Page 80 of Don't Bite the Botanist
“Nope,” Tressa said with a determined grim, taking the offered blade. “I’m fully awake.”
Tressa danced to the side, trying to keep her profile slim and protect her injured ribs, while Derrick shifted to flank Renata on the left. She stepped in with a quick yet clumsy upward slash before spinning the knife in her hand to reverse into a hard plunging stab at Renata’s heart. Flowing alongside Tressa’s attack, Derrick slid in low, slicing at the rogue’s hamstring.
Neither connected.
Renata flipped her leg up to avoid Derrick’s attack and brought it down hard in an axe kick, her heel driving into the nape of his neck. Pinwheeling her arms as she bent at the waist, Renata snaked her hand over Tressa’s wrist and redirected her downward blow straight into the meat of Derrick’s shoulder.
Snarling like a pissed off badger, Tressa ripped her blade free and spun around with a cursing Derrick close on her heels. Rage drove each of her unskilled strikes, but three sharp slashes from her knife encountered only empty air as Tressa pursued her prey.
She briefly regretted not training in combat with Saiden more often, but some part of her hadn’t wanted the knowledge. Hadn’t wanted the temptation to kill again. And while protecting her mate wasn’t the same thing, she was starting to think her newfound justificationmight not actually mean shit against the much older rogue.
Still, she refused to accept defeat, and her fourth swing met with glorious resistance as it sliced a long furrow along Renata’s upper arm. The smile of satisfaction that lit up Tressa’s face vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared, though. A fist flashed out and sank into her stomach, the vicious uppercut forcing every ounce of breathable air from her lungs as she was lifted off her feet.
Before gravity could bring Tressa back down to earth naturally, Renata snatched one ankle and whipped her arm in an overhead arc to slam Tressa’s body deep into the sand. She caught Derrick blurring toward her, but the world flashed black for a moment, and she couldn’t see what happened to her cousin. She could only feel a symphony of pain and could only register a vague sense of him careening off to the side.
The sounds of the combat, the screams of the seabirds, and the crashing of the waves disappeared, replaced by a steady high-pitched whine boring through her skull. Flashes of shadows flitted across her vision, taunting and teasing her with how useless she was, until finally, tingling sensations started fluttering through her numb limbs as her muscles sluggishly came back online.
The shadows faded away to reveal Derrick leaning over her, a knife gripped in each hand. His shirt was ripped in a dozen places, and dried blood lined his arms in parallel cuts where nails had raked and clawed.
Tressa began to push herself up, rising onto one elbow, when Derrick was suddenly flung away from her, and Renata’s foot smashed down on Tressa’s knee like a meteor strike.
Pain more intense and powerful than anything Tressa had ever felt before coursed through her, and blood flew from her lips as an anguished scream burst from her lungs. She tried to move, tried to force herself to get up and fight through the agony, but it consumedher. Destroyed her.
“Stay down,” Renata growled, her face blocking out the rising sun as she loomed over Tressa. “I don’t want to kill you, Loloma, but I won’t let my own desires jeopardize my mission. You simply cannot win this fight.”
Chapter forty-two
Ethan
“I don’t think we can beat her.”
“We have to win this,” Ethan snapped back at Saiden, ripping his attention away from his mate as she raced toward Renata with vengeance in her eyes. As much he wanted to simply watch her, he knew he needed to get Saiden back into the fight for them to stand a chance.
“Look, Ethan,” Saiden said, his eyes dropping to the wound that still gushed blood. “I don’t want to give up either, but I didn’t survive three centuries of fighting by being careless. Sometimes you have to recognize when you’re outmatched and a tactical retreat is the best option. Just run, Ethan. She only wants you. We’ll hold her off long enough for you to get away, then regroup to develop another plan. But you have to gonow.”
Ethan only half heard the urgent plea, his eyes drawn to the crimson spreading across Saiden’s shirt. His vampire vision picked out the glistening edges of the stain wicking through the fabric, crawling fiber by fiber, reminding him of a similar image from only a day ago when his Sunflower had nearly died. Ethan’s eyes flared wide, and he grabbedSaiden’s shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Saiden cried out as Ethan the makeshift bandage away and thin streams of sparkly purple haze began seeping out of his fingers. Just as he had with Tressa, he pressed his hand to the wound, willing the violet cloud to soak into Saiden’s shoulder and heal him.
A grimace spread across Saiden’s face, and he let out a string of curses, but Ethan maintained the contact, even as the sickening crunch of bones rearranging themselves reached his ears. What was likely only a few seconds felt like a lifetime as he tried to focus on the purple mist and not the sound of Tressa’s pained gasps behind him.
Saiden’s litany of muttered expletives died off as the last traces of the wound smoothed over, and Ethan slumped into the sand, a sense of pride filling him.
“Lilith take me, that was the weirdest fucking sensation,” Saiden said, rolling his shoulder a few times. “I’ve seen Cora heal in less than a minute from a severe wound, but that… That was nearly instantaneous.”
A scream of agony ripped through the awe-filled moment, and both men swiveled their heads back toward the fight to see Tressa crumpled on the ground, her knee bent at a disturbing angle. Renata stood over her, growling for Tressa to stay down, while Derrick struggled to climb to his feet behind them.
Without a further word, Ethan grabbed a fist full of Saiden’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. Twin puffs of sand flew into the air as the vampires blurred toward their targets.
Once more, Renata’s form rippled and twisted to reveal Cora flinching at Saiden’s approach. The image didn’t slow his charge forward, but he did bobble the grab for his knife laying in the sand as he sped past it. Bellowing in frustration, Saiden dismissed the weapon and launched into a series of sharp strikes with his elbows, fists, andknees, while Derrick gathered himself and moved to attack from the rear.
Ethan slid to a stop in the sand next to Tressa and clamped one hand over her leg and the other over the bone jutting from her lower ribs. His eyes raked up and down her body, searching for more injuries, but he saw nothing beyond an assortment of fading bruises. Bursts of glittering amethyst swirled about his hands, and her rib crunched into place at the same time her knee gave a wet pop as it reset itself, shredded tendons and muscle stitching back together in an instant.
Her hands locked onto Ethan’s face, her nails digging in just a hair shy of painful, and she pulled him into the softest lips and sweetest mouth he would never get used to. The kiss was fast, heated, and over far too soon, but it was everything Ethan needed to feel rejuvenated.
Releasing her grip as their lips separated, she whispered, “You’re incredible.” Then she leapt to her feet and returned to the fray.
It took an almost embarrassingly long moment for Ethan to clear his mind and spin around to reorient on the chaos behind him.
