Page 58 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“I need you to know that you are important to me, Summer. Your life is worth more than anything.”

More than anything.I was not remotely sure how to interpret that kind of a statement.

“I save lots of other lives.”

“Yes, and I am grateful for that,” he assured me as he lowered his head. I had an insane urge to lean forward to brush my lips across his forehead. “But we are a team that can protect those lives better together. I know you are not used to having someone you can trust to have your back, but youdonow. You are notalone anymore. And I do not want you to think that you need to be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in every battle.”

“I don’t think that; I am just willing to do it.”

“Well, then don’t be,” Sage insisted, making me smirk at his scowl. “I don’t want to have to override you like I did today to stop you from hurting yourself. I want to be able to trust you to be smart about your own safety.”

“Am I not allowed to makeyoufeel safe?”

“Youdo. But you also terrify me,” he admitted, and I laughed at the way he raised his brows at me.

“Fine. I will… try to work more as a team. As long as the hesitation doesn’t get us killed,” I added seriously.

“Andalwaysfind another option besides burning out,” he maintained.

“Yes, I will try to find alternatives,” I reassured him, smiling when he nodded in relieved satisfaction.

“Are you all sorted? Can we get on with removing the arrows from his back now?” asked Ciaran suddenly.

I gasped when I realized he waslistening. The nosey prick was leaning against a tree behind me just out of Sage’s line of vision. I would have known he was there if my senses were not so dulled from overusing my magic, but he’d been able to sneak up on us.

I decided not to respond to the other rider as I got out of Sage’s lap and walked around him again. Ciaran went to the fire where he dumped two canteens of water into a small clay pot to begin boiling it. Then he plucked the plant with white flowers off his belt and began to tear pieces off the Ichor of Airmid to drop into the water.

“We can use this to make bandages,” I said as I eyed Sage’s undershirt which was still relatively clean aside from the blood stains.

I took the knife from his right hip and began to slice through his shirt to remove it. I wanted to kill something when I saw hisbloody skin all puckered and bruised around the shafts of the arrows. Luckily they looked shallow, Fuath were not known for making strong bows, but they would still be painful.

I cut and ripped his shirt into strips and carried them over to the pot of water that was already boiling thanks to Ciaran’s fire magic. The scent of the Ichor of Airmid wafting up with the steam from the water was delightful, but it had a distinctive medicinal scent that reminded me too much of wartime and death.

“Thank you,” said Ciaran unexpectedly, and I looked up at him in surprise. He was crouching across the fire and looked as if those words had cost him his pride.

“What was that you said?”

“You heard me,” he responded sharply, and then he sighed at his outburst. “Thank you for healing me earlier even though it was taxing for you.”

I remained glaring at him suspiciously until he waved his hand at me in dismissal.

“Just forget I said anything.”

“That’s unlikely,” I advised him, and Ciaran rolled his eyes as I looked back at Sage. “I should just heal him.”

“As much as I’d appreciate how much easier it would make our lives tonight, I don’t care to listen to him lecture you about it again,” said Ciaran.

“That makes two of us,” I agreed with my eyes still on myanam. He was leaning in an awkward way against the rock beside him with Serafin still lying nearby with his head on Sage’s thigh. The rider was shirtless, but he was able to keep himself warm in the chilly night air with his fire magic so it didn’t seem to bother him.

But I couldn’t help it when my eyes were drawn to all the definition in his torso.

I’d always been unabashed about my nudity, but Sage was usually very conservative with his body. Which was a fucking shame, really, because he was gorgeous with the sinful way his hair fell into his face when it was mussed. Every inch of him was perfection from the elegant beauty of his face to the breadth of his shoulders and the way he tapered with a lean stomach and hips. He was covered in battle scars and the familial tattoos that formed beautiful patterns on his shoulders and chest. There was a dusting of hair under his navel which thickened a little just above the top of his trousers.

And then there was the perfectly scarred imprint of my teeth in two crescent moons on the front and back of his shoulder which branded him as mine. Not only because the unique pattern of my teeth was embedded on his flesh, but because I’d bitten him over the mating gland, and now my scent was in his pheromones. The sight of it used to cause me guilt and shame, maybe a hint of curiosity, but now…

He was myanam. He was the other half of my soul.

“How was the first ride on Pyrope without a saddle?” asked Ciaran abruptly, and I jolted guiltily. I glanced over at him in shock that he was even talking to me, although I supposed he might have just been trying to stop me from ogling his friend. It was probably pretty obvious.

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