Page 16 of The Demon’s Delight (The Demon Princes #3)

Chapter 15

Hailon

“ S eir!” I shouted his name several times. “You’re not dead, you ridiculous demon. You’re going to be fine.” I repeated the words as though my insistence would ensure they were true. I was reassured, however, when I found his heartbeat strong under my palm, and his breathing steady. “Don’t do that again!” I said fiercely when his eyes opened, tears prickling and a lump in my throat.

The injuries I could deal with, there were logical steps I could take to repair flesh and bone. But I didn’t know how much blood volume a demon had, their pain tolerance, their healing capabilities. What if I’d missed a compromised organ and he was bleeding to death on the inside? I spiraled into panic, my breath coming as pants and vision going blurry.

He sat up, both hands gently cradling my face. The feel of his warm, calloused skin grounded me. “Hey. Look at me. Hailon.” I met his eye, finding the same concern I was feeling reflected back at me. “I’m fine ,” he insisted. “Okay? Really. I’ve survived much worse than this with far lower standards of care. Everything is going to be alright.” I nodded but didn’t have complete faith in his assessment. He was still too pale, and his face had a sheen of sweat on it. “Do you trust me?”

“I’ve already told you I do.”

His mouth eased into a gentle grin. “I know, I remember. I just like hearing you say it.” He brushed away a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “I promise, if I were worried, I would tell you. Okay?”

We stared at each other for several heartbeats, the intensity of his gaze making my pulse stutter, breaths providing less oxygen. Finally, I managed to nod.

“I… need to keep working.”

“Of course. How can I help?” He drew his hands away from my cheeks, and I realized the intimate gesture had left me more reassured than I expected.

We negotiated a way for him to lie comfortably where he was, at least long enough to set the bones in his wing.

“You will heal some on your own, right?” I asked, using one of the wet cloths to wipe away the dried blood on his back before gently lifting his broken wing.

“Yes. Even if you did nothing else, I would be well enough to continue on my way in a few days, though perhaps with a splint on my leg, a noticeable limp, and lots of soreness. Here, allow me.” He pulled the mangled end of his wing over his hip and, without any hesitation or warning, snapped the crooked bones back into their proper places. His jaw was clenched tight, but he fixed it himself with brutal efficiency and barely a grunt of discomfort.

My stomach rolled, and my mouth dropped open. “How… Why would you do that?”

He shrugged, looking both wings over as best he could before closing his eyes and rotating his shoulders in a circle. The wings retracted to their place within his body, leaving me stunned and speechless once again. The physiology of demons was otherworldly and fascinating.

“Do you need a break?” he asked.

“No.” I considered changing my mind but let the fantasy of resting go. “No, I’d rather finish.”

“Let’s get me up to sitting against the wall so it’s easier for you, yes?” He pulled his body along the floor with his hands until he was leaned up against the stone. “There. May I?” He reached for one of the clean cloths and swiped the remaining blood away from his abdomen. “Lean forward.” I did as he asked, and he used a clean corner of the cloth on my face, thumb and forefinger of his other hand holding my chin steady. “I made a mess of your face when I touched you before.” His words were soft, his touch gentle.

“That’s okay.” I shivered and had no way to disguise it. The corners of his mouth lifted, the gold in his eyes burning as he stared right through me.

“All done,” he said, the spell between us breaking as he lowered the cloth and sat back.

Face flushed with heat, I shifted so I sat cross-legged at his side, and pulled the injured leg onto my lap, scooting as far under him as I could so I could stretch one hand to his stomach wound. Seir flinched gently away from my touch.

“Okay?”

He flushed. “Yes, fine, it’s just a bit… awkward.”

“Sorry. I can try something else instead.”

“If you’re comfortable, it’s fine. That’s not what I meant.” He covered my hand with his over the ripple of muscles on his torso, using the other to pull his cloak and then mine over his lap so my arm had something to rest on. “I don’t mind you touching me, Hailon, that’s not the problem.” The depth of his tone made my chest ache.

As I realized what he meant, where my arm rested, I blushed harder than I ever had before and stuttered some incoherent words. He was amused by this, his smirk potent.

I struggled to focus but did my best to pull myself together. “Are you… feeling faint at all?”

He gave me a smile full of sharp teeth. “No. I’m perfectly conscious and feel nearly normal, believe it or not.”

I relaxed under the smooth rise and fall of his breath. “That’s good. Do demons have the same amount of blood as humans?”

My hands rested lightly over the bandage on his leg, which had soaked through but had since started to dry.

“Upper-level demons like me have slightly more than humans do. Lower-level demons are far smaller and have less.” He watched me with curiosity as I removed the bandage and carefully cleaned what blood and debris from the wound I could with one hand. He was still holding the other against his stomach and seemed very disinclined to release it. After setting the wet cloth aside, I summoned my magic again.

My skin tingled as my magic feathered along the edges of the broken bone. There were still some rough places, but there wasn’t much to be done about it now. Breaks that happened as the limb twisted were nearly impossible to fit back together exactly right again. Hopefully between my help and Seir’s innate demon healing, he wouldn’t be left with any lingering issues.

“Can you shift?” I asked.

“You want me to try now?”

“Do you think it would help? I just thought maybe, it would reset some of the injuries… I don’t know. Is it worth an attempt?”

He shrugged and closed his eyes, his horns slipping out against his scalp. Whatever came next appeared to be taking a whole lot of effort. Then he hissed and reverted, shaking his head.

“That won’t work. It’s very difficult to find my magic. Probably the same thing that’s keeping me from being able to fly. It’s no different than it was when we first left the house in Olinbourg.”

“Okay, sorry. I was thinking… Well, it doesn’t matter. Can I have my other hand back now?” He raised his but gave me a look that reminded me of a sad puppy. “Take a deep breath,” I instructed, moving down toward his foot. I placed a knee on either side of his leg, using my arm strength to make one hopeful tweak by pulling on the leg and turning it a little, aiming for the bone inside to align just a little more naturally. Seir grunted but was still as stone. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

I glanced up at his face as I resettled myself at his side, surprised to find him watching with fascinated interest instead of showing any indication of pain. “I don’t mean to be crass, but you do feel pain, don’t you? I honestly can’t figure you out,” I asked, thoroughly confused at the signals I’d been getting from him.

Seir smiled wide, tipping his head back against the stone. “I do. Acutely, in fact. I’ve just learned to disguise it well. Showing discomfort or weakness is not of any benefit in Hell.” When I looked closer, I could see the light sheen of sweat dotting his forehead and collarbone again.

“Nor here,” I muttered.

“Mmm. In any case, I think perhaps the amount of time I’ve been away from there is changing me a bit. Everything here is much more potent than there. Pain included.”

“Is that strange?”

“I don’t know.” He swallowed and exhaled slowly through his nose as though trying to distract himself. “I’ve never noticed a change when I traveled before, but that doesn’t mean much. I’ve never been injured like this outside of Hell. My time in the fae realm was mainly for leisure. When I fight, I don’t lose, so…” He shrugged and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed.

“The fae realm?” I asked, both curious and glad to have something to keep him talking about as a distraction.

“I had a good friend there for a long time. He and I spent many an hour fixing the ills of the worlds from the bottom of an ale tankard.”

“I see.” I forced more magic through my hands, requesting that the bone knit back together, that it be strong like it was as it bonded. “Had?”

Seir sighed and bumped his fist against his chest twice before raising it in a gesture of reverence. “Yes. Van has gone on to the Tombs of the Elders to be with his wife. Not long ago, my brothers and I helped his son Ris reclaim the throne.”

That sounded like an interesting story. Unfortunately, I was slipping into the healing trance too far to be a decent conversationalist. It was an odd between-realities state when healing was this intricate. I was in my body but also merged with my magic and therefore not really either one. My surroundings were something I was aware of, but I couldn’t always react to them, nor did I really see them. Fortunately, Seir seemed to have run out of energy for chatting and had relaxed against the wall with his eyes closed, breaths slow and measured as I focused.

He smiled wide when I reached my hand back out, and after brushing his lips against my palm, he leaned into it, holding my hand against his face. He looked all the more like a cat, marking me. Seir rested there for a moment before greedily pressing my hand back to his abdomen. Both of his hands flattened mine against his warm skin, trapping it there.

I stared back at him, skin tingling where he’d kissed it, the whole series of gestures having left my pulse pounding and me breathless.

“Alright then,” I said, trying to shake myself back to the task at hand. I closed my eyes and submerged myself in the healing. Colors burst behind my eyelids as I made the first touches.

Aunt Sal’s chronic sickness was always a particular shade of violet. Cuts, bruises, sprains and most broken bones, those things were green. When I was helping an illness leave the lungs, my magic felt yellow. More serious diseases felt blue or purple. This, however… This felt orange and red, even a little black around the edges, and I wasn’t sure what these new colors meant. Physiologically, Seir was not all that different from a human—tail, wings, and horns excepted, of course. But these new colors reminded me again that he was not, no matter how close he seemed.

Time became a fluid thing as my mind focused only on what my magic was feeling and not what was going on around me. I trusted Seir would alert me if anything needed my attention and was able to fully relax into my power, letting it guide itself through the slow, meticulous repair of bone, muscle, and skin. Behind my eyes, I could see the bad curling up like burnt paper and dispersing into the blood as tiny particles of dust. I couldn’t actually see it, but I always pictured that the tiny motes that remained were exhaled with the person’s breath as they circulated through. I worked to stitch everything together like I was embroidering the detailed storybook kingdom tapestry I’d made for the big wall in my bedroom.

I’d been so frustrated with Aunt Sal for prescribing such a tedious task as a way for me to hone my patience and craftsmanship when it came to stitching, but the end result after countless hours of labor and skeins of thread had proved her right. Lying in my bed every night for years, I made up a new story about the people I’d sewn, the castle, the surrounding farms, while falling asleep.

“Hailon?” Seir’s voice penetrated my deep focus as I worked on getting his skin to line up just right, to minimize any scarring. “I think that’s enough. You’ve done a wonderful job, but you need to be done now. Hailon, stop .” Urgency laced his tone, and I felt his fingers wrap around my arm and pull me into his body as I swayed, everything around me going gray.