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“You cured my aches and pains.” He had the urge to snatch her up and fly her away before anyone could stop them. Although with the quiet that surrounded them, he wondered if anyone had been left alive after her blast, but he wouldn’t mention that. Not yet. Not when tears and blood stained her cheeks.
“Your cuts seem to have closed. I don’t know what I’m looking for to check your eyes.” She lifted her hands to his face, and specks of jewels in the cuffs sparkled in the light of her powers.
He scowled. “First, we get you out of these without hurting you.” A glance beneath the rough-hewn stones that’d been fused together showed angry red marks as if the damn things had burned her. “Or perhaps I should say without making it worse.” He examined the cuffs, looking for the weakest spots. “Iron maybe? But the stones they worked into these have green slivers.”
“I think she upped the potency. They hurt so much worse.”
Talk about tough. His mate hadn’t complained once. “I’ll get them off.” He gripped the weakest point on her right wrist with both hands. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound certain.
With a quick tug and a loudsnap, the rocks broke apart. Her whimper cut through him, tearing at his heart and closing his throat tight on a lump of awful. He might go through death again if it would save her from feeling pain. A ring of redness and blood circled her skin.
“One down,” she whispered. “One to go.” She held up her other wrist.
Gods, he didn’t want to go through this again, but she couldn’t heal until he got them off her. Steadying his hands, he braced again. “One, two—” He ripped the cuff before finishing his count, hoping it might hurt less if the impact came fast and unexpected. She gave a half-gasp, biting her lip to stifle whatever might have come next.
“Your powers can’t heal the damage with the cuffs gone?” he asked. She’d mentioned the scars on her ankles, but those had been caused by long-term exposure.
“No. Whatever’s in the rocks, it doesn’t let my magic take care of the injuries it causes.”
“Alys will figure out what they are, and we can find a cure, not that you’ll ever be shackled again.” He kissed the top of her head, a quick gesture that was over before he would have liked it to be, but they would have time for more later. Once he got her to safety and treated those wounds. “Let’s go home.” His home, but it would betheirssoon enough.
Pushing to a stand, he let her fuss over him even though he felt fine. She’d healed him from every bruise, every mark, including his earlier fight with Eddie that seemed so long ago. Scanning the room, he took in the destruction. She had obliterated the men who’d attacked them, the devastation complete from broken bones to weeping burns. Whatever she’d done had created an explosion to rival a bomb. After wiping out their enemies, she’d called him back from wherever his consciousness had gone and then healed him while suffering.
Such immense powers in such a seductive package.
Gods, she turned him on.
She looked away. “I told you my magic went wrong. Does this change your mind about wanting to be mates with a monster who does such horrible things?”
How dare she talk about herself that way.Pulling on her shoulder, he made sure to stay clear of her injuries as he spun her to face him. “We are mates.” His voice came out so rough that he could’ve competed with a shifter’s growl. “Nothing you can do or say will change that. We’re matched by fate, bound by destiny. I love you.”
Staring into his eyes, she seemed to search for the trick in his words instead of hearing the truth. “You must’ve hit your head harder than I could heal,” she said.
“Fine. Joke about it. Don’t say it back yet. You will.” He would win her love. Until then, he would keep her safe. “Stay behind me. I’ll get us out of here.”
He unlocked the door and braced for whatever might meet them outside it.
“Alexei? Joelle?” Alys’s yell came from above.
“We’re down here.” He rushed into the hallway, keeping his mate behind him. “Be careful. Some of the Order ran from me.” While he hadn’t heard anyone, he didn’t need his sister walking into a trap. “The cowards carry military-grade weaponry and appear to have training.”
She rushed down the stairs, Eddie in front of her. A protection bubble of shimmering magic surrounded them. Yulia’s magic. The woman who had betrayed his mate followed, holding the shield in place.
His temper surged, bringing his powers with the anger. “You dare show your face here after what you did? Offering my mate like a sacrifice for your own selfish gains?”
“Don’t,” Joelle said. Her touch on his hand, her healing calm pulsing through the contact gave him an anchor for the fury that would kill Yulia, leaving Tai without a mother and his kingdom at war. “She only did as I asked her.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t execute her if I catch her in my territory again.”
“Whoa.” Alys hurried toward him and threw her arms around him. “You can deal out death threats as soon as we make it to shore. Right now, we need her. Without her magic, we wouldn’t have made it here given the bomb they set off on this ship. The crazy waves it created almost capsized us. There are no survivors on board. How are you both still alive?”
“Joelle,” he said, offering all the explanation he would while his enemy could hear. No way would he reveal what his mate’s magic had done.
“Thank you.” Alys hugged Joelle as if she’d been convinced she wouldn’t find them onboard. “For saving him. For what you did for Kyle.”
The mention of the man’s name had Alexei’s heart sinking, a reminder of how he had failed two people under his protection. “The Order killed him and his mother. She’s down the hall with other murdered humans, but his body’s inside.” He blocked the doorway. “They sliced him to pieces.”
