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“Rico,” I breathed.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” I stared at his arm, or what had been an arm. It was now . . . God, I didn’t even know. I’d gone to the first aid cabinet as soon as we got back, intending to dress it for him, but he hadn’t wanted to let me. He hadn’t even wanted to let me see it. And now I knew why. It looked like nothing more than a piece of charcoal from above his elbow to . . . to what had been his hand. His beautiful, perfect, long-fingered—
The other hand tilted up my chin, and his face swam in front of my eyes. “It will heal.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.
“It will heal within a day,” he told me quietly. “Two at the most. It is no different from you getting a paper cut.”
And, okay, that stopped the waterworks, because that was bullshit. Just because someone healed faster didn’t mean they didn’t feel the pain to begin with. Didn’t mean they couldn’t be hurt. Didn’t mean—
I looked back down at the arm, which he’d just covered with the sleeve of his leather jacket. He was hurt; he was hurt because of me. Because I hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t planned well enough. And I hated it.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to go anywhere, ever again. I wanted to do what everyone was always telling me: stay home, study up on my powers, stay safe. And make sure everyone around me stayed the same damn way.
I wanted to lock all the guys in the suite and never let them out. Because I’d once thought that nothing could hurt a master vampire, that they were like fleshy tanks, indestructible and immortal. And I’d liked that thought. I’d lost too many people in my life to ever want it to happen again, and surrounding myself with indestructible people had felt very reassuring.
It was less so now.
Because they weren’t indestructible. They could be hurt; they could even die. And suddenly, nothing felt safe anymore.
“I shouldn’t have taken you with me,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have taken anyone with me.”
“Then you did not believe what you said to Marco?”
“What?”
“That we are all in this together. That ‘vampire,’ or ‘mage,’ or ‘Pythia’ are not words that matter anymore.”
“Of course I meant it—”
“Then you believe you are the only one with the right to risk, to fight?”
“No, but—”
“And that the rest of us should be content to just sit about, waiting for those putanas to bring back a god? I, for one, would rather go down fighting—or to take them down instead.” He grinned suddenly. “And I wouldn’t have missed you slamming into the room as an eight-foot golem for anything.”
“Seven-foot.”
“It was at least eight, possibly nine. When you started barking orders in that demon voice, I think a few of the mages wet themselves.”
“They did not!”
“Well, that is the story I am going to tell,” Rico informed me. “Are you going to contradict me?”
I let my head rest against his chest for a moment, because it was warm and solid and alive, and I hadn’t managed to get him killed. My fist clenched in his jacket. “No.”
“Good. My drinks should be covered for at least a month.”
I didn’t answer. I also didn’t move. I couldn’t without letting him see my face, and I didn’t want him to see my face. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I used to be able to hide my feelings better than this. I used to not have so many feelings, not nearly so many, or maybe I just hadn’t had so many people to have them about. And it had been better that way. It had been . . .
I made a sound and tried to pull away, but a hard hand caught me. “You are Pythia,” Rico told me, dark eyes liquid. “Someday, people will die for you.”
“I don’t want people to die for me!”
“And that is why they will do it.”
