The heat and glow of fire faded, leaving the world to grow increasingly cold and dark.
“Gods,” Darshan blurted. “I should never have let you bring me out here.” The words were soft, cracked and weary.
Hamish struggled to breathe. The cloying stench of burnt fur and charred meat invaded his nostrils. He tried again. His efforts produced only a gurgle. It was as if his lungs strained through swamp water.
“ ‘Mish!” Darshan’s voice came brokenly. Closer now. “No…” Hands grasped him, frantically patting over his body. “Come now.” Those same hands patted Hamish’s cheeks. Words he couldn’t understand poured from the man’s mouth, jumbled with a mixture of Udynean and Tirglasian. “Spiro! Just breathe. Aperi oculos tuos. Come back to me.”
Blackness sucked at his consciousness. Only a thin corona of white remained in his sight. Hamish drifted deeper on the current. No struggle, no floundering. Why fight? He deserved it. This death. Clean. Honourable. No one else needed to suffer for his flaws, for his inability to obey.
“I do not give you permission to die.” Fingers pressed to Hamish’s neck, tearing a fresh spasm of pain through him. “Do you hear me, ‘Mish?” A warm jolt of magic pierced him much like the bear’s tooth. “Not here. Not today. I shall not allow it.”
He was vaguely aware of the stuttering beat pulsing through his head. Distant. Fading fast and unimportant.
Then gone.
The terrified scream of a horse jolted Darshan from his fitful slumber. He sat bolt upright, groping for the little velvet-lined box containing his glasses. “Hamish?” he whispered. His lover would be able to determine the severity of a threat far quicker than himself.
A glance at the tussled blankets next to him revealed a marked lack of anyone.
Outside. With the whatever-it-was that had frightened the horses.
His fingers found the box. He flung aside the lid and fought with the square of silk holding his glasses captive. Hastening to tuck the wire earpieces in place, he burst through the tent flap and—
—clapped a hand over his mouth, barely containing his own cry of terror.
A bear, a small mountain of bloody fur and muscle, stood over Hamish’s inert body, its mouth wrapped around the man’s neck. There was no sign of his lover fighting back.
Gods. Tears fast obscured his view of the scene. He blinked them back, staggering forward. Was Hamish… dead? “No,” he mumbled. It couldn’t be true.
Unthinkingly, he raised his hand.
A blast of air tore the beast from Hamish’s body, spraying blood everywhere. Fire flowed from Darshan’s fingers, blazing across the clearing. It slammed into the bear, molten and lethal.
The creature fell in seconds.
He growled wordlessly at the smouldering lump. How had it happened? His gaze fell on the bow lying well out of Hamish’s reach. Several arrows dotted the forest. None appeared to have hit their mark. What had thrown off such a marksman? “Gods.” He halted beside Hamish’s body. “I should never have let you bring me out here.” If they’d stayed in the castle, then—
An answering gurgle came from the man.
Hamish still lived? He had thought for sure that no one could’ve survived such an attack.
“ ‘Mish!” Darshan collapsed next to his lover. So much blood. It poured from his neck and chest. Alive for the moment, but not much longer for the world. “No…” He ran his hands over Hamish, his magic dipping in and out of his body in search of the worst wound. “Come now.” He patted Hamish’s cheeks, hoping that would be enough to stimulate a response. “Breathe!” he commanded. “Just breathe. Open your eyes. Come back to me.”
Whether through involuntary or conscious effort, the man’s blue eyes rolled open. They stared at the canopy, glassy and vacant.
Darshan pressed his fingers to the deep-red wound in Hamish’s neck, summoning his healing magic. “I do not give you permission to die.” His power slipped into Hamish almost hesitantly, most unlike the draining pull from the last man he had healed.
He pushed harder. “Do you hear me, ‘Mish? Not here. Not today.” He clamped his teeth and grated through them, “I shall not allow it.”
And yet…
Where was the tug on his magic, the parasitic pull of another’s body feeding off his power? He should’ve been feeling the effects by now. Had he not—?
Was he too late?
Darshan lifted his finger from the wound, swiftly replacing it as blood erratically pumped out. Too much. The flow was ebbing—he could feel the wound shifting and growing smaller beneath his fingers—but it was all so slow. Hamish had already lost more blood than was ideal. His body wasn’t trying to wrest all Darshan was from him because there was simply too little left to fight.
Darshan was going to have to do that for him.
Swallowing hard, he forced his magic a little deeper. Careful. A faint twitch was all it took to aid the thump of his lover’s heart. Forcing the lungs to breathe was harder and required the greater bulk of his concentration. His lover’s chest was a mess of lacerations and broken bones. If he could just fix a few, stop further blood loss by mending Hamish’s chest, then maybe…
Control over his magic was ripped from his command as soon as the skin had knitted back together. Darshan swayed, momentarily stunned, then sagged over Hamish’s still inert form.
His own body strained to keep up. His heart pulsed to the same erratic rhythm. He gasped open-mouthed, saliva shamelessly dribbling out. The mere flickering thought of pausing to swallow was lost in the battle to keep breathing.
Through each tremble and gut-wrenching breath, he struggled to regain control, to turn his magic towards what needed it most. The neck wound was sealed, it would be an ugly scar, but posed no threat to Hamish’s life. His chest was whole, the ribs and organs beneath heeding Darshan’s touch.
He was done. The injuries were gone. Finally.
So why did Hamish’s completely whole body continue to drain him? His power funnelled into his lover like water over a cliff. But unlike a river,
