Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“There is? What?” He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Supposedly I should be able to heal small wounds…like those on your hands.” I nodded at the rope burns. “If…you would like me to try?” I asked hesitantly. I had never offered to try healing anyone before—because I wasn’t close enough to anyone, except perhaps Jalli and Ari—to even think of it. And I wasn’t strong enough to heal something big like Jalli’s twisted foot, only small things, like the wounds on Avery’s hands. But would he even want me to try it?
“How can a curse come with anything good, like healing magic?” he asked, frowning. “Did the witch who cursed you feel sorry and want to make it not so bad or something?”
“Oh, believe me, the bruja that cursed me had no guilt about it,” I said darkly. “But a pinch of good in an evil curse makes it that much stronger. The way a tiny pinch of salt in something sweet will make it sweeter.”
“Oh, I get it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “So…you really think you can heal me?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t really know—I’ve never tried it before. But…” I glanced at him uncertainly. “I’d like to try.”
“Well, sure—if you really want to.” He shrugged. “How does it work? Do we need to recite a spell? Maybe call the Corners? You know, ‘Hail to the Guardians of the Watch Towers of the West…’ It’s a witch thing,” he explained, when he saw my confused expression.
I shook my head.
“I don’t think so. I think I just have to breathe on the wounded areas and think of healing them.” I held out a hand to him. “Can I try?”
“I guess so.”
Avery gave me his right hand and I leaned over his wounded palm. The rope marks were red and angry-looking, even in the dimness of our room. Slowly, I brought his palm closer to my mouth and blew on it lightly.
“Oh!” Avery jumped, his fingers twitching in response to my breath. “I think I felt something. A kind of…tingle,” he said.
But when I looked at his palm, I saw no change in the angry red lines.
“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. “I don’t think I’m doing any good.”
“Try again,” Avery suggested. “Healing magic is difficult to master. Sometimes you have to do it more than once to make it work.”
Since I didn’t want to stop holding his hand in mine, I decided to try again.
“All right.” I nodded and leaned over his palm again. But this time I brought it right to my mouth. I opened my lips and breathed out, exhaling a little of my Drake’s warmth, though I was careful not to wake him as I did so. But it wasn’t until I actually pressed my lips to Avery’s flesh, that I really felt the power begin to flow through me and into him.
“Oh…” Avery’s voice had gone a bit hoarse. “I definitely feel it working,” he said, his fingers twitching slightly again.
I breathed on his palm a few more times—pressing my lips to his wounded flesh—before drawing back to look at it.
“Good as new!” Avery looked surprised as he flexed his fingers and then rubbed his thumb over the place where he’d been hurt. There was no trace of the rope burns on his right hand now—not even a scar.
“I am glad it worked,” I told him. “Now let me heal the other one.”
Silently, he gave me his left hand and I breathed on it as well, pressing my lips to his palm as I did so. I could feel my Drake’s warmth healing him as I did so and it gave me a surge of pure joy. For the first time in my life, the immense, raw power that was bottled up inside me was finally doing something good for a change. I was curing instead of hurting—using my Drake’s power for healing instead of evil and destruction.
I finished and Avery took his hand back…but I didn’t want to stop healing him. Didn’t want to stop touching him.
“Avery,” I said in a low voice. “Can I…could I heal your face as well?”
I touched the swollen right side of his face lightly with my fingertips and he looked up at me uncertainly.
“You…really want to?”
I nodded. I wanted to more than anything. Wanted to press my lips to his face, to his cheek, his forehead…his lips…
“Yes,” I told him, my voice coming out low and rough. “I want to heal you—all of you.”
“All right.” He shrugged, as though trying to make light of it, but he was looking at me as he did, searching my eyes with his own as though trying to find my motive.
I didn’t know what it was myself. Not just to heal him, surely. Maybe just to have him near…to touch him a little while longer…
Bending my face to his, I pressed my lips to his temple and breathed out my Drake’s healing warmth. Avery shivered under my touch but didn’t move as I kissed him better. I let my lips trail down his face, kissing around his wounded eye gently, feeling the swelling go down and erasing the bruises that were forming. I kissed his cheek too, erasing the abrasions there.