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“Not who. What. My magic did it. Nic and I have found that training my magic has had some…side effects. A healing potion or two, and it’s been fine. Mostly.”
“This looks anythingbutfine. Shadowvale, we need a healing potion. Or a half dozen of them. Include a sleeping draft.” Brightly colored bottles drop into his outstretched hand, clinking against his claws.
“No.” I tug my lab coat, trying to hide my hurt from his view, but every movement sends pain rocketing through me. “You’re not drugging me and taking off again.”
“I told you I would stay.”
“Yeah, you said you’d be right back and then you bailed for days. I know jack and shit about fated mates, but what I’ve heard is more clinginess and raging hormones, not using each other and then teleporting off to wherever you got that massivecut on your neck and the bruising on your chest. What the hell happened while you were away?”
“We’re talking about your injuries,” he says in his prince voice that’s both infuriating and sexy. “Not mine.”
“I’m all for equality in this whole mates thing, so spill.”
He looks away, and I notice more scrapes and slashes. “I’ve been searching for ways to bring Gilly home.”
“One beating at a time?”
“Something like that.”
“Looks like you need those healing potions more than I do.” A better solution comes to mind. “Or we could use the mating magic to heal.”
He rolls off me, putting distance between us. “No offense, Vicious. But seeing you in obvious pain doesn’t put me in the mood for sex.”
“Talk about jumping to audacious assumptions. Like I’m letting you into my panties when you ghosted me the last few days.Again.” I toss back a healing potion, the purple kind without the weird blue glow of a sleeping spell. “I was suggesting a tiny bit of pain-killing venom. Bonus for you if it gets me horny instead of hopping mad and hating yourhit it and quit itguts.”
“I have no idea what human speak that awful expression might be, but let’s stick to the more immediate concern.” He glances toward my chest, pushing my hands out of the way. “The healing potion hasn’t done much good.”
“It feels like I’m downing sludge, and the pain’s still there. Now’s not the time to get stingy with venom and mating magic.”
He rakes his fangs over his bottom lip and I can almost feel the scrape of them over my neck, my breast, my thighs. “Do you worry my venom clouds your judgment?”
“About what?”
“About us.”
“Did you lose your damn demon mind on this last trip? What are you talking about?”
He traces his claws a breath above my burn before settling his palm on my waist, giving me the skin contact I need for healing. It’ll be slower than sex, but it’ll work. Except the bastard doesn’t give me more than that one single touch. “Some might say I tricked you into mating. Between the kidnapping and the venom, you could’ve been coerced.”
“Are you suggesting I agreed to our mating because I washigh?”
“Did you?”
Rage burns through me, more motivating than even the excruciating pain I’m in. I shove at him, catching him by surprise, and he lets me roll him to his back, his claw-bloodied wings splayed beneath him. Straddling his hips, I poke at his chest, not giving a shit about how I look with crazy hair, stained lab coat, stiletto boots in glittery rainbow, giant burn marks, and my magic reaching for him like it wants to blast a hole through him.
“Val—”
“No,” I cut him off, jabbing my fingernail into his stupidly muscled chest. “I don’t know what damsel in distress you seem to have confused me with, but I’m Val Fucking Bonetti, and I make my own choices in life. They may not always be good ones, but they’remine. I chose you.”
“But the venom?—”
“I grew up around Hollywood parties where they handed out drugs in candy dishes. The twins were in and out of rehab before I graduated high school, and I was never anything more than the boring, follows-the-rules, flighty sister?—”
“You’re not boring.”
“Still. Talking.” I punch my finger into his skin with each word.
Theo holds out his hands, claws glinting in the candlelight. Huh, I hadn’t noticed the candles around the bedroom. Those are pretty. “Listening,” he says.
