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Taj remained kneeling, and only tipped his head back to look at me. Even with his face deep red and demonic, there was no concealing the panic in his expression. "Ark. Avie. Where are the others?"
I swallowed, glancing over his head at the winged army still standing with their backs to us. "Please. Can we go to the hospital?"
Taj stood, but I got the sense it was only because he heard the breathy note in my voice that foretold a panic attack.
"You may move," Arkan ordered the crowd on our lawn, and activity rippled through the people so fast I wondered if he'd held them still with magic. Had they been fighting it uselessly this whole time? I eyed my mate. His face gave nothing away, his eyes fixed on Taj as he got to his feet.
All but a few essential staff were outside with the Company of Murkyr, so we moved down the black stone corridors without being bothered, only a few guards stopping to gape at Taj, healed enough to walk, looking mostly normal except for the wan quality of his skin. And the fact he hadn't shifted back to his golden Adonis form—because he didn't have the strength yet.
I aimed straight for the hospital at the back of the building, but Taj swung me up into his arms, ignoring my yelp as he carried me in the opposite direction. Ibarelyresisted the urge to beat his shoulders; he'd nearly died and the last thing he needed was a new injury. But the man was alunatic.
"Are you crazy?" I demanded at the same time Arkan hissed, "You could pull your stitches open!"
"I'll be fine," Taj replied with a heavy eye roll. "If I'm still alive, I figure nothing can kill me."
"Ijust might," I muttered. "I thought we were going to the hospital. I need to see Dev."
Like really, really needed to see him. This was the longest I'd been away from him—it was well over an hour.
"I'm sick of smelling that place," Taj growled, storming through the castle. "I swear I could smell it even when I was knocked out."
I twisted my head to scowl at his perfect face.2"Knocked out is a very interesting way of saying ‘in a coma because you were sliced in half by a legendary Hell-sword.’"
"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to." He shrugged, carrying me down another hall—one I recognised. It was the same hall where the dogs' room was. But he stopped in front of a bigger, grander door carved all over with mythical scenes.
"I will literally kill you," I hissed.
He disarmed me by kissing my cheek. That bastard.
"This is fascinating," Arkan remarked, amusement making his eyes a few shades brighter than they'd been lately. "I didn't know you could express human emotion, Taj Amora."
"Oh, fuck off," Taj muttered, sending a ripple of black fire at the door—it didn't burn the woodorme—and kicking it open when it unlocked with a series of clicks. Huh. Fancy shields. I wanted them.
He set me down on a hard leather sofa3and flattened a wayward strand of blue hair to my head before vanishing into another room.
The absentminded affection caught me off guard, but I was busy staring with unconcealedloathingat the dark red rug in front of the fireplace. Arkan tilted his head at me but didn't comment on it when he sat beside me and rested a hand on my knee.
I covered his hand with mine, and knew he felt the exact sameship in a storm-wrecked seafeeling I did. It was a strange mix of adrenaline, confusion, exhilaration, and being completelylost.Floundering without an anchor.
Taj was back, but X was still missing, presumed—that word I couldn't think yet. Gone. Gone was a much nicer word.
We both jumped when Taj returned and dumped a giant bag of crisps, cookies, doughnuts that were probably hard by now, popcorn, and a yule log on the coffee table.
"That's a yule log," I pointed out uselessly.
"Great observational skills, pretty killer," he drawled, making me all soft and emotional.
He called me that when he hate-fucked me. Although apparently the hate-fuck was a sign of affection? Who knew?
"You need a nutritional meal," Arkan chided with the air of an oft-repeated complaint.
"What Ineedis enough carbs and sugar to get me through this conversation," Taj countered, dropping into a shitty leather armchair—if it could even be called an armchair when the arms were a tiny strip of leather over metal—and stretching his legs in front of himself.
"Lift up your shirt," I ordered, trying to push the numbness aside to focus on the rest of my stormy emotions.
Taj blinked, and then smiled, a slow-creeping thing full of sultry sarcasm. "Now's not the best time for a Magic Mike show, but who am I to deny my audience? Alexa, play ‘Pony’ by Ginuwine."
My expression flattened. "Don't be coy."
