Page 157 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

THIRTY

UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENTS

MAGNOLIA

August…

Gods, I missed him. Missed the warmth of his skin on mine. Missed how that dimple popped when he smiled down at me like this.

In the months after we woke, Aren barely touched me. A sporadic platonic hug. A brush of hair from my shoulder. His knee knocking mine beneath the table while we shoveled down food on the rare occasion we occupied the same base at mealtime.

I couldn’t blame him. Not really. Not after what I’d done to us—to the Bond.

Now his touch felt warmer than the first crest of sun breaking winter.

He crushed me against him and breathed deep, though I had to reek of blood, sweat, and desert grime.

“How the hell are you here?” he breathed into my hair. Before I could answer, Aren whirled and shoved me behind him so fast I staggered to catch my balance. Then he dropped a shoulder and barreled forward just as that enormous cat launched for us. Somehow, he slipped beneath those outstretched paws and their terrifying claws, tackling the beast into the sand with a brutal thud.

“Jason!” he roared as claws pierced his skin. “You’re better than this! Fight it, brother!”

“Jason?” I barked as the two of them tumbled, the beast loosing that nightmare scream again.

“Come on!” Aren roared, driving an elbow into the cat’s snout. He bellowed when he tore free, his back bloodied and his clothes hanging in ribbons. The cat wheeled around, prowling sideways, its gaze flicking between us. Those eyes—blue as sun-drenched sea.

Westerlund eyes, if Tessa was anything to go by. “What the fuck?”

“Snakes,” Aren said, shaking his head as he kept himself between me and the cat. “He got bit—must be hallucinating.”

Brody bellowed behind us. I spun to find him dropping his sword and drawing a dagger in the same motion, driving it down toward the serpent buried in his side. I lashed a ribbon of shadow forward and sliced through two more. A ragged bellow snapped my attention back to Aren just as he hit the ground and kicked both feet into the cat’s chest, sending it flying.

“Get to the… castle,” he ordered as he rolled clear of another brutal swing from a massive paw.

“Like hell,” I muttered so quietly he likely couldn’t hear it as my pack hit the sand.

“Mags,” he growled. Okay. Maybe he could hear me. He blasted a wall of energy toward Jason, sand exploding into the cat’s eyes a heartbeat before Aren dove and locked both arms around the shifter’s neck.

Venom. Demon-snake venom was flooding the shifter’s system.

I edged closer as the great cat thrashed, a wet, barking growl ripping up its throat as it fought Aren’s hold.

I lashed the shadows forward, binding those enormous paws together one after the other. “Hold him steady!”

“Trying,” Aren grunted, locking his legs around the jaguar and arching until his spine bowed off the sand. Something popped. Maybe several somethings.

I lunged in, knees slamming into the sand as Jason thrashed and snapped for Aren’s face. Both hands raised, I plunged my magic into the shifter—searching, prodding, following a hot pulse down into his hind leg. I skittered sideways to assess the wound and winced at the green, foul-smelling pus oozing from twin punctures.

My magic latched onto the demonic infection, pulling taut.

The cat went manic, a hissing scream tearing from him like fabric snagged on a nail and ripped clean through.

“Mags,” Aren groaned, tightening his chokehold. “Get inside.”

I ignored him and pulled harder, dragging the venom out at its source as light rushed through Jason’s veins. The harder he gnashed his teeth, the deeper I reached.

The shadows snapped. My eyes flew wide. I didn’t even know they could do that. Jason wriggled free of Aren’s hold as I scrambled backward, and I flung my magic toward him on instinct, looping shadow around his neck like a lasso and jerking him to a stop inches from Aren’s face.

Aren somehow wedged both legs between himself and the thrashing cat and kicked full-force, launching Jason off him.