If itwas... “Have you ... have you everpurposefully...”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “I have purposefully caused myself pain to access deeper levels of power. That was a long time ago. Now, it isn’t so necessary.” As if in afterthought, he said, “And ... there are many different kinds of pain.”
Isla still couldn’t believe it was real. Did every ruler know about it? Why wouldn’t it be widely used, then?
No. It couldn’t be.
Grim shook his head, reading either her face or her emotions. He tsked, then braced himself as she pulled another arrow out. “Still doubting me,” he said. He looked her right in the eye then. “How, Hearteater, do you think I am so powerful?”
That made her hands still around one of the arrows for just a moment. He had experienced deep pain. That was what he was telling her.
It surprised her, but ... she wanted to know what had made him this way. Who or what had hurt him.
He stared at her. She stared back.
She removed one of the arrows from his chest, and he roared.
By the time all the arrows were out, she’d heard every curse word she knew and over a dozen she didn’t. He helped her get his shirt off so she could apply the healing elixir. She caught sight of the small charm beneath his clothing. The one that kept him immune from the Nightshade curse. When his chest was bare, she winced at the sight of the dozen wounds.
Grim laughed darkly.
Laughed.
“I’ve never had a woman wince at my naked body,” he said.
She shook her head. “It must be exhausting carrying around such a magnificent ego.”
He laughed faintly as she began applying the serum. The first press of the liquid to his skin, and he hissed. His normally cold body was feverish.
“Your leg,” he said, even as he was bleeding from a dozen places.
“Is already bandaged,” she said before moving on to the next wound. She worked quickly and diligently, brow creased with focus as she made sure all the splinters were out of his skin and that each place was thoroughly cleaned. Through it all, she could feel him studying her.
“What?” she finally said.
Even in what must have been knee-wobbling pain, the demon still managed to sound pleased. He smirked. “I just think it’s ironic that the hearteater who stabbed me through the chest is now tending to my injuries.”
She gave him a look. “Ithink it’s ironic that the demon who claims he has no shred of humanity left used himself as a blockade against an army of arrows to save me.”
He said nothing.
When she was finished with the last injury, the healing elixir was halfway gone. The gauze was on its last few rounds.
Now that he was taken care of, Isla looked at the mess in front of her: his blood-soaked shirt, the pile of broken arrows. She threw up her hands. “Seriously. Why did youdothat?” she said, exasperated.
Grim’s head was lolling to the side. He looked half a moment away from passing out. “That’s an interesting way of saying thank you,” he drawled.
One of his bandages was already soaked in blood, so she moved to make it tighter, to stop the flow. Once she got it in the right position, she went to remove her hands, but one of his own came over both of hers, pressing her fingers to his chest. “The cold, Hearteater,” he said before closing his eyes. His head fell back against the wall. “It helps the pain.”
She sat like that for a few minutes, the only movement the steady beating of Grim’s heart somewhere near her hand. His eyes remained closed the entire time. After her hand warmed against him, she took it back and sat against the wall next to him.
“What happened?” she asked. The arrows had come from nowhere. “I didn’t see anyone, or even where they were coming from—”
“It wasn’t a person; it was a weapon. A mechanism designed to go off against intruders. I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?”
“My own castle.”
