Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,34

of the arrow at his thigh with his injured hand.

Aida’s lips thinned, turning down at the corners. She ignored his jibe as she saw his grip falter, the tips of his fingers a dingy mauve smeared with violet. “Let me help.”

“Just stay where you are.” Er’it flexed his hand, renewing his grip on the arrow tight against his leg. His other hand came up to grab the fletched portion.

Now Aida understood why he demanded she be still as he struggled to keep his numbed hand tight and break off the top of the bolt. Gagging at the wet squelch when it shifted, Aida hurried to his other side.

“I told you to—”

“You can’t hold it on your own. Let me help.”

She thought he would argue, perhaps threaten or choke her again, but Er’it snarled something under his breath and took away his hands to wrap hers over the shaft. He squeezed hard enough Aida swore she felt the bones creak, but she didn’t complain.

“Hold it still and tight,” Er’it said, gritting his teeth and taking hold of the top of the arrow again.

Aida looked away and tried not to gag at the crunching sound the wood made as he broke it. The fletching snapped clean, and Er’it tossed the piece off into the shadows. Even with Aida holding it as tight as she could, the arrow shifted, letting loose a torrent of sludgy blood. Dark and thick, it looked old and spoiled.

“What now?” Aida asked, breathless with the rush of panic tightening her chest.

“Do the same for the other.” Er’it grunted as he again tightened her fists around the arrow, this time at his shoulder. His lips pulled into a tight line as the torn edges of his shirt became stained a scummy wine.

Though not as deep, it seemed to pain him more as Er’it grasped the shaft and broke it with a rumbling growl and bared teeth. The murky blood oozing from the wound smelled foul, rank with something akin to rot.

“Now?” Aida kept swallowing, hoping the violent flips of her stomach would settle before Er’it told her what to do next. She refused to fail in this.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It could have struck a vein,” Er’it said, letting his breath out in a measured sigh as he felt around his shoulder with ginger fingers. “If I pull it out, I could bleed to death before the poison finishes its job. As much as you may wish that, I do not.”

“I am trying to be of some aid. Why is there nothing else we can do?”

“You took every drop of my power,” Er’it said with a savage growl, fisting the ruined front of Aida’s tunic to drag her closer. Faces close, he sneered. “Tapped me dry, and I’ve been using the dregs of it at every turn to find you. I cannot heal it.”

“Perhaps I can help,” Aida stammered, the dark sweep of her brows crashing down even as the words whispered over her lips. Too much happened when the blue light seeped from her skin, things she had no way of controlling—things that were wonderful, terrifying, and might kill him in the process.

That, she did not want. Aida knew that down to her very soul. Whatever they shared between them, this tumultuous and dangerous connection, she wanted him safe… whole and safe and not lost to the Abyss of his own making.

“You have no power.”

“Marilsa said that’s not true.”

“Who is this?”

“An old witch—”

“Pah! You would believe anything a witch says?”

“She saved me at her own expense with no motive of her own. No one has ever done that for me,” Aida said, quiet misery sucking at her voice to turn it low and hoarse with unshed tears. “She told me the truth. No one has ever done that for me, either.”

“If you think a witch did anything for you without something being in it for her, you’re mistaken.” Er’it snorted and shook his head, turning his gaze to the sky and shoving a rough hand through his braids.

“She died to save me. How was that to her benefit?” Salty misery slipping down her cheeks, Aida met his golden amber eyes as he turned them to her in a silent demand for him to prove her wrong.

“Where did she die?” Brow creasing, he leaned forward to catch Aida’s wrist as if she would flee.

“In a clearing. I don’t know where it is now. It… The light, it… it changed everything, and it was so… Then something came and