“Rori!”
Rori paused. That voice. She blinked once and looked up into the face hovering over her. Rich’s enraged face, twisted with animosity and evil. She shoved at his bulky shoulders, shoved with all her might because her life depended on getting him off her. Getting him away so she could run. Run and hide.
Rich grabbed her wrists with one hand and pinned them over her head. With his other hand, he splayed his palm flat between her brows. Heat, soothing, calming heat poured into her, coating every misfiring nerve in her body, relaxing her mind until Rich’s face melted away to reveal Thaddeus.
For the longest time, she stared up into his gorgeous face despite the sprays of blood, never so relieved to see him as she was now. Sharp, labored breaths expulsed from her lungs. The fierce pounding of her heart threatened to bruise her sternum. But as the seconds drifted by, the reality of her situation set in.
The crease between Thaddeus’s brows deepened. His eyes clouded. His jaw tensed. He drew his hand away from her forehead, caressing his fingers over her cheek, pulling through streaks of moisture. Tears?
“Foul magic, forcing one to live their worst nightmare,” he said quietly. His hold on her wrists loosened as he slipped a hand behind her neck. He lifted her upright as he settled back on the sofa beside her. His gaze lowered to her legs, his hands following. Before she could fix her skirt, trying to holdonto a bit of modesty, Thaddeus surprisingly smoothed out the hem over her thighs. “’Tis a method of torture, and one forbidden for most Seelie to use.”
His hands encircled her thigh above the gaping wound. Heat soaked into her skin, ghostly gold threads unfurling from his fingertips. She watched in awe as the wound began to stitch together, mending tissue and flesh. As the largest wound healed the gold threads slithered down her leg, working magic on each cut and scrape until her entire leg was healed.
He did the same for her other leg, but this time, her attention wasn’t on the magic. Her gaze lingered on the top of Thaddeus’s head, the thick braids holding his hair from his face and coming together at the back of his head with a fancy gold hairpiece. A few locks of hair escaped the braids, falling over his face like white-gold silk. His long, tapered ears. The sharp angles of his face appeared more defined now. The furrow in his brows deepened as each minute passed.
Rori lowered her gaze to the V of his open shirt. His power continued to skitter over his skin, but far more dimly, slow, sluggish. She watched his chest, realizing his breathing had turned shallow, pained.
Shadows moved along his skin, over his heart. Pulsed as if following the beat of his heart. Stretched over his pec, up to his shoulder.
“Thaddeus?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He began to straighten up, choked back a small cough. His skin drained of color before her eyes, just as his eyes became dull. A small stream of blood escaped the corner of his mouth.
“Tá tú sábháilte, mo storín.”
A grimace consumed his face before he collapsed forward.
“Thaddeus!”
Rori caught him before he hit the coffee table, but her smaller frame was no match for his size and strength. She struggled to lower him to the floor.
“Thaddeus, wake up!”
Footsteps hurried up behind her. She startled, but instantly calmed when Cael dropped to his knees beside her.
“What happened, Cael?”
Cael tore open Thaddeus’s shirt, revealing the angry shadow magic throbbing around two faint scars above his heart. Rori gasped, chilled at the sight of serpentine coils stretching farther and farther over his chest.
“Bloody fucking hell.” Cael flung his arm up. The furniture immediately around them shoved back, opening the space. “I’m bringing him to my room.”
Rori nodded, scrambling to Cael’s room. She pulled down the blanket and had started back to the living room when Cael appeared beside the bed, Thaddeus in his arms. He lowered his brother to the bed, perched on the side of it and ran his hands above the shadowy area. Rori shuffled back, watching without interrupting, as Cael poured his own magic into the shadows, shrinking them, forcing them back toward the twin scars. As the minutes passed, Cael’s arms became shaky, his hands trembling, his face pinched.
Until, at last, all signs of the shadows vanished.
Cael dropped forward, braced on a trembling arm. He drew his hand back and forth over Thaddeus’s chest, faint spurts of color spraying from his fingertips over Thaddeus’s skin. Rori hadn’t realized how tightly she’d held her hands beneath her chin until she unfolded her fingers and her joints ached.
“He’ll be okay, for now.” Cael sucked in a deep breath. He shifted on the bed to face her. Worry creased his browsand clouded his eyes. “When he was healed, those who healed him tempered his power to protect themselves. He can’t use his magic against others with intent to injure. It turns back on him.”
Rori’s gaze lowered to Thaddeus. A sleeping god. No wonder he’d used blades and not magic.
Until the end. The depth of understanding shook her to her core.
He did it to save me. Bore the consequences of using magic to protect me.
“Does he know this?”
Slowly, Cael pushed to his feet. He swayed, but caught his balance before stepping up to her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, drawing her attention away from Thaddeus. “There’s little my brother doesn’t know. He’s very aware of his abilities should he possess full strength, and so are those who saved him.”
