Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A gony rips through my heart as I sprint across the stones and drop down in front of Draven. He’s on his knees, his palms pressed against the ground before him and his head bowed. His shredded wings sag on either side of him, the tips brushing against the bloodstained ground.
“Draven.” I reach towards him but then stop. I don’t dare to touch him in case it will just make it worse, so I let my hand drop back down into my lap as I plead, “Please, take off my collar. I can take away your pain.”
He drags in another shuddering breath. And now that I’m this close to him, I can see that his entire body is trembling with pain. His wings twitch.
“Draven, please,” I beg.
When he still doesn’t respond, I gently cup his cheeks and tilt his head up, forcing him to look at me.
A pang hits me straight in the heart, like a violent stab with a blade, as my gaze finds his. His beautiful golden eyes are glassy with pain.
“Please,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
“No,” he gasps out. Drawing in another unsteady breath, he slowly sits up straighter while holding my gaze with those agony- filled eyes. “Not out here. Taking it off earlier was a stupid risk. They almost saw…” He drags in another breath. “They almost saw it.”
Desperation crashes over me, and I hold his face more firmly as I lock dead serious eyes on him. “Then drain my magic. It heals you, right? Our magic lets you live longer because it constantly heals your body, right? So take it!”
His eyes widen, as if he can’t believe that I’m offering it. Then a soft smile blows across his mouth. “I thought you said that you were going to kill me if I ever did that again.”
“And now I will kill you if you don’t do it.”
A soft breath of amusement escapes his chest, but all he says is, “I can’t.”
Frustration rips through me, and I drop my hands from his cheeks and slap my own thighs instead. “Goddess damn it, stop being such a fucking idiot! I am offering , you thickheaded overgrown bat, so just take it!”
A broken laugh rips from his chest, and he raises one hand and draws his fingers along my jaw while that flicker of mirth pushes out the pain in his eyes for a second. “So stubborn, little rebel.” Then his expression turns somber again, and he lets his hand drop. “But I can’t. And I can’t make Rin heal them either. If my wings heal too quickly, Bane and Jessina will just whip them again. I need to let them heal on their own.”
“Which takes how long?” I demand.
“About a week. But I only need about two hours before my wings have stopped bleeding enough for me to be able to shift into my fully human form.”
“Does that remove the pain?”
“Yes.”
I study his face. If he wasn’t in so much pain right now, he would probably have been able to deliver that lie without giving himself away. “Liar.”
He grimaces, confirming that it was indeed a lie. “It stops people from seeing that my wings are shredded, and that’s what’s most important.”
I shake my head at him but don’t argue. Instead, I ask, “What do you need me to do?”
“We need to get back to the castle, but every nerve inside my body is on fire right now, so walking… requires effort. So just…” He works his jaw, as if he hates asking for help. “Just make sure I don’t crack my head open if I fall.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Walk? You’re planning to walk back to the castle?”
“Not that way.” He jerks his chin at the long stretch of sharp rocks and steep slopes that make up the mountainside between us and the Ice Palace before flicking a glance towards one of the locations he checked out earlier. “There’s a tunnel.”
My heart jerks. The tunnel. It is here.
While I follow his gaze towards it, he braces himself on the ground and then pushes to his feet. A groan of pain rips from his throat as he tries to raise his shredded wings. But it only makes him sway on his feet.
I jump up from the ground and slide my arm around his waist while pressing my body against the side of his to brace him. He blinks and looks down at me. There is an expression I really can’t read on his handsome face. And for a moment, I get the feeling that he is about to say something. But in the end, he just closes his mouth. I drape his arm over my shoulders. He lets me. Then we start towards the tunnel.
The entrance to the emergency escape tunnel is hidden behind a cluster of rocks. I mark it on my mental map as I help Draven through it. His steps are slow and his body is still shaking from the agony that must be burning through him.
As we leave the gray sky behind and move deeper into the torchlit tunnel, I flick a glance at Draven’s wings. They’re still drooping by his sides, as if he can’t hold them up properly. They produce rustling and scraping sounds as they drag across the floor when we walk. Blood still slides down from the shredded membrane, leaving a red trail on the stone floor behind us.
My heart aches.
I completed my mission and found the entrance to the tunnel.
But at what cost?