Chapter Thirty-One #2
I laid my palm over those bleeding, gaping wounds, funneling out some of the frothing power inside me.
They closed like I’d air-brushed them out of existence.
I moved to Setreg’s arm and shoulder next.
This must have been from a lightning strike.
I winced as I threaded more power into him.
Fixing his side had been easy, but these burns went deep.
Even with my overabundance of power, I was slightly dizzy when I was done.
Setreg coughed once before his eyes opened. A faint smile curled his lips as he saw me.
“We live,” he murmured. “I hoped that flinging myself at the dragon’s mouth would give you enough time to finish him.”
My eyes closed. I’d almost peed my pants just jumping onto the dragon’s back. I couldn’t imagine leaping right at its fanged mouth. No wonder Setreg had gotten bitten as well as blasted with a lightning bolt. It was a miracle he was alive.
“I owe you a cask of Viandovian mead,” I said when I opened my eyes.
Setreg’s laugh died as he looked over my shoulder. I jerked around, ready to fight until I saw that it was just Remy.
Setreg got up, staring at Remy as if he were the most frightening thing he’d seen, and considering the day we’d had, that was saying something. “Are you … yourself?”
Remy grunted. “If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be alive to ask.”
Setreg stared at Remy in an oddly wary way. “Wielding that spell could still have consequences.”
Remy shrugged. “Its effects weren’t as bad as anticipated.”
I gave Remy a sharp look that ended in a cough as a new wave of smoke enveloped us. The fire had eaten up more ground during the dragon fight and its aftermath. How incredible that for a few minutes, I’d actually forgotten about the blaze.
Whatever this was between them, it would have to wait.
“We need to leave,” Remy said, as if reading my mind.
“Love to,” I replied with another cough. “Just one problem. The dragons blasted a fiery circle around us. We’re trapped.”
Remy took me in his arms. For the briefest second, I thought he was comforting me. Then my stomach plummeted as the ground was suddenly far below us.
“Don’t look down,” I heard Remy say above the wind.
Of course I did. I couldn’t help it. From up here, the fire pulsed through the trees like waves crowding around a circular island.
If Remy hadn’t stopped them with his terrifying spell, the dragons could’ve finished the job with a few more strategic strikes.
Or, they could have flown lazy circles above us and merely waited for the fire to reach us.
Either way, everyone would’ve burned to death except for me, and …
Wait, how did the dragons know we’d be in these woods in the first place?
They couldn’t have followed us from Remy’s hotel; Remy would’ve known what those “clouds” trailing the chopper were.
The campsite murders hadn’t made the news yet, so the dragons shouldn’t have known about them.
Even if those murders had made the news, it would’ve been called a bear attack.
So why would the dragons think Remy would personally investigate them?
Unless the dragons already knew it wasn’t a bear attack?
We flew past the perimeter of the deadly fire circle and headed toward the small clearing where our helicopter was.
It had taken us an hour to hike from the chopper to the campsite, and now, we were back to it in minutes.
The helicopter seemed to grow larger as Remy angled us toward it, and I felt sick as I saw that it was smoking.
Then I felt really sick as my guts rose from how fast we dropped down toward the chopper.
I clutched Remy while bracing for the hard impact.
It didn’t happen. We’d landed so softly I barely felt it. The black-and-silver helicopter was now right in front of me, its former sleek lines smashed and smoldering from an obvious attack, and the pilot was slumped over the cockpit’s controls.
“Stay here,” Remy said, dashing off before I could reply.
I followed him to the chopper anyway. Remy tried to open the pilot’s door, but it was stuck from the metal warping at what had clearly been multiple lightning strikes. I tried the other door. It was stuck, too. Horrified, I saw flames crawl onto the motionless pilot’s back.
Remy smashed his fists at the panels in the pilot’s door. The reinforced glass shouldn’t have broken, but it did. Remy tore at the new holes in the door to widen them. Smoke billowed out as the flames inside worsened.
I ran over to his side and pulled at the broken panels, too, ignoring how the glass cut into me. Then a fresh surge of flames seared my hands. Remy shoved me back.
“Get away!” he ordered as the flames intensified.
Leaving went against all my training, but the last time I’d gotten burned, the Beast had burst free. I might have Remy’s power, but did I want to test my new control when the Beast was turbocharged from eating a dragon’s life force?
I backed away from the chopper. Remy continued to work to free the pilot.
A full, nail-biting minute later, Remy came out of the cockpit with the pilot in his arms. One look at the pilot’s face, and I knew it was too late.
Fucking dragons must have rammed their lightning bolts right into him.
Suddenly, I felt a lot less guilty over killing one of them.
Remy set the pilot down, whispering something I couldn’t hear.
He didn’t even seem to notice that both his sleeves were on fire.
I had nothing to smother them with, so I yanked his shirt off and wadded it up, using that to stop the flames from spreading.
Still, his wrists and forearms were badly scorched.
“Put him down,” I said. “Let me heal you.”
Remy set the pilot down. God, his hands! He’d plunged them right into that blazing fire to free the pilot, and he’d done so probably knowing that there was no hope of saving him.
I tried to touch him to heal those awful burns. He backed away. “No time. I have to get Setreg.”
He was back in the sky before I could respond, and he moved so fast that he was gone from my sight within minutes.
A mere two minutes later, Remy was back with Setreg held in a barrel hug in front of him. Setreg had both backpacks in his hands. Once they were on the ground, Setreg’s mouth compressed into a hard line when he saw the pilot’s body.
“Blood has been repaid with blood, but I still want more.”
“As do I,” Remy said tersely. “But first, we have to get Raine back to the hotel.” He reached in one of the backpacks and pulled out a large satellite phone. “I’ll make the call—”
“You’ll give me your hands first,” I snapped. Second- and third-degree burns were excruciating, and he had both on his hands and wrists as well as first-degree burns on his forearms.
Remy made an impatient noise, but set down the phone and held out his hands.
I took them. My touch would have skyrocketed his pain, yet he didn’t even wince.
I did as I closed my eyes and channeled the Beast’s healing power as fast as I could.
I could feel Remy’s burnt ligaments, tendons, and muscle rebuild beneath my light grip.
Then I felt new skin slide like silk beneath my fingers.
I opened my eyes, relieved to see beautiful golden-bronze skin where there had been raw, charred flesh.
Still, I had to fight a dry heave and a new wave of dizziness.
Once again, I’d forced the power back out of me as fast as it had filled me, and I didn’t care.
Healing him felt right. So what if that made me addicted to the Beast’s power?
There were so few things I could fix in this violent world.
This was one of them, and I’d be damned if I didn’t do it.
“Now can we call for transport to leave?” Remy asked dryly.
“Oh yeah,” I said, picking up his phone and handing it to him. “Believe me, I can’t wait to get out of these fucking woods.”