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“Ugh!” I spit and sputtered and wiped my eyes, nose, and mouth on my arms.
My sight impaired, my attention elsewhere, I didn’t notice the impending danger until it was upon me.
Sharp, lacerating pain tore through my midsection, and then everything turned topsy-turvy as I was yanked off my feet and hurled through the air. I crashed onto the floor outside the box a second later, wheezing at the impact, at the pain shooting out from my back—that had kissed the stone floor—and at the piercing agony of the wound in my abdomen.
I lay there, gasping for breath, trying to regain full vision again, while a triumphant nickering echoed over from the box. With a groan, I turned my head to see Tabris’s bloodied horn stick out over the half wall of his enclosure.
“You Heaven-cursed, spear-headed, fucking bastard of a horse!” I yelled, having found enough air to fill my lungs to properly insult him.
His response was an affronted neigh.
“That’s right!” I barked. “You’re just a fancy horse! An overgrown pony with an ugly horn stuck on its head!”
He snorted, turned around, and kicked the wall with his hind legs. The titanium-enforced barrier rattled but held.
My grin was full of teeth. “You just stole the idea from narwhals, but it’s a bad copy and paste. They look great with their horns, whereas you look ridiculous!”
“Some might say,” a familiar female voice came from somewhere behind me, toward the entry to the stables, “that arguing with a unicorn is ridiculous.”
Still lying prone on the ground, I craned my neck to glance behind me and spotted Naamah sauntering closer.
“Not me, of course,” she went on. “I’m a fan of civilized debate with mythical monsters.” She came to a halt right next to my head, peering down at me with something akin to resigned pity crossing her face. “How do you always manage to let him poke you?”
“I’m a sucker for flesh wounds,” I gritted out, then took her outstretched hand and let her pull me to my feet.
The already half-healed injury where Tabris had skewered me twinged at the movement.
“You know, you’re an angel now.” Naamah gingerly tugged at the rip in my clothing. “I don’t think you need to be chasing more holiness.”
My rough laugh made fresh blood pulse out of the wound. I clamped a hand over it and grimaced.
“Here, let me.” She gently lifted my hand and laid hers over the injury.
A tingle of warmth spread out from her touch, her power whispering through me. I felt how the tissues and muscles and flesh knitted back together, a lingering pulse of heat now in place of the sharp pain from before. The wound would have healed completely on its own in a matter of minutes, but being mended by someone else’s magic was a way to speed healing up even further.
“Thank you,” I said as she withdrew her hand and went to wash off the blood at the nearby sink.
“Don’t mention it.” Toweling off, she faced me again, her auburn hair sliding over her shoulder. “Speaking of evading pointy things, I heard you stormed out of the training lesson yesterday.”
I made a face, cringing inside and out. Naamah had gone to the trouble of using one of her favors to set up these meetings for me, and here I was, running off at the first opportunity and turning my back on her help. Guilt pricked at my stomach. “Yeah…there was a…misunderstanding.” I chewed on my lip. “Did he say anything to you?”
“Just that you were upset. Something about him reading your mind?”
I rubbed my nose. “Um, yeah, no, total misunderstanding, that. I mean, I know that mind reading is not a thing we can do, so…” I shrugged, helplessly rooting around for a way to explain this without explaining it. Because while I was almost sure I had indeed dreamed a vision of the future that had then become true yesterday, I felt awkward voicing that theory just yet. “I was just…confused there, for a moment. Mixed something up.”
Naamah tilted her head. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I waved the question off.
She regarded me for a moment, then softly said, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
I swallowed hard. Naamah really was the closest thing to a best friend I had here, and I’d told her plenty of personal stuff in the past. For some reason, though, I hesitated to let her in on my assumption about the dreams.
“I know,” I murmured, then immediately launched into a change of topic. “Um, is he…mad?”
I’d accused him of violating my mind, which, apart from being impossible, was a hefty allegation to throw at someone. I sure would be miffed if the person I was trying to help slapped me in the face with the accusation of what amounted to mental rape.
Naamah narrowed her eyes, but let my change of topic slide. “Not mad, no. But definitely bewildered.”
