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“Eno, I’m so sorry. I won’t…I would never…”
His friend gave him a shake. “Shut up. I know. We’re all worried and scared, but Cael is gonna be fine.”
Eno gave Drayce’s neck a final squeeze, then released him and turned toward the parlor where Rayne and Vitor were somehow managing to sit and sip coffee. Drayce wasn’t insane enough to think that Rayne was in any way calm. He could put on a façade of cool control, but it was a lie.
“Do you think this means Nina’s cover is blown?” Davi asked softly.
Vitor didn’t bother to lift his eyes from where he was scrolling on his phone. “We won’t know until we speak to her.”
Davi grunted. “Are you sending her to Stormbreak?”
Drayce watched closely for any kind of emotional reaction out of the older man, but there was nothing when he replied. “I won’t know until I speak to her.”
Davi looked like he was about to strangle Vitor, but he wisely turned away, shoving both of his hands into his unruly brown hair as he paced to the other side of the room. If Drayce was a betting man—and he was—he was willing to wager that Davi had a thing for this Nina.
It was on the tip of Drayce’s tongue to ask Davi about it, if only to distract them all with a little mischief, when tires squealed in front of the house. Everyone was on their feet in an instant, but Drayce reached the front door first. He jerked it open, his heart already in his throat before he saw Adrian jumping from the back seat and pulling out an unconscious Caelan.
He leaped down the front stairs and held open the rear door, his eyes scanning over Caelan as more of him came into view. Blood smeared his lips while a trickle had dried from his nose. There were even dark tracks running from the corners of his eyes. The red made his ashen skin look all the paler. Was he breathing? He didn’t move, didn’t show a single sign of life as Adrian lifted him from the car.
Eno was a step behind, taking Caelan’s slim body into his arms. Drayce longed to carry him. He was certainly strong enough. But they were the same height, making it awkward and dangerous. Right now, Drayce wasn’t willing to do anything to jeopardize his lover further.
He glimpsed a slender woman in black-rimmed glasses as she jumped from behind the driver’s seat. This must be Nina. That was the only thought Drayce spared her. His entire focus was trained on Caelan as they carried him into the house.
“Upstairs!” Rayne shouted, already moving in front of them.
Eno followed and Drayce was directly behind him as Caelan was carried into a bedroom and laid in the center of the bed Drayce had used the night before. Rayne dropped onto the edge of the bed and took one of Caelan’s hands in his own while placing his other hand against Caelan’s forehead.
No one tried to stop Drayce as he moved to the other side of the bed and grabbed Caelan’s free hand in both of his own. His skin was icy cold. Now that he was lying still on the bed, he could see the rough rise and fall of Caelan’s chest, but it seemed too shallow and sounded too ragged.
“Why isn’t he breathing right?” Drayce demanded.
“Give Rayne a chance to work,” Eno murmured.
Part of him wanted to snap at Eno and Rayne to get this shit fixed now, but Eno was right. Rayne needed to be able to direct all of his attention to saving Caelan. For now, Drayce lifted Caelan’s hand to his lips and pressed kisses to the knuckles while holding his arm to his chest. Drayce had heat to spare. If he could transfer it over to Caelan’s cold body, maybe it would help a little.
Closing his eyes, Drayce prayed to the Goddess of Fire. Maybe she could fix him, maybe she couldn’t, but she was the only one he felt confident would listen to him. He’d met her and she supposedly liked him. Could she do this one tiny favor? Just fix Cael. Fix him and Drayce would give up his wings all over again.
He’d give up his life to see Caelan healed.
Please, don’t let Caelan die.
“What happened?” Vitor asked. He kept his voice pitched soft and low as if he didn’t want to distract Rayne as he worked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Nina replied. “It all happened so fast, and then we were running.”
“That woman you told me about from Zastrad, Safa, she attacked us with New Rosanthe soldiers,” Adrian started, each word rough like they were being pulled out of a nightmare. “The king put up a barrier to protect us from bullets and then used tree roots to capture the soldiers. When Safa’s birds attempted to attack us, he called up this enormous wall of flames.” Adrian paused and Drayce looked up to see the man shaking his head, his eyes wide. “It was all so insane. There was barely any time to react. One second I was trying to think of how we could escape and the next, Safa was lunging through the flames and crashing into the king. I pulled her off and then…”
“What?” Eno snapped when Adrian didn’t immediately continue.
“I think…I think he stopped time.” His words took on an almost haunted quality that sent a chill along Drayce’s back.
“Stopped time?” Vitor repeated.
“Yeah, that was it. Everyone was frozen while we ran,” Nina confirmed. “We made it across the square and halfway down a block to my car when he coughed up blood and passed out. That was when everything began moving again.”
Drayce couldn’t move, could barely even think. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one. No one was speaking after that bombshell. Since when could Caelan fuck with time? Was that the gift he’d gotten from the Dead God?
Out of all the gods that Caelan had bonded with, the God of Time was the one he talked about the least. He even avoided questions about the god, preferring to deflect to Tula or Kaes or now even Caris.
