If Matt was too tired to shift, and they decided we were on the menu—things were going to get ugly pretty quickly.
The guard beneath my hands gave another gasping breath, and I focused on him. Skin contact. I needed skin contact. I pulled at his armor, finding the fastenings and exposing the blue-tinted skin.
My hand shook as it paused over his chest. It would take nothing to push him over the edge.
“Do it, Angel,” Matt urged. “You healed me before.”
I gritted my teeth and placed my palm against his skin.
A wave of weakness passed through me, and I yanked it away. It vanished. Somehow, when I touched him, I was experiencing what the sedative was doing to him. How could I counteract that?
Energy. I had it, he didn’t. I laid my hand on him again—and this time, endured the wave. Instead of pulling back, I envisioned pushing my healthy energy into his.
He took a deep breath, and then another. His normal color returned.
I swayed as I rose and went to the one Matt leaned over. The predators didn’t even flinch, but they watched me with their yellow eyes.
“You okay?” Matt asked.
“Yeah. Just a little dizzy.”
His brows lowered. “Don’t kill yourself to save them,” he growled.
“I’m okay.” I ripped open the armor on this guard and placed my hand on him, too.
This one was harder. I trembled, and then Matt reached out his hand and laid it over mine.
Immediately, what was inside me yanked the energy from him and fed it to the guard. But when the second man’s breathing steadied, I pulled my hand out from beneath Matt’s.
The big Dire’s face had lost all color, and he blinked as though dazed. I pushed myself upright, but could barely walk as I staggered up the trail toward the other two guards.
At first, my tired brain didn’t recognize what thundered toward us. When it did, it didn’t entirely make sense.
Hoofbeats.
A shadow swept by overhead—Talakai, looking for landing room. I turned in time to see a steel-gray horse thunder around the bend.
The predators vanished as though they’d never existed, melting back into the bush. My gaze riveted on the oncoming animal.
Because it wasn’t a horse.
He stood a solid six feet at the shoulder, his coat a gleaming silver gray, with a mane and tail that seemed animated regardless of the absence of a breeze. But it wasn’t his beauty that fascinated me.
It was the horn—a perfect, tapering spiral that rose from the tossing forelock and glowed almost blue in the darkness.
The Unicorn slid to a halt in the path, looked down at the prone guards with silver eyes, flattened his ears, and asked, “Be theere more?”
My mouth had dropped open but seemed incapable of speech. It was Matt who answered, sounding relieved.
“Two more. Up the path.”
The mythical beast shook its thick mane, and the bones writhed beneath his skin. The man emerged so fast that I couldn’t follow it. Sebastian stood before us, silvery hair chasing over contours that had my mouth hitting my chest, before I slammed it shut again.
His face remained stiff and cold, but his eyes blazed with anger. The horn had fallen away and lay, shining softly, on the ground. In one fluid movement, Sebastian picked it up and slung it from his hip before he strode over to the two guards. He ran his fingers over them before providing an assessment. “They’re unconscious, but they will recover.”
“They weren’t breathing right. She healed them,” Matt said.
The Bellati’s eyes widened, ever so slightly.
