Chapter 27 #2
The men chuckled as they moved on. Griff shot me a look that clearly was a demand to knock it off, and I smothered a laugh. Was it possible the great Champion was flustered?
Before I could say anything else, a whistle through the air distracted us both. In moments, dark shadows stretched out in every direction, falling from the sky, like tentacles reaching out toward us.
“Down!” Griff’s cry echoed throughout the clearing, as he lunged on top of me, forcing me to the ground.
Hufen.
I looked up at Griff. His face was inches away from mine, thoughts flashing through his eyes.
“We are not leaving,” I said harshly. I wouldn’t deny these villagers their best chance at defense.
Griff resigned himself to that answer, and once the shadows dissipated, he lifted himself off me just as they took solid form around the village.
We drew our swords in tandem.
“Stay alive,” was all he said, before spinning into the fight, both blades flashing.
I followed his path through the hufen until a shape dropped in front of me.
He hadn’t been turned that long ago, the black streaks barely reaching his eyes.
He brought his ax down in a chopping motion, but Anamlae shattered it in two.
The hufen stared at the splinters as if he couldn’t reconcile his woodcutter’s tool with the fragments in his hands.
Muttering a prayer for the soul that used to inhabit his body, I ran him through and moved on.
Another whistle alerted me to the ax barreling toward my head. Before I could dive out of the way, strong arms grabbed me, and suddenly, we were across the clearing. Griff’s eyes raked my face, looking for any sign of injury.
Before I could reassure him, a spear whizzed through the air, hurtling straight toward me.
The shriek died in my throat as Griff wrapped himself around me. The spear shattered into a million pieces against his back, bouncing harmlessly off of him.
“I guess that shield does extend to others,” I said shakily.
“It extends to you.” He turned back to the fray. “Stay alive.”
He dove back in before I could say “You too,” though the words came out as a whisper anyway.
This part of the clearing was relatively protected—probably why he’d stashed me here. But I was not about to stay out of the fight while my people were being attacked. With Anamlae urging me on, I surged back into the chaos, parrying blows with one hand and blasting fire with another.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Griff thundered as he appeared at my side.
“Figuring it out as I go.” I sent a fireball into a hufen’s stomach and he convulsed in flames. “Seems to be working. Now hush. You’re distracting me.”
“You’re distracting me,” he fired back, slashing at a hufen behind me.
I lost count of how many infected I cut down—stabbing and decapitating where I could, blasting fire where I couldn’t. Driving them ever away from the village, from the defenseless people they were attempting to infect.
And then they were gone. Somehow, we’d driven them back.
The villagers started rejoicing, but I didn’t join in, my gaze desperately sweeping for the one person I cared about right now.
I found him, taking a rare moment of rest leaning against a tree.
Someone tried to talk to me, but I only had eyes for him.
And while I watched, he slowly slid down a couple inches before catching himself.
His shirt was wet, a stain slowly spreading across his left shoulder.
That wasn’t just wetness—that was blood.
“Griff!” I screamed, scrambling over the uneven earth to where he was breathing heavily. “Did they touch you? Where are you wounded?” I worked frantically at getting his shirt off.
“They didn’t touch me. And it’s nothing.” He tried to catch my hands, to stop me from stripping him.
“If it’s nothing, why is there so much blood soaking your shirt?” It was more than just the front of his shirt. The back was wet and crusty all the way down his shoulder blade.
“It’s not all mine.” Even wounded, he was still trying to calm me. “I’ll be fine. My body channel will heal me quickly.”
“Let me see.” I breathed deeply, willing my pulse to slow as I eased his shirt off. If he described the wide gash spreading across the front of his shoulder almost reaching his neck and curving around to his back as “nothing,” I never wanted to see something he considered serious.
I had been working with Andrei ever since my attempt to save that young soldier for precisely moments like this.
“I can help.” My hands were gentle as I leaned him back against a tree. “Trust me.”
“I always trust you, Princess.” There was no guile or teasing in his voice, just honest truth.
I drew up my body channel, thinking of a warm, deep-red light.
Gently easing that power into his wound, I placed my hands on his bare skin and concentrated harder than I had all evening, coaxing muscles and sinew to knit back together.
I faltered when his own body channel rose up to assist mine, distracting me, then modified my technique to direct both streams of healing energy to the injury.
I coaxed it and shifted it, starting with the section near his neck where it was the deepest, and then sending the magic out in both directions to heal his front and his back.
I lost myself in his body, keeping the power focused on him until all hint of copper disappeared.
Until all I could sense was warm, pink, healing tissue.
My awareness coursed over him, checking everywhere for anything else that may be injured but I found nothing.
Slowly, reluctantly, I pulled myself back. When I opened my eyes, he was staring at me with something akin to shock. And something deeper. Maybe pride?
“You’re miraculous,” he whispered.
“Does it feel better?”
He rotated his shoulder experimentally. “Fully healed.”
With both eyes and hands, I examined his now-unmarked skin, marveling at the strength in that muscle.
My fingertips drifted over it in what could only be called a caress, trailing down his arm until it reached his hand.
He caught my hand in his, pressing a kiss to my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine.
His mouth was soft, his breath wafting over my skin.
And then the chieftain called his name.
With obvious reluctance, he hoisted himself to his feet, then reached down to help me up.
Our hands stayed joined for longer than necessary as we stared at one another, before he walked over to where the chieftain stood next to the main campfire.
There was no stiffness in his walk, no hint that he had been wounded.
I drifted after him, weaving a ward over the entire area.
At least we’d have some warning and hopefully some protection if the hufen came back.
“As much as I hate it, we’re spending the night here,” he said.
When I looked at him in surprise—I had thought he’d use the attack as an excuse to whisk me back to safety—he grimaced.
“I’m drained.” The admission came out soft, ashamed, but I knew what he was trying to say.
He needed time, to get his power back to the levels needed to teleport.
I wasn’t the only one who had been using my powers to help clean up the destruction.
And then adding in the fight, teleporting and saving me, his wound—he needed to replenish his powers.
“I understand,” I said quickly. I knew better than to volunteer to try to teleport us back instead. My powers were also drained after healing him and warding the entire village.
His look told me he hated that we were in this situation, but he accepted two bedrolls from a villager. Our hands touched as he passed one to me, that familiar jolt flowing between us. Our eyes caught, and he opened his mouth to say something more.
“My lord!” a man cried, holding a pitchfork and shoving a boy into the circle of firelight. He couldn’t be more than fifteen, tears streaming down his face. “We found an infected.” He ripped the boy’s shirt open to reveal a spiderweb of black surrounding the boy’s heart.
A woman collapsed in the corner, sobbing. The boy reached toward her, but she recoiled in fear.
Griff strode over, mask firmly in place, walking as if he had all the energy in the world. I felt a wave of sadness that wasn’t my own as he closed his eyes in resignation. That was all they needed.
The chieftain leveled a sword at the boy’s heart.
“Wait!” I cried, throwing myself in front of the blade.
Griff tore it from the man’s hands a second before it would have cut me down. “Lexa, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I had never heard Griff take that tone with me.
What was I doing? All I knew was that my soul channel was flaring in pain, telling me I couldn’t let an innocent boy be killed simply because he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Let me try,” I begged him.
Confusion gave way to understanding as he comprehended what I was only just beginning to understand myself.
“Lady, get out of the way!” The chieftain tried to shove me aside, but I refused to budge.
My eyes never left Griff’s. “He’s just a boy. Let me try.”
Griff swore, grasping my chin and searching my eyes. Whatever he saw there made him give in. “Try. But I will stop you if you go too deep. I won’t let you lose yourself.”
“Deal.”
Turning my back on the rest of the village, I knelt in front of the boy, who whimpered and tried to back away.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “My name is Lexa. I’m going to help you.”
Behind me, the chieftain argued with Griff, his voice raised in fear and anger. I could understand that. Every moment the boy lived meant that he could infect others. Griff kept his tone even, but I could hear the tension underneath.
“I didn’t mean to touch the darkness,” the boy stammered. “It just came. It surrounded me. I tried to stop it. I didn’t let it into my heart.”