Page 66 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
He tugs his white undershirt out of his breeches, revealing his belly button and the top of the V-shaped groove that disappears below his pants, angling himself so I can see better. I school my gaze away from his chiseled abs to check on his supposed wound, wondering if this is all theatrics, but my breath stutters.
A giant bruise has blossomed across the small of his back, spreading over his right hip, with a dark core marking where the projectile struck the hardest. Blood crusts along a series of shallow abrasions, clear liquid and rain coalescing on top. I don’t understand how he kept moving—how he got us down the cliff and out of danger—with that kind of injury.
Percy grimaces at the mess. “That’s a nasty bruise. Here.” He zooms forward, pressing his tiny palms to Seth’s skin.
I blink a few times, my lips parted in disbelief.
Percy only ever healsme.
Seth’s blood leaves a red sheen on my Faeling’s hands, but the bruise slowly fades, shrinking to nothing.
“Wow. Thank you, Perce.” Seth flashes him an infuriatingly charming grin. “You’re the man.”
A deep blush warms Percy’s cheeks. “You saved us, I’m just doing what I can…”
“It’s flawless.” Seth pulls out a rag from his bag and sinks it into the clearest pool in an attempt to clean the leftover blood from his back.
After a few inefficient tries, I snatch the rag from his hand. “Let me do it.”
I don’t even know why I’m angry. Maybe I just want to get it over with, get Seth clean and decent again, so I can stop the wildfire simmering under my ribs. So I can stop feeling like this stranger—because that’s what Seth is—has somehow seduced my Faeling.
I don’t so muchwash himasscrape the new flesh raw. “There. All clean.” I toss the rag back into the nearest pool.
Seth rinses the blood from the fabric and squeezes the excess water out. He proceeds to do the same with his clothes, stripping to his underwear in front of me. “How about we use your light power and my weather-man influence to get a little sunshine in here and dry us off?”
“I can’t summon sunlight right now,” I grumble.
“Why not?”
A bitter tang floods my mouth. The whole point of us rappelling down the cliffs was because I couldn’t fly down to Deiltine, and I couldn’t even manage that without a fuss.
“I just can’t, okay?” I snap
He meets my gaze head-on. “Funny. Looked like you had enough juice to summon a whole star system the other day.”
“Well, I don’t have anyjuice. No juice. Zero juice. And you better get used to that.”
He blinks a few times before saying, “I’ll light a fire, then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, it’ll suck the oxygen out and replace it with smoke.”
He raises a hand in a calming motion. “My wind can tame a little smoke, don’t worry. I’ll make it work.”
The odd word choice bugs me.
“Is that what you’re doing? You’re trying totameme? I’m not a wild horse, Seth.”
“That’s right, you’re not.” He lowers his voice and mutters to himself, “Wild horses are easy.”
Chapter 20
Little Miss Fortune
DEVI
The fire crackles low, its warmth slowly drying our damp clothes. Seth strung them out on a rope, each piece swaying gently above the flames. Smoke clings to the cavern air—earthy, bitter, laced with the sweetness of lichen and char—but it weaves through the cracks above our heads without getting too dense, drawn upward by Seth’s magic. Outside, the storm still rages.
Seth sits close enough that I can feel the warmth of him. My muscles ache from the climb, but I keep still, arms wrapped loosely around my knees. The black underwear and sporty bra Lori lent me dried fast, and the fire keeps me from shivering, but I’m still far too exposed.
