Entangled with an Elf Prince by Amanda Ferreira

Author:Amanda Ferreira [Ferreira, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The adrenaline that had carried me through the fight wore away as I loosened the laces on Bren’s boots. In my chest, an emptiness yawned where my magic had been, the sense of loss as material as stone. I was tired, and I carried that openly in how I moved: in my slouched shoulders, my heavy eyelids, my aching head. But to put words to the complaint would’ve been a disservice to Bren, who was covered head to toe in red and black bruises.

Every piece of his armour he removed only revealed more injuries. His elbows were swollen, as was one of his knees, and his neck had been torn raw by two sets of teeth. The outsides of his thighs were dotted with gashes, his back horribly slashed, and his shoulders were so tender he needed my help removing his breastplate to avoid spilling more of his blood.

As we worked, we didn’t speak, and in short order Bren was sitting in the grass in only his underclothes, his body battered, bloody, and beaten. He stretched in the shade of a massive oak tree, his feet dipping down into the shallow pond we’d found by the road. The bite of the water and the chill of the wind seemed to soothe his blistered ankles.

“That was hard,” he said at last, twisting his body this way and that, testing to see where it hurt the most, how much mobility he had. “But you’re all right?”

I looked up from where I’d sat down beside him, my chin resting on my upraised knees. I had hardly been touched in the chaos, just jostled around, clipped by a wingtip or the sharp side of a claw. But knowing his plan now, that he’d always intended to keep their attention on himself—that even in the sky, fifty feet away, he’d seen their milky white eyes and guessed they’d hunted mostly by ear—I tried to see the bravery of it. The brilliance. After all, they were dead, and we were not.

But things were rarely that simple.

“I’m entirely unhurt,” I said, lowering my feet into the pond next to his, trying not to touch him—and hurt him—in the process. But with the movement, the colour of the water deepened from a ruddy blue to a bloody black, the silt at the bottom mixing with the torn scabs on both of his legs. “You should’ve told me what you’d planned.”

Instead of answering, Bren raised one corner of his mouth, his right eyebrow arching to match. “I’m fine, Keenyn,” he said softly. “Don’t look at me like that. The bruises will heal; you know they will.”

In response, I gestured broadly at his body, at the discolouration marring his skin. Then past him, at the forest of dangers just waiting to swallow him. “I’m saying I could’ve helped you. You look like you’ve been run over by a horse, then two more besides. It pains me to see you like this.”

“Does it?” Bren replied, something serious creeping into the edge of his voice.

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