Lupi 04 - Night Season

staggered. “Little too tight.” He sought Cynna’s eyes wildly, his expression pleading.
    She smiled with the half of her face that wasn’t broken and made a patting motion.
    He got it. He bent and patted one bare, scraped orange shoulder. “Had to do something,” he told her gruffly. “Dirty bastards. And you’re one of us, right?”
    The round, bald head bobbed in a nod. As suddenly as she’d latched on, she let go. She limped over to Cynna and threw her short arms around Cynna’s shoulders, squeezing—which hurt. Gan was a lot stronger than she looked.
    Fortunately, she let go quickly. She stared at Cynna, her ugly little face fierce. “I understand now. I understand.”
    Cynna didn’t, but whatever revelation had come to Gan, it was important. So she smiled with half her face and reached out and squeezed one dirty, stubby-fingered orange hand. “I’m glad.”
    Â 
    T HE Ahk wouldn’t consider risking their horses by jumping the sinkhole, a sentiment Cynna heartily—if silently—agreed with. They had to find another route down. By the time they halted to make camp, they were in low, rolling hills, partly forested. And Cynna was dizzy with exhaustion.
    The only reason she hadn’t keeled over from pain was that she’d finally given in and used her no-pain spell a couple hours earlier. It was for emergencies only because it stopped pain completely, but also stopped the healing. But the son of a bitch who’d hit her refused to stop, and falling off her horse wouldn’t help her head much.
    Of course, she probably could have told Chulak she couldn’t stay on the horse any longer. He wouldn’t have stopped, but he didn’t want her falling off and damaging herself. He’d need her to find the medallion’s trail again, so he’d probably have had one of his people ride behind and support her, the way they’d been doing with Daniel until today.
    Turned out she was just stupid enough, just stubborn enough, to try to out-tough three hundred-pound bipedal rhinos who cut off their own fingers to show remorse for endangering their leader’s possession. And then rode for hours and hours and hours without complaint.
    Bastards. And she was an idiot, which was abundantly clear the moment she dismounted and cut the juice going to the no-pain spell…took three steps, and threw up.
    Concussion. That’s what Chulak’s healer said, via her charm, when he checked her out. He had her lie down in her blankets and did a warm-hands thing, cradling her head, that made her sleepy. She had barely a second to think, oh, he’s putting me in sleep, just like …before she conked out.
    That’s how she came to sleep through the battle.
    The next thing Cynna knew was another pair of hands on her face. These were cooler, the fingers long, the palms smooth. These hands stirred her awake instead of sending her away, cool hands that warmed her from the inside out.
    She blinked her eyes open and looked up at dark, long-lashed eyes…full lips, parted in a small smile. Black hair with silver wings was pulled back, revealing a face so exquisite it stole the breath she’d just taken. Honey-colored skin and pointed ears…. dazed, she lifted a hand but didn’t quite dare touch him.
    â€œWho are you?” she breathed. Her pulse pounded in her head. It hurt. The pain distracted her somewhat from the pulse pounding elsewhere, but not entirely. No, not entirely.
    â€œWhy, I am your prince, Sleeping Beauty,” he said in a voice like fog and mist, a voice she could have listened to for hours. A voice with a hint of huskiness, as if he, too, felt the delicious stir of arousal. “Come to kiss you awake.”

THIRTY-TWO
    C ULLEN shifted in the saddle. His horse stamped, protesting his restlessness. He told his mind to stop thinking. Like most minds, it disobeyed, throwing up possibilities, scenarios, nightmares.
    Cynna wasn’t dead, he told his mind. She wasn’t. They had no reason to kill her and every reason to keep her alive.
    His mind noted that people died in battle even when that wasn’t intended. And this had recently been a battlefield, and a number of people had died here, judging by the stink of blood and death soaking the ground, even if the bodies were AWOL for some reason.
    But not Cynna. The Ahk—may they all be damned to the lowest circle of hell—were