“
The crowd were cheering and Geraldine led the Ass squad in that annoying as fuck song about princesses as they all celebrated her win, but I ignore them as I moved forward to offer Roxy a hand up.
“I’ll toss Mildred back in her room, heal her and cast a sleeping spell on her so that she can properly recover,” Cal announced as he moved around us and I couldn’t help but smile at him.
It might have annoyed the fuck out of me that he’d been with my girl, but he really was a good friend. A true brother.
He threw Mildred over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and shot out of the room as Seth howled in excitement.
“Come on,” I said to Roxy. “I’ll clean you up and heal those wounds.”
“Okay.” Roxy followed me back to the couch and I sat her down in my spot before throwing a ring of fire and a silencing bubble up around us to give us some pretence of privacy.
“Doesn’t this count as us being alone?” Roxy asked as I dropped to my knees in front of her and she pulled her busted bottom lip between her teeth.
That shouldn’t have been hot, but it really fucking was.
“I’m going with no,” I replied, but as the ground trembled beneath my knees I had to admit it did.
“Maybe you should just-”
“I’m going to look after you,” I growled, leaving no room for negotiation. “So just let me.”
Her lips parted, eyes flared, fingers gripped the edge of the couch and I was sure she was about to tell me no, but instead she just nodded.
I reached out and curled my fingers wound around her waist as I pressed healing magic from my skin into hers, closing my eyes so that I could concentrate. She had cracked ribs and healing bones was more difficult than damaged tissue.
She fell still as I shifted my hands over her flesh and I tried to ignore the way the floor quaked beneath me. We couldn’t stay in this bubble for long, but I wished that we could. I wished we could just build a bubble where the stars couldn’t see us and stay in it forever. Although I guessed if I offered her that she’d just say no again.
I sighed as my magic depleted, using the last drops of it to heal her and clean the blood from her skin after burning through so much in the game.
A soft touch against my hair made me open my eyes and I looked up at her as she pushed the crown onto my head.
“Mildred knocked me off of the couch first,” she explained in answer to the question in my eyes. “So you win. Besides, you need a big head like yours to pull off a crown like this.”
I snorted a laugh as the ground trembled so violently that I was almost knocked back onto my ass.
Roxy quickly pulled the rings and bracelets from her hands and offered them to me too and I pushed them into my pockets wordlessly.
But as she reached up to unclasp the blood ruby pendant from around her neck I caught her wrist to stop her. “Keep it,” I said, my gaze slipping to the priceless heart where it lay against her flesh. Dragons didn’t give treasure away. Ever. It was inherited through the family or we bought more of it, but we never gifted it to anyone. It went against everything we stood for and the fierce possessiveness of our natures. But for some reason that I couldn’t fully comprehend, I wanted her to keep that necklace. “It looks better on you anyway.”
Her eyes widened but before she could reply, I dropped the wall of fire and stepped away from her. Darcy hurried forward with wild eyes, looking between me and her sister for a long moment like she’d expected us to be arguing or something. But the last thing I was going to do was call Roxy out for beating Mildred’s ass for me. She’d absolutely been working in my interests and I wasn’t even going to pretend to be pissed about it.
“Darius fixed me up like new. Did you see the bit when I kneed her in the vag?” Roxy asked as she grinned and Darcy started laughing.
“It was classic, you’ve gotta come see Tyler’s slow motion footage of you punching her in the throat too!”
(Darius POV)
”
”