Cloak of Night (Circle of Shadows #2) - Evelyn Skye Page 0,66

shouted. “Where are you?” The effort sent searing pain through her rib cage.

He didn’t answer. But how far could he have gone? He’d probably crashed soon after she and Menagerie hit the ground.

“Wolf!”

Please be all right. Gods dammit, everyone was going down. Maybe they were fools for thinking they could fight the ryuu, for believing they had a chance against the Dragon Prince.

“Wolf!” Fairy sucked in a sob as the knife shifted inside her. The slice in the back of her neck didn’t seem too bad, but her side was in bad shape. She could pull out the knife, but then there’d be nothing to stop the bleeding. Her tunic and the left side of her trousers were already soaked as it was.

A short distance away in the orchard, in the opposite direction from where the buzzard had retrieved Hana, there was a weak howl.

“He’s alive,” Fairy whispered, barely holding it together as she started to run. She pressed her side, wincing as the blade stabbed her insides with every bouncing stride, but she didn’t slow down. Not until she reached Wolf, collapsed at the base of a pear tree in a puddle of blood.

“I’m here,” she said, forgetting her own wound for the moment and scrambling to the bag that held the vial of powdered thistledoon.

Wolf looked at her but didn’t seem to really see her. He just whimpered “Sora?” and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Fairy knelt next to Wolf, frozen.

“What did you say?”

Of course there was no response. He was unconscious, and “Sora” hung in the air like the last, off-key note of a song.

The throb of the knife flared in Fairy’s side, and at the same time, Wolf’s entire body shuddered.

Get yourself together, Fairy thought.

Besides, there must be an explanation. Maybe he could feel Spirit through their gemina bond and that was why he called her name. Regardless, Fairy was made of stuff too strong to be taken down by boyfriend problems. She could deal with it later. Right now, she had lives to save, his and her own.

Fairy pressed a hand to Wolf’s belly and grasped one of the knives with her other. “This is going to hurt,” she said. “But it has to come out. I’m sorry.”

She took a deep breath, then pulled the blade out, feeling the flesh try to hold on to it for a moment before letting go. Blood started to gush immediately, and she smashed her palm against the wound while she discarded the knife and reached for her vial of thistledoon.

To apply the powder to the wound, Fairy had to let go of Wolf for a second so she could pour the thistledoon into her hand. She moved away from his stomach and tilted the vial.

When she looked back, though, his blood had already congealed. “How . . . ?”

Liga had shown them that demigods could heal faster than humans. Could that be what was happening?

Fairy funneled the thistledoon powder back into the vial and moved her hands to the other knife in Wolf’s belly. I hope I’m right about this. She extracted the blade, and the same stomach-turning sensation of metal sliding from bloody flesh reverberated through her fingers.

This time, though, she didn’t look away. And as she watched, Wolf’s bleeding slowed. His skin melded together, smooth like molten rock, where there had, only seconds ago, been a vicious cut. It still looked angrily red and raw, but it was no longer an open wound.

“Holy heavens,” Fairy said.

Her own wound stung then, and she remembered that Menagerie had also left her a sharp souvenir.

Fairy didn’t want to pull it out. What if she fainted? Or died? Then there would be no one to take care of Wolf. But if she left it in, it would only make the damage worse, and she might faint anyway from the shock of the foreign object jammed into her ribs and the inevitable infection for leaving a wound exposed like this.

She poured the powdered thistledoon into her hand again, then clenched her teeth and slid the knife out of her side, gasping. Stars blinded her vision.

“Fairy?” Wolf asked, his voice like sandpaper.

It was enough to remind her where she was, what she had to do. She smacked her palm against her side and smeared thistledoon into the wound, painting her skin with blood in the process. She bit her knuckle as the thistledoon did its work, stinging like salt against her raw flesh. The pain was almost