swallowed hard. The mark around my thigh burned, while the one on my hand seemed to shift.

“I’ll take you somewhere,” he said out loud, stepping away from the cave, leaving the others with the shifter. “I am certain they can handle him.”

That seemed to wake the shifter up, because he tore his eyes from the rain to stare at me. “No.”

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. “You’ll be fine with them. But I need to clean up.”

His eyes left mine to take in the blood soaking my shirt. The rain had washed away a lot of it from my skin, but I felt it beneath my gear, clinging to me uncomfortably.

I was thankful no one else had been seriously hurt. Even as I checked in with all the bonds, there was no sign of physical pain. Mostly, they wanted me to clean up. To refill my magical wells.

But the discomfort didn’t leave me, not even as Damon moved to stand with Rowan and I, his shadows swirling around us. Darkness closed around me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the shifter until the shadows completely surrounded us and dropped us off in a new location.

We weren’t far from the others. I could sense through the bonds that they weren’t a great distance away. It gave me some comfort, knowing we could be back in seconds, and I would know if anything happened to them.

It appeared Damon had brought us to the top of the cliffs, the forest that surrounded it, really.

There were large boulders everywhere, and where we stood, a creek turned into one of the waterfalls filling the pools below.

Maybe once, many years ago, it had been some kind of swimming hole or something.

But it had dried out a long time ago, leaving only the hole in the ground .

The trees up here grew close together, so we clung to the edge of the shallow creek as we assessed the area.

Just in case, I drew in a long breath before letting my magic creep out of me in search of anyone who might be nearby.

It wasn’t something I’d done before, but I called on it now.

It allowed me to connect my magic to the world around me and use it to create a mental map of not only the landscape, but also get a read on magical signatures.

My worry was that the shifter with my mates hadn’t been totally alone with the mage and Fae. That there had been an army not far behind them, hunting us while we looked for the crown.

But instead, I found that we were completely alone. There was no other sign of life, other than the few small animals hiding out in the hollows of old trees. But no magical signatures from Fae, mages, or other shifters. And no sign of any creatures that now called the Old World home.

I released a heavy breath and reeled my magic back in. Rowan still had my hand in his, and when my eyes opened, he brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said softly. “I need to see that wound.”

“Okay,” I replied, not fighting him on it. Not when a warm, tingly feeling flooded my belly at the knowledge that he wanted to take care of me.

Rowan guided me to a large rock at the edge of the creek and made me sit down. His hands strayed to the hem of my shirt, fingers curling in the fabric. “I need to take this off, to see the damage,” he murmured, cheeks reddening. “Is that okay?”

I smiled up at him, my heart warming. “Yes. Of course.”

He blew out a shaky breath and helped me out of the shirt.

It didn’t even matter that I ran hotter now that I could access Elias’s shifting abilities.

My skin still pebbled against the cool air and the rain that fell against my arms. And yet, it felt nice taking it off and being able to really see the damage.

On my wolf, it might not have been too bad. Well, it wouldn’t have been great. But I hadn’t stayed shifted long enough to allow my wolf to heal me.

I grimaced as I stared down at the wound. I had been wrong about the bleeding having stopped. It wasn’t a lot of blood now—I was pretty sure I’d had periods worse than this—but it still seeped. The skin hadn’t even started knitting itself back together.

“What happened to that accelerated healing you guys told me about?” I asked, glancing up from the bite to meet Rowan’s worried stare.

“You should be far closer to being healed than this,” Damon said from behind me. I’d almost forgotten he was there, but he appeared on my other side, his blazing red eyes on the wound. “How drained are you?”

I shrugged my non-wounded shoulder. “I wouldn’t say it’s too bad,” I replied.

“The explosion at the cabin definitely didn’t help.

But I was hoping that my last…time would be enough to get us through this.

” My cheeks burned as I ducked my head. I had no idea why I was even embarrassed anymore.

Everyone knew what I needed to do to settle and strengthen my magic.

Not just Damon, but probably every single supernatural creature over a certain age, who learned about the Queens of Nyx, knew.

Mortifying as it was, it was something I had to get used to.

Damon, though, made a sound in the back of his throat as he ran his fingers lightly over the wound. I tensed, grimacing again as it stung. “I don’t think there is anything in the bite,” he murmured. “But I do not like this. ”

“What, you think the shifter’s bite was…contaminated?” I asked.

Oh, Goddess above, what if I actually got rabies? There weren’t rabies shots here. And I didn’t know if that was a thing amongst wolves—or all shifters.

What if he had some kind of virus? Or worse?

“Ivy.” Rowan cupped both my cheeks, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You don’t have rabies.”

I pressed my lips together. “How can you be so sure?”

But by the look on his face, he couldn’t be. Dante could have done anything to that shifter. To all of them.

He’d made sure to keep Maeve from reading memories through blood.

“We know he’s been altering the lifespan of them. Of shifters, in particular,” Rowan sighed, his thumbs caressing the skin under my eyes. “I don’t know what Dante has been doing to them. We were working on that back at the compound safe house, when you were with Adrian and Maeve.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my heart pounding. “Why didn’t you guys say anything?”

“We didn’t want you to worry.” His eyes revealed the depth of his worry. “I’m sorry. We just wanted to make sure we had the facts before we brought anything to you. For good reason. You have a really, really bad habit of jumping to conclusions.”

While he had a good point there, I still wasn’t fond of the idea that they had been keeping so much from me.

“Anything else you want to reveal? Especially while I sit here, bleeding, with no shirt on?” Never before was I glad about wearing a bra.

My greatest enemy, keeping my boobs together while not one, but two men stared at me .

Somehow, Rowan’s cheeks turned from pink to dark red, almost the same colour as his hair. It was cute. But he shook his head. “Let’s just see if we can wrap it.”

“You know exactly what she needs to help her heal,” Damon grunted from my other side. “But I do think she has a reason to worry.”

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked into the cover of trees. Based on the demon marks on my upper thigh and hand, he didn’t go far.