“I’m fine, Mah Kush-la. Are you hurt?”
“I wasn’t buried in an avalanche,” Iretorted.
He smiled at me. “It would take much morethan that to keep me down.”
“Hmph,” I replied, not at all pacified byhis words. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that we had to cut him offfrom his allies if we were going to escape here. It didn’t work outquite as I’d planned.”
“So you didn’t plan to be buried?”
“No one plans for that, love.”
I grasped his cheeks as I studied himcarefully. Lucifer’s black blood and rock dust streaked the angularplanes of his face. I wiped some of the debris away from him withmy thumbs as he lifted one of my hands and kissed my knuckles.
A jolt of power went through me as heflooded my drained body with the strength of his essence. The fightbetween him and Lucifer had been the most brutal thing I’d everwitnessed, yet he was still filling me with life.
I went to touch the spike still sticking outof his shoulder, but I jerked my hand back before I accidentallyhurt him. “I’ll kill him for this.”
He kissed my forehead as he carried me fromthe center of the chamber and set me down away from the avalancheof rocks. “So ferocious.”
“What of your back?” I asked as he steppedaway from me.
“It’s healing already, and my shoulder willstart to repair itself as soon as I get this spike out. Where isthe wraith?” he demanded of the others.
Corson walked through the crowd of bodyparts to retrieve the malformed wraith from the ground. He liftedit to show Kobal, who nodded and turned away from him. He claspedthe inch of spike protruding from his body.
“Kobal—”
“Stay back, Mah Kush-la.”
I folded my hands into the skirt of mydress, twisting the fabric while he worked the spike out of hisbody. I winced as it slid further from him, but his expressionremained blank. After what felt like hours, but was probably only aminute or two, he finally succeeded in pulling the lethal,foot-long spike from his body and absently tossed it aside.
He stretched his hand out to me; I took itas he pulled me against his body. “Shh, River,” he soothed when Itrembled against him. “Flesh and bones heal. I will be fine.”
What he said was true, especially for him,but what I’d witnessed tonight between him and Lucifer had rattledme. They were both so powerful, so ruthless. I didn’t know how itwould ever be possible for the both of them to survive a battle tothe death.
“I should have done more,” I whispered.
“You’re barely standing right now.”
He was right. I’d never felt so exhausted inmy life, however… “I could have done more.”
His hand tightened on my shoulder. “No, youcouldn’t have. The others were right to keep you away. Next time,if you are strong enough, we will fight him together, but if you’renot at your strongest, you are to stay away from him.”
“I’m heretofight him.”
“And to survive it,” he growled. “You wouldnot have survived it in this condition. He would have taken you ifyou weren’t accidentally killed first.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he said firmly. “You’re to stayaway from him unless you’re at full strength. Now, there issomething I must take care of.”
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the gapingwound in his shoulder when he took a step back and reluctantlyreleased me. Blood oozed from his injury, trailed down his chestand lower over his abs. It stuck in the layer of dust coating him.When he turned away from me, I winced at the flesh still splayedopen down the center of his back. No blood trickled from the woundanymore, and the frayed edges of it were already knitting backtogether.
Magnus and Hawk approached me as Corson andBale followed Kobal over to something I couldn’t see on the ground.Corson held the wraith in his grasp as he moved. The skelleins kepttheir attention focused on the spiraling tunnel above us, searchingfor any sign of Lucifer and his cronies returning. Relief filled mewhen I recognized one of them as Lix.
I scanned Hawk’s injuries. “I’m sorry Ididn’t say something to stop him.”
