skittering halfway across the room. I didn’t want him to get the chance to use it on me, but if I kept it during this struggle, there was the chance I’d stab him.
And since he was the last person in the room with healing magic, if I wounded him badly enough, he’d never come back from it.
He managed to get on top of me, and struck me across the jaw. My head hit the deck hard enough to stun me. But I couldn’t give up; I kept trying to throw him, even as he punched me again and again. His face was a blur of fury between bursts of pain as he hammered blows against my body.
“Enough!” Raile’s voice was filled with the roar of his power; then Duncan was off me.
Raile threw him halfway across his quarters, and Duncan’s back slammed into the beam at the center. The crack of the impact resounded through the room, but Duncan still threw himself off it the next moment and headed back toward me, still ready for a fight.
“I said enough.” Raile’s voice was a dark growl as he stepped between Duncan and me. “Don’t think I give a damn about the frozen turd. If he hurt Alisa, he will pay. And if he didn’t, what the hell do you think she’ll do to you if you beat him into a winter-king-pudding?”
Duncan stared at him, his nostrils flaring, his eyes narrowed. I thought he might go right through Raile again. Then his posture changed, relaxing slightly. “Fine.”
“Terrific.” Raile was still watching him carefully, as if he wouldn’t be surprised if Duncan was lying so he could get another chance at me.
I sat up, beginning to peel myself off the floor. My nose was still streaming blood steadily, and I tilted my head up, pressing my sleeve to my tender nose to try to stop the bleeding. No one offered to heal me.
Raile shook his head. “I didn’t know claiming my mate would mean playing nursemaid to the lot of you.”
Duncan snorted. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself.”
The next second, Raile’s words about claiming his mate obviously caught up to Duncan. His face changed, but Raile had already left us behind and returned to Alisa. He knelt beside her; doubtless he was the one who had thought to slip his rolled-up jacket under her head as a pillow.
“How are you, darling?” he asked.
“I’ll be better if you never call me another pet name again,” she said, and Raile’s mouth turned up at one corner.
“Care to explain how you almost ended up gutted?” he asked.
Duncan shifted his weight toward me, and I fingered my jaw, which was bruised and swollen. “It wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t,” Alisa said. “It—”
Her lips twisted, and she grimaced.
“It’s the enchantment,” Raile said confidently. Duncan gave me a gauging look, as if he wasn’t so sure. “When Faer used an enchantment to force her to the wedding, he must have added in more surprises for us.”
“Why did you go along with Faer, anyway?” Duncan asked.
“He said she would die if she didn’t marry that day,” Raile said “So I tried to twist the spell so it met the technicalities the magic required but didn’t bind her to any male.” He shrugged, giving me a meaningful look. “Someone ruined all my hard work.”
“Are you sure he didn’t stab you?” Duncan put in to Alisa, sounding angry. “It’s not the enchantment forcing you to say that?”
Raile scrubbed one hand over his face. “Duncan, think.”
“You don’t need to be a condescending prick,” Duncan told him.
“As I said earlier, I don’t particularly want to play nursemaid, but you currently seem in need of one.” Raile offered him a tight, icy smile.
“Enough, all of you,” Alisa said. “How do we—” She winced, holding her head in her hands. She let her head fall back against the floor.
My body was so bruised and sore, and my head was still reeling, so I let myself sink back onto the floor too. Her gaze met mine, framed by the table’s legs that were between us; apparently Duncan had left a few sticks of furniture still standing despite his many feelings today. Alisa’s silver-flecked blue eyes were vibrant under heavy black lashes, even at this distance; I wished I was close enough to draw her close and protect her. I wished I had any right to pull her close.
The table appeared to be the only thing that hadn’t been destroyed in Raile’s quarters, which were a mess of broken furniture, torn-down curtains