Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Tristan rose into the sky again, not quite mended but apparently good enough. He needn’t have bothered.
I shifted as soon as I landed, checking the mages just in case one had made it.
“That was a grisly end, huh?” Nessa said with a smile, standing next to a body part I didn’t want a closer look at. “And I thought shifters were vicious.”
“Shifters are vicious,” Sebastian said, landing with Jasper.
A loud “Aaaahhhhh” drifted from the mercenary area. One of the basajaunak was lifting two disembodied heads into the sky, yelling out his victory. I turned away, my stomach rolling. That was way too much. Way too much.
“I think we have a lot of vicious creatures,” I murmured, feeling my newly established links with the gargoyles. I’d need to figure out a better way to access through them now that there were so many. It had gotten very confusing during the battle, and I’d missed people. Not that I could’ve ever covered them all anyway, but it would have helped to have a system.
A few swells of pain caught my notice, and I homed in on them and headed in that direction.
“Miss Jessie,” someone called.
I ignored it. They could come to me if it was important.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I reached a hurt gargoyle with a large gash in the side of his leg.
“I’m okay, Ironheart.” He grimaced as he took a step away. “I’ll be okay.” He pointed at the sky. “That felt good, what we did. What we were. Together. That was fun. Dangerous.”
I couldn’t help a grin. Gargoyles—they did love a good battle.
“Just go sit over there, okay?” I pointed to a little grassy area. “I need to see how many people need my attention before I can start healing.”
“You can heal?”
Why did no one seem to know that?
I sought out the next hurt gargoyle.
“Miss Jessie.” Tristan caught up easy with his long strides.
“Yeah? What do you need?”
“What are you—”
“Are you okay?” I asked the next gargoyle, who was badly hurt and barely clinging to consciousness. “Oh, man, okay, lie down. Just right here is fine. I’ll help, okay? You’re going to be okay.”
Where was that healer that I’d sent a summons for in the basajaunak lands? We could sorely use them.
I started healing the gargoyle immediately, turning to Tristan. “Get someone over here to sit with him.”
He didn’t balk at my order. “Of course,” he said quickly.
On I went to the next. Tristan caught up with me again.
“You should be checking in with your people,” I told him. “Some of them are hurt. I don’t have the energy to heal everyone, so only call me if it’s life or death. Otherwise, I’m sure Austin has medical people on the way.”
“My second-in-command is seeing to that.”
“Ah. Well, what can I do for you?”
Tristan didn’t answer me. Instead, he shadowed me as I checked in with the next gargoyle, who was already being seen to by his enforcer, and then the last one, who seemed to be in the worst shape. I set to healing him immediately.
Austin had already worked through his people, sectioning off those who needed medical attention.
“What’s the status?” I asked when I caught up with him.
He looked me over briefly, running his thumb along my chin, before glancing over my shoulder at Tristan.
“Thank you,” he said. “For taking that magical blast for her.”
“She was more valuable to the battlefield than me—simple as that,” Tristan replied.
“That kinda cheapens it a little,” I grumbled as Austin ran his touch down my arm.
“The darkness?” Austin asked me, peering into my eyes.
I shook my head. “It was fine. I didn’t even feel it recede. Throughout the battle it just…felt like me this time.”
“You must be acclimating to your beast. That’s good news.” He kissed my forehead. “We have a few wounded. They took shots from the magical guns. Nothing that needs your attention, though. Brochan is getting them situated now, and we’ll get them home when they’re a little further along the healing process.”
“How tough were they?” I asked as Mr. Tom walked up. I decided that from now on, all of our cars would have a few muumuus in the trunk, just in case.
“With you covering the mages, the mercenaries were nothing. The pack has really come together. The extra support was the cream. This’ll help them feel solid about going up against mages. You?”
I sighed, replaying all the stuff that had gone wrong. “Everyone did great under the circumstances, but I didn’t do a great job of keeping track of everyone. We were all over the place, scattering all the time. I haven’t worked with a group this large before, and it showed. I didn’t do great.”
“Pardon my interruption, alphas,” Tristan said, “but I disagree. Miss, none of us have had training with mages. It was…eye-opening. They can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. This was our first time working with each other, too, and taking orders from someone we don’t know. Orders in the form of feelings and magical pulses. It was foreign. Exhilarating, but an adjustment. That battle was quick and relatively painless in the grand scheme of things. Your untested leadership was better than I’d expect from an experienced commander in this situation.”