Chapter 47 Blood & Sweat
Chapter forty-seven
Blood & Sweat
His eyes flickered from my face down to the arrowhead and back again, but he took it and pulled in a deep breath.
Blood pounded through my skull, magyk pressing against my skin from the inside, as if it knew, and was eager to be let out.
With steady hands, he held my chin and gently split my bottom lip open, making me wince.
“Here, do the same to me,” he whispered.
I cut a line down his lip too, mesmerized by the drops of shimmering light that fell onto my sleeve and sat atop the fabric like golden beads.
“What now?” I asked. Devil just held my face and leaned his forehead against mine for a moment, then pulled me into a fervent kiss.
The flow of magyk was instantaneous. I gasped as it rushed through me, the first rays of dawn in my veins—like cool autumn weather after months of wicked summer heat, or a cup of mulled wine after coming in from a blizzard.
It was the same feeling I got while eating honeyed almonds, or singing to myself in the Abbey gardens, or when I danced. When I danced with him.
It was completely overwhelming, but not like the power Oberon had pulled out of me.
My Shadowspinning had come on in flurries of righteous anger, desperate need for withdrawal, or a thirst for something I could never quite quench.
But Lightweaving was joy—pure and undiluted.
It was curiosity and friendliness and mischief, bouncing around inside me with reckless abandon, and there was a fire beneath it too.
Something sweet and intimate that scorched through my belly, drawing me closer to him.
Devil’s breaths quickened and I opened my eyes to see that his were wide with shock.
He shuddered, stumbled backwards, and clutched at his chest. Wheezing, face contorted, wings splayed, he fell onto the bed and pulled me down with him.
Panic rose in my throat when his body went limp and his eyelids drooped shut.
“Devil! No, no, no!” I tried to pull him up, but his head just lolled to the side.
“Devil, please wake up!” Close to tears, I wrapped my arms around his back and heaved him up into a sitting position, letting his head fall onto my shoulder.
But then I felt his mouth on my neck, and his hands on my waist.
“You humans are such gullible creatures,” he said with a muffled laugh.
“Oh, you sick bastard!” I tried and failed to push him away. “You think I’ll heal you now?” We fell sideways onto the bed, facing one another, and he brushed hair away from my face.
“I think you just might,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss me.
His wing folded around us like a blanket, and my fingers brushed over his jaw, where I could still feel the long gash.
I pulled away to examine it. The glowing light beneath was gone, and without thinking, I released a small amount of healing magyk.
The skin immediately began knitting itself back together, forming a jagged, pink line that would eventually become a faint scar.
“It worked,” I whispered, just as shocked as he seemed to be.
“It actually worked! Here, hold still.” I placed both hands on his bare chest, closed my eyes, and poured my magyk out, sending it racing through his body.
He put his hands over mine, breathing deeply while I worked to stitch up every wound he’d suffered in Locksley’s defense.
I did not have the strength to fully close them all, but at least I could cover them with skin or scab to ward off infection.
When I finally pulled my threads of magyk back, everything went still between us, save for our ragged breaths.
He was watching me with a look of awe, and pulled one of my hands across his chest.
“Do you feel it?” he asked. The erratic thrum of power that had once kept him alive was gone, and in its place was a heartbeat—measured and steady, if a little quick.
“You have a heart,” I breathed. “Perhaps now you will not be such a gods-damned menace.”
“Even you cannot cure me of that particular malady.” We both stood, smiling and laughing, but I found I couldn’t stop.
The sound peeled from me like a chorus of bells, shaking my entire body.
Devil watched for a moment, still grinning himself, then dipped down and wrapped his arms around my thighs.
I did not fully understand the loud rushing sound around us until we burst through the tree canopy into the clear light of the full moon.
His powerful wings carried us upward, arms tightening around me when I seized his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
“Keeping that smile on your face!”
There were only a few moments of unsteadiness and fear, but then I stretched my arms out and dropped my head back, letting the wind flow over my skin as we rose higher and higher.
When we reached a blisteringly cold apex, he slowed and tilted his wings, allowing the wind, and his magyk, to hold us aloft.
My shadows and his fireflies appeared, swirling around us, faster and faster until they were only a blur.
Then the channels of magyk burst outward like fireworks, creating a shower of sparks and dark droplets that fell in a gentle cascade over our skin.
“What was that?” I asked breathlessly, examining the small white freckles that appeared on my arms where the sparks had landed. They glowed faintly, much like the snake-scale patterns on his skin.
“Look behind you,” Devil murmured. Pulling my hair aside, I glanced over my shoulder and was met with a wall of iridescent green. At the same moment, a searing heat shot across my shoulders and down my back. I hissed, beginning to panic…until I realized what was happening.
“Wings,” I whispered, twisting my body to try and see them. “I have wings!”
No sooner had a joyful scream left my mouth than I dropped. He had let go, and I was plummeting back toward the trees.
“Devil!” I shrieked. But he was flying beside me, just like that first day in the Arden when he pushed me off the waterfall.
“Fly, Mayhem!” he laughed.
“I can’t!”
“You aren’t trying!”
“Oh, I hate you!” I desperately tried to move the new muscles in my back and shoulders, but they were unwieldy, and I was falling far too quickly.
At the last moment, Devil angled himself beneath me, twisted onto his back, and sent a blast of air upward with his own wings.
It was somehow enough to help unfurl mine and fill them.
I tensed every single muscle and shut my eyes, concentrating like I had never done before.
My descent slowed, and I found that channeling shadows around my body helped ease some of the strain.
I finally came to a clumsy, hovering stop only ten feet above the trees.
Devil perched on a branch nearby, grinning madly as he watched my new wings work.
“You are the world’s worst teacher!” I shouted, an uncontrollable note of amusement in my voice.
He took off, soaring past me and crowing, apparently enjoying the feeling of his new heart.
I held myself aloft and was finally able to turn enough to see that my wings were those of a Huntress moth—enormous, shimmering green, lined in deep purple and white, complete with eye spots and long, elegant tails that fluttered past my ankles.
“I think mine were made for more gentle flights.” I attempted to follow Devil’s trajectory as he swooped around me again and again. He dove, touching the leaves of his oak tree, then rose quickly and seized me around the waist, lifting us back up through the air.
“Let us test that theory!”
This time, I was far more prepared. Once we were high enough, he threw me up and I spread my wings, pulling myself into the night sky alone until I was shivering cold and could scarcely breathe.
When I thought I might be able to kiss the glittering moon, I flexed my new muscles, tucked my legs, and let myself fall into a slow, semi-controlled dive.
Devil was there waiting, and I allowed him to catch me around the thighs again, then hold me aloft as he lowered us back down.
“Thank you,” I said softly, holding his face between my hands, “for helping me find them.”
He gazed up at me, eyes shining, and murmured, “They are perfect. Beautiful and strong…like you.” We began to spin in a slow circle, a mid-air waltz, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
The heartbeat in his chest was steadier now, his face flushed in a way I’d never seen—alive, warm, solid.
My blood in his veins, his magyk in mine.
Again, I felt the clawing sensation inside me, like a rope tied between us, tugging me closer.
I needed to be closer to him.
“Take me back down,” I whispered, brushing my thumb over his lip, which was now covered in dried, ruby-red blood.
“Are you afraid?” he asked with a smirk. “Your heart is beating awfully fast.”
“That is your doing. I think you enjoy making my heart race any chance you get.”
“It is becoming a cherished pastime of mine, yes.” Our feet touched the tree canopy and I folded my delicate wings as we dropped through, but he held me tightly and slowed us before we hit the mossy floor of his room.
“Although, I ought to be afraid of reprisals, I suppose, now that I have a heart of my own. You are such a vengeful little thing, after all.”
I pulled away and walked slowly in a circle around him.
“Hmm…I must think. What could I do to terrify the infamous Devil of Arden? To make his new heart stutter and jump?” He turned suddenly, stopping me in my tracks.
Face-to-face, his long fingers crept up my arm, and his patchwork gaze lingered on my lips.
“I might be new to owning a heart, but I know terror is not the only thing that can make them race…” he whispered, threading his fingers into my hair just as our lips met. It was the same way he’d kissed me dozens of times before—soft and gentle—but this time there was a burning need behind it.