Eno immediately regained his balance and cut the jaguar down with the machete at his hip. Rayne barely noticed it. He lunged for Gilea, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to a tree that was away from Eno’s fight. Her top was slashed across her stomach and bright-red blood poured from a large gash.
“Rayne!” Caelan shouted.
“She’s hurt. Cover my back while I heal her,” he bit out, trying to ignore the sudden tremor in his fingers. Gilea wasn’t Zephyr. Yes, something in her smile when she waved at him had reminded him of his younger sister, but Gilea wasn’t Zephyr.
More importantly, she was going to be fine. He’d healed worse with his companions over the past months.
He carefully placed his hand across the wound and lifted his gaze to find wide, tear-filled eyes watching him. She was pale and she whispered something brokenly that he couldn’t quite catch. He offered his most reassuring smile, the one he’d last used with Zeph when she’d been just a child and had fallen, scraping her knees and palms.
“Let’s fix this,” he murmured as best he could in Rosarian.
With ease, he pulled on the small bundle of energy that rested behind his heart and lungs in his chest, spooling it up into a tight thread before pushing it into Gilea. He flinched at the initial push of resistance that he’d never felt when healing Caelan and the others, but after a second push, Tula’s healing gift flowed into the young woman and went straight to the wound.
Under his touch, Gilea jerked and gasped, but she didn’t move far. He blinked and met her wonder-filled gaze. They both stared at the wound as it stopped bleeding and steadily knitted together until it was nothing more than a jagged pink line across her abdomen.
“How’s it going?” Caelan inquired.
“Good. I’m done,” Rayne replied with a sigh.
“Looks like that was the last cat, too. Bad luck for Gilea and Eno,” Drayce observed.
Rayne lifted his blood-covered hand and wiped it on the leg of his pants. “Feeling better?” he asked in Rosarian.
Gilea gazed for several seconds at her mended stomach, trembling fingers ghosting along the line of the new scar. The injury had been deep enough that Rayne couldn’t rid her of the scar, but it would fade with time. It was certainly better than bleeding to death in these woods.
He was about to ask her again if she was okay when she suddenly shoved away from the tree. Rayne reached for her to stop her from running when she dropped to her knees and bowed to him over and over. Each pass was low enough that her forehead touched the ground.
At the same time, a torrent of words rushed from her lips. He was catching only every fourth or fifth one, but she was repeating herself, allowing him to piece it together. And it wasn’t good.
“Oh my,” Rayne muttered under his breath.
“Dude, what did you do?” Drayce demanded.
“I believe,” Rayne paused and cleared his throat. “I believe…she thinks I’m a god.”
Drayce lost it, his loud laughter filling the woods, but it was Eno’s low chuckle that earned his glare. This was not funny. Especially in light of the fact that their king was, in fact, a god. Even if he was a new godling. Of course, his lover smirked at him, completely unmoved by his dark looks.
Instead, he turned his attention to Caelan, who was standing behind his left shoulder. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I mean no disrespect. This is completely unintentional.”
Caelan smiled at him, and Rayne swore he saw laughter in Caelan’s pale-blue eyes. “I know, Rayne.” He clapped a hand on Rayne’s slumped shoulder and squeezed.
Gilea immediately popped up, swinging her hands at Caelan, urging him to remove his hand from Rayne’s shoulder.
“Holy shit! No one is allowed to touch the god,” Drayce cackled.
“Oh, that is not going to work for me,” Eno growled, which only made Drayce laugh harder.
“Maybe you can convince her that you’re Rayne’s high priest and have special privileges when it comes to worshiping your god.”
Rayne couldn’t decide who was going to strangle Drayce first—him or Eno.
“Enough of this nonsense,” he snapped. He turned his attention to Gilea and took both of her hands in his. The expression on her face became one of awe and she dropped to her knees in front of him again. “I am not a god.”
There was yet another explosion of words. She seemed to speak even faster now that she was excited. The only thing that he was sure of: He could not convince her that he wasn’t a god. Not that he currently possessed the vocabulary that would allow him to explain how he’d been able to heal her in the first place.
But out of the chaos, there was one good thing in her speech.