Dragon Soul (Dragon Falls, #3)(83)

“Where’s Mrs. P?” He leaped on the back of a demon that had the poor judgment to run too close, sending them both crashing to the ground, whereupon he pounded the man’s head into the floor until he went limp.

The bow sang twice in quick succession. “May is protecting her. Damn. I’m out of arrows.”

Rowan picked up a chair and walloped a demon with it, sending him tumbling over the rail. “Go help her. This is no place for you.”

“Ha! I’ve killed more demons that you. I just need more arrows…”

“Go away,” Rowan roared, hefting the table, and using it to bash two more demons against the wall.

“Why? I’m holding my own.” She pulled out a tactical combat knife, and with a yell, stabbed it into the ankles of the two demons he’d just downed, severing their Achilles tendons. One of the demons slashed out with a sword, just catching the outer edge of her arm.

Blood rolled down her arm, causing her to gasp in pain. Rowan screamed an oath and lunged at the demon, twisting its head until the neck snapped. “Get below!” he ordered, his voice an unrecognizable snarl. “You’re not safe here.”

“I’m fine. I just didn’t realize he wasn’t as hurt as I thought he was.” She glanced behind him, looked around, and plucked her bow from her back, swinging it like a club. It connected with the head of a demon with an ugly noise. The demon dropped.

“Just do what I say!”

“Look, I’m helping,” she argued. “Give me one good reason why I should leave when I’m taking down demons.”

“Because I love you, damn you!” he bellowed, slamming together two demons with a force he had no idea he possessed. Both fell to the floor with a whump, black demon blood making the deck slippery. “I couldn’t live if you were killed, all right? Take yourself off now so that later I can peel those shorts off you and caress the glorious globes of your ass, and your breasts, and lick every inch of—”

A demon threw itself on his back, sending him careening forward. He twisted in an attempt to get the demon off, feeling the sting of metal against his flesh as the demon tried to cut his throat, but before he could break the man’s arm, Sophea stabbed her blade into the man’s wrist, causing the demon to howl and drop his sword.

Rowan flipped him to the deck, stood with his foot on the demon’s hand, and said, “Tell your master that his tricks are useless,” before snatching the knife from the wrist and jamming it into the demon’s heart.

Sophea stood next to him, panting. Rowan turned to locate the next demon, and beheld a deck scattered with black blood and bodies. At the far end, the captain was wiping his scimitar on the shirt of one of the dead demons. Two more, their bodies broken, tried to crawl to their weapons, but Gabriel kicked them overboard, and then tossed the demons after them.

Rowan caught sight of the blood on Sophea’s arm and was instantly filled with rage anew. How dare someone harm his mate? He snatched up a napkin from one of the destroyed tables and tied it around her wound. “We will find the ship’s doctor. He must see to your hurt.”

“My what? The scratch?” She shook her head and pulled the napkin from her arm in order to use it to press to his neck. “That’s nothing compared to you. Sit down. You’re losing a lot of blood, and I don’t want you to get excited or you’ll just bleed more heavily. Can you do that healing thing? Gabriel?”

Sophea strong-armed him into a chair that was still standing. “I’m fine,” he protested. “Stop fussing over me and let me attend to your injury.”

“Someone’s hurt?” Gabriel asked, his eyes widening a little when he saw the front of Rowan’s shirt. Rowan glanced down. It was soaked red, from his collar to his belt. “Ah. Just so. If you will let me examine it, Sophea—I am a healer.”

“Are you? Like a doctor?”

“Like a doctor,” Gabriel agreed, taking the napkin from her. He examined Rowan’s neck. “This isn’t too bad, although you got off lucky there. He missed your jugular. You should be able to close the wound yourself, but if it gives you trouble, let me know and I can put a little healing salve on it.”

“I’ll be fine,” Rowan protested again. Sophea was making little worried noises when Gabriel stood up. “Check her arm. She was cut.”

“Scratched,” Sophea corrected him, but she suffered Gabriel to look at the wound. Amusement filled his eyes as he gravely pronounced that Sophea would suffer no ill effect from the injury.

“See? Now you sit right there and concentrate on that wound,” Sophea said, and gave a little shout of annoyance when he started to get up. She plopped herself down on his lap. “You annoying dragon man! Sit here and heal!”

He looked at where her breasts swelled enticingly beneath her tight shirt, and felt an answering swelling in his trousers. “There’s no way I can possibly concentrate on my neck with you sitting there tempting me into doing things that I doubt you want me doing in public.”

“Oh. Good point. Sitting on you makes me want to kiss you and touch you and nibble on your ears, and… and… yeah. Point taken.”

She got up just as the captain strolled past them, pausing to raise an eyebrow at Rowan. “Do you need assistance?”

“No. It’s not a deep wound, and it should heal,” he answered.