Chapter 25 #2
“You’re having fun?” Almandine’s small voice sounded much farther away than she was accustomed to hearing.
Ariadne ducked a swing. “Actually…yes.”
“Stop talking,” Razer snapped, accompanied by a sensation of sweeping low and fast. “You’ll distract them.”
“Block them out,” Azriel said. “Razer’s correct, it’ll—“
“I am fine.” Ariadne sent another soldier stumbling toward her husband before facing off with the next, doing her best to capitalize on their surprise at seeing her in the fray.
The most difficult part, aside from their genetic advantages, she found, was working around their armor.
Too often her blade glanced off the smooth metal, leaving them unharmed.
When she had seen Caersan soldiers in towns and supervising roadways, they often did not wear it.
The use of such things was superfluous for someone who could heal from a wound faster than a foe could escape, particularly when the lack of armor provided faster movement and better dexterity.
Likewise, dhemons never wore any armor aside from the lighter and more flexible kind made out of leather. She never truly practiced circumventing the complexities in metal armor. It had not been necessary.
Then again, she had not truly trained for war.
The evidence of that was clear the moment Ariadne deflected a blow from one soldier, not considering the fact that a second was already stepping into their tête-á-tête, ready to intervene.
She laughed at the shock on the first soldier’s face, giddy that yet another Caersan was foolishly falling for her trap—
Then a blade sank through her lower belly, just below her own armor’s edge, with a familiar burn she had not felt since her time hanging from chains.
Three things happened all at once: Ariadne’s laughter died while pain as she had never felt before registered in her brain, replacing her high spirits with pure shock; the second soldier’s head disappeared from his shoulders, then the first’s followed; and the world roared around her as her own back hit the cobblestones, forcing the air from her lungs.
Not for the first time since sunrise, a boot cracked against the side of her head. Whether on purpose or not, Ariadne neither knew nor cared.
What she did know was that she welcomed the darkness that stole her from the agony.
Azriel turned at the sound of Ariadne’s laughter, and the world stopped. Ocean eyes widened as she looked up at the soldier before her, then fell to the blade sticking all the way through her belly. Her sword dropped from her hand as she took in what had happened—
And the offending Caersan’s head tumbled to the ground as Azriel cleaved it from his body with a bellowing roar, followed by that of the other soldier.
Their decapitated forms crumpled to the ground in unison with Ariadne’s—too fast for him to catch her.
Too fast for him to keep the others away before one of their own accidentally struck her head with his heel.
All but throwing himself over Ariadne to protect her from the possibility of getting hit again, Azriel lifted her upper half from the ground. Everything slowed, and no sound registered in his ears as his only beacon of light stuttered in his arms.
“No, no,” he choked and gripped the sword handle. Pulling it out meant letting her bleed more. Leaving it in meant slowing the Caersan healing process. Neither worked in her favor. “Fuck!”
“Get her to Phulan,” Razer said. The next moment, his bondheart swept low overhead. “I’ll clear a path.”
Taking advantage of Azriel’s weak position, a Caersan soldier turned to him and swung, aiming for his neck. Azriel ducked, yanked the sword from Ariadne’s gut, and lunged, angling the blade up and through the man’s head from below.
Fuck him. Fuck them all. Azriel would burn this fucking place to the ground—once he had Ariadne somewhere safe.
Hauling his bleeding, unconscious wife into his arms, Azriel stood and turned in the direction of Razer. If he focused on what he needed to do, he could keep the bond’s claws at bay. The monster inside him writhed to be let loose.
This is your fault. This is what you deserve.
Melia’s words never felt more real. This was his fault. He’d brought her here, given her a sword, and stepped back to watch her fight even when every fiber of his being screamed not to.
“What happened?” Lhuka asked, and Venja soared overhead, diving down long enough to have the vampires dodging out of Azriel’s path.
Azriel didn’t reply. Instead, he sent the image of her gaping at the sword in her belly as he clung to her body. It was met not with words, but a shared sense of horror.
Everyone knew what would happen if Ariadne—
No. He couldn’t even consider the possibility. The very idea of it had the monster inside clawing for freedom. The deaths of those soldiers had been too quick. Too painless. They deserved to suffer—to feel every second of pain.
“Sabharni, Vhaltrinja,” Lhuka said through the vinculum as he and Venja dove again, jolting him back from the depths of his darkness in time to refocus on the battle raging around him.
Razer did as he promised, his massive presence in the town square scattering the dhemons and capturing the Caersans’ attention long enough for Azriel to rush through the battle.
Cradling Ariadne’s painfully limp body to his chest with one arm, he hauled himself onto the blue dragon’s back.
No sooner had he found his seat than Razer launched into the sky—and the moment they took flight, a massive bolt flew through the narrow space between him and Razer.
Heart stuttering at almost having his horns chipped off by the artillery, Azriel clutched Ariadne even closer to his chest before pinning her with his body to Razer’s neck.
Again, he communicated with Lhuka and Venja through a series of images, sharing the now-memory of the bolt flying past. Then, to Razer, he said, “Higher.”
Without hesitation, Razer responded by stretching his head skyward and pumping his wings hard to put more distance between them and the projectiles before leveling out and shooting toward their encampment to the east.
Azriel eased back only when he was certain they’d flown out of harm’s way and made what had to be the biggest mistake since the battle began at dusk.
Prior to that moment, he’d thought having her fighting beside him, pulling his attention from the fight, had been the worst he could do.
Now he knew just how wrong he’d been, for the greatest misstep of the night was looking at his unconscious wife in his arms.
Ariadne’s face was too pale, the wind blowing her loose curls across the perfect angles of her cheek and jaw.
Lips that were supposed to be a rosy shade were now a pale pink.
He forced himself to touch her skin, to reassure himself that it would not be cold and peeling.
Then he looked farther down to where the blade had been stuck to find her clothes soaked through with blood—blood that still leaked from the wound.
The wound that should be healing.
“She is alive.” The small voice came from Almandine, though it shook with uncertainty. “She’s holding on. I can feel her fighting.”
“Why isn’t she healing?” Azriel shook as he peeled the shirt back.
Another mistake. Within seconds, his wife’s blood covered his hand.
A beat of silence as the newly hatched bondheart seemed to crawl through Ariadne’s unprotected mind in search of an answer. Part of Azriel didn’t like the idea of his wife’s psyche being invaded so thoroughly until Almandine’s voice returned, this time with an answer: “Salt.”
Bile rose in his throat, and his mind went blank. “What?”
“There’s salt in there.”
“They’re coating their swords,” Razer rumbled, a fresh fury rippling out from the dragon as Azriel had not felt in years. The next moment, Razer sent the information out to all the other bondhearts in the area—a warning for anyone fighting on foot.
The only saving grace was time. What would have taken Azriel an hour to run on foot while cradling Ariadne took the dragon mere minutes. Before he even had time to settle his heart from the well-aimed bolt, they descended with a warning roar from his bondheart.
Dhemons, fae, and lycans cleared a path for Razer’s massive form to settle down long enough for Azriel to drop from his back.
Shooting a feeling of gratitude for the dragon, he adjusted Ariadne’s too-still body in his arms before racing toward the medic tent.
Anyone in his way leaped back, turning wide eyes to them and asking one another the same question: “Was that the Queen?”
Doing his best to ignore the questions, Azriel hurtled through the entry of the tent. “Phulan! Phulan—please!”
All eyes turned to him as he reeled to a halt. Soldiers lay on cots in various levels of pain, sporting injuries of all kinds. Those assisting the mage paused their bandaging, salve spreading, and stitching to look up.
It was the pair of ocean eyes that matched Ariadne’s that widened the most as Emillie launched to her feet, leaving behind a half-wrapped arm. “Ari?”
But Azriel didn’t respond to her. Instead, he found the brightly-dressed mage and charged between the rows of cots. “Phulan.”
Panic flared from the mage as Phulan turned to take them both in. She pointed to a cot nearby, and Azriel changed trajectory to lie Ariadne down. Even in the presence of the healer, he couldn’t bear to release his wife.
“Azriel.” Phulan’s voice sounded too far away. “Let her go—”
“Salt.” The word fell from his lips like a curse. “They salted their blades.”
The mage nodded. “I know.”
“She isn’t healing.”
“That makes sense.”
“Fix her!” Azriel roared, the monster inside him cracking through the surface and snarling at the mage. The tent went deadly quiet, not a soul moving as he glared at his friend with fangs bared. “Fix her, now.”
Magic flared from Phulan. “I can’t because you’re still holding her.”
Azriel blinked and looked down. Indeed, he knelt beside a cot yet continued to cling Ariadne tight to his chest as though mere proximity to her could accomplish what the mage was attempting. Instead, he only hindered what could be done.
Lowering Ariadne’s body to the cot, he peeled his hands from her. Each movement felt like an eternity as he grappled with his own self-control to just let her go.
“Give her blood.” Phulan cut through the straps of the leather armor and tugged it off over Ariadne’s head, jerking her body with each motion.
Another unconscious snarl ripped from Azriel’s chest at the roughness. He grappled with the bond to keep himself from wrapping his hands around the mage’s neck. Rather than attempt to murder the woman who was trying to save his wife, Azriel bit into his own wrist and held it to Ariadne’s mouth.
When she did not immediately respond, his breathing hitched. “Please, Ariadne…”
The next moment, another voice joined the fray—one that sounded too much like hers. “Drink, Ari. You have to drink.”
Azriel swung his attention to Emillie. It’d been her who’d managed to reach through his haze of pain after Ariadne left with Loren. Perhaps she’d be the one who could also reach her sister.
Then a small sound left his wife’s sister that Azriel had never heard from her before. She whimpered.
Heart jolting not for the first time, Azriel’s lips parted in shock. Emillie did not cry like this. At least he had never witnessed it before. Especially not for Ariadne. And the very fact that she now sounded ready to break alongside him made him choke on the air in his lungs.
“She’s not drinking,” he gasped.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Emillie followed up with, an unfamiliar fear lighting in her eyes. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d witnessed inside this tent to know exactly how much blood her sister needed to survive.
Survive…
This is what you deserve.
The air burned.
“She’s going to be alright,” Almandine said, her voice shaking. Did she even believe herself?
Razer reached through the vinculum to steady Azriel’s slowly shattering mind. He grappled for the pieces and held them steady in his claws. “Get out of there.”
“I will not leave her.” Azriel spoke the words aloud without meaning to, pressing his wrist to her mouth a little more, thankful for the first time in his life that he didn’t possess the same healing abilities as his wife.
At least in moments like this, he continued to bleed.
Continued to provide some semblance of life for her, even if it meant dripping it down the more indirect route of her throat.
Perhaps Phulan could sense his rising tension. Perhaps she knew him well enough to be able to tell when he was about to lose himself. Or, more likely than either of those, Phulan saw the way his grip on reality shifted at the very real possibility that Ariadne was just not healing.
“Get out,” the mage said and pointed to the tent entrance.
Azriel snarled at her. “No.”
“We have blood we can use here.” Phulan’s voice remained firm and steady. “Now go back to the battle.”
“I will not leave her!”
Emillie looked between them with wide eyes but said nothing. Wise.
The next moment, magic erupted from Phulan. Her amethyst eyes took on an ethereal glow, and she stood, conducting the invisible strands of power through the air until it took hold of Azriel, throwing him back from Ariadne’s cot. “This is my realm, boy. I said leave.”
Fighting against the magic, Azriel found his feet and tried to charge forward. How dare she try to keep him from his wife? He would kill her. Kill her for even thinking she could make him leave.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Razer snapped and gave his mind another firm tug, making him stumble towards the exit. “She will put you in the ground before you could ever touch her.”
“She cannot keep me from—”
“She absolutely can,” the dragon corrected. Another mental stab of pain, combined with a very physical shove from the magic, had Azriel slipping out of the tent flaps. “And you’re now distracting her from healing Ariadne. Back to the battle with you.”
With a rush of wind from above, Razer’s claw wrapped around Azriel and jerked him into the sky. The air punched from his lungs at the sudden yank upwards. “What the fuck, Razer?”
“You were going to kill our only qualified healer,” Razer pushed back. “You really are a fucking idiot.”
“I will kill you.”
Razer chuckled mirthlessly. “I could drop you right now and kill us both.” He paused. “Or I can fly us back into the battle where you can kill every Caersan soldier you see in retaliation.”
At once, Azriel hated and loved how well that damn dragon understood him. Sending back a confirmation, he added, “Let’s burn it all.”