“Yes,” I croaked. “Minus the kiss of life. I’m good there.”
“What the hell was down there?” He sat beside me. “The water lit up like the star on a Christmas tree.”
“There’s a graveyard.” I rolled onto my side, coughing, and let him pat my back. “And one heckuva nasty ward.”
Now that I wasn’t in danger of drowning, I could appreciate the intricacy of the magic used in its design.
“It’s self-sustaining black magic.” I let him help me sit upright. “It feeds on other creatures to fuel itself.”
Flames licked the air out of the corner of my eye, and tension in my muscles relaxed by degrees.
Asa was safe. He was sound. For a dae, he was also a surprising amount of work to keep that way.
“This place isn’t a sanctuary,” Asa said, voice low, “it’s a prison.”
“What did you see?” I angled to face him, and Colby lit on my head. “What’s down there?”
“I couldn’t see anything, but I heard her.” His hair had come loose, as it always did when switching places with the daemon, and he shoved it out of his eyes. “I didn’t understand the language well enough to grasp the meaning, but it was a daemonish dialect. An old one.” He twisted and glanced over his shoulder. “She tried to hold on, to drown me, after you zapped her. I don’t mean the ward, either. Whatever cage is holding her, she can reach through its bars.”
Odd that she hadn’t grabbed for me. Her hands must have been too full of struggling daemon.
“Asa,” I breathed. “Your back.” I flicked Colby a glance. “We need to heal this. Who knows what’s in that water? He might get an infection. Those claw marks are deep.”
Five long furrows sliced open the smooth skin of his back, the thinnest a hairsbreadth from his spine. His blood trickled in crimson rivulets and pooled on the planks beneath him.
An unspeakable rage suffused every cell of my body that burned so hot under my skin I had to grit my teeth or risk combustion.
Someonehurt him.
Someone hurt him.
Someone hurt him.
The mantra buzzed in my head, a swarm of bees eager to sting anyone who got too close, and I growled.
Soft lips pressed against mine, and strong arms enfolded me, drawing me onto Asa’s lap.
“Shh,” he whispered in my ear as he rocked me. “It’s all right.”
“I want to kill something,” I whispered back. “It hurt you, and I want to end it.”
Without knowing what it was or how it got there, I wanted it dead. By my hand. With my claws.
“I’m flattered.” A purr ignited in his chest. “But I don’t need you to kill anything for me.”
“Our girl does not do emotion well,” Clay said with affection. “Your daemon hormones aren’t helping.”
Pretty sure my hormones, not his, were the problem.
“Let’s walk the rest of the sanctuary. We need a bigger picture of what’s happening here.”
“We can come back tomorrow,” Asa offered, rising with me, refusing to let go. “That might be best.”
“We’re here now.” I wriggled out of his grip. “We need to do what we came here to do.”
Colby lit on my shoulder, her cheek soft against mine, and we began healing him.
From start to finish, it didn’t take as long as it used to, what with all the practice we were getting lately. The second his wounds knit together, I set out with Colby to finish mapping the sanctuary in my head.