Selene opened her eyes to see the inside of a covered wagon. Her head pounded and her eyes stung as she looked around. A cloak covered her body like a blanket, a dark gray one that smelled like Aiden even though she didn't see him anywhere. She was laying on something soft, something that felt like a mattress. She tried to sit up slowly but the world began to spin, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited a moment before opening them again.

She indeed was in the back of a covered wagon, laying on a large mattress like pillow that had been stuffed with duck feathers. She knew they were duck only by the several that were stuck in her hair.

As she reached up to pull them out, she felt a makeshift bandage made of torn cloth. In fact, she had been wrapped in that cloth in several places, her torso where the demon's talons had punctured and her leg where it had ravaged her.

She pulled the cloak away from her body to look at the wounds but was instead stopped dead in her tracks.

She blinked several times as she looked at herself, nothing but herself. Save for the bandages, she was stark naked.

"Aiden?" she rasped out.

The wagon almost immediately pulled to a stop and Aiden's head popped up from the driver's seat. He looked much angrier than she thought he would. She suddenly felt very awkward that he stared at her with a burning fury while she was naked save for some bandages and a cloak that didn't belong to her.

He climbed over the seat and into the bed of the wagon and kneeled next to her.

"Lean forward," he snapped.

Wide-eyed, she did as he said and leaned towards him. His face made it seem like he was going to hit her and for a moment, she braced for the impact. However, all he did was gently adjust the bandage around her head and pull the feathers from her hair.

When he sat back on his feet, Selene leaned away and waited for him to speak again. But he didn't, he just looked at her angrily.

"What?" she said, her face as red as a tomato. He should know not to stare at a woman when she was naked.

"I'm waiting," he responded.

"For what?"

"For you to tell me what the hell that was," he said as he gestured to the road behind them.

By instinct, and because she wanted to look anywhere but at his face, she followed his hand to stare out the back of the wagon as if she were looking for something. She turned back to find him pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Why did you attack it? We could've snuck away quietly and had no worries of the king or his other demons knowing where we were. If they have some sort of communication, you've just let them all know where we are."

"If I had let it live, it would have gone on to kill dozens, maybe hundreds of people. I couldn't let that happen," she said quietly.

He sighed, "Look, I understand that you want to keep as many people safe as possible, but you're valuable, Selene. You can't just sacrifice yourself every time there's danger."

She couldn't meet his eyes. It was almost as if he knew.

"Look at me," he said, but she didn't move.

"Talk to me," he pleaded.

"I'm not valuable," she started.

"What are you talking about? Of course, you are."

"No. I'm not. My magic is. But me? If I didn't have this power, you'd have left me long ago," she said.

She knew that wasn't true. She had never thought that. One of the things Cyan taught her about magic was that it manifested differently in each person. The Moonfire wouldn't exist without her. But she said it because it was what she thought of herself, Moonfire or no. Thanks to losing so much blood, and hitting the surface of that lake at fast as a sprinting horse, she still couldn't think straight.

Arms came around her then. Big arms that wrapped around her entire body and closed her in. She turned her head as he pulled her into a crushing hug. She sat stunned for a moment, forgetting the fact that she was utterly naked, her hands wrapped in his cloak.

"Don't ever say that again," he whispered next to her ear.

Slowly, her hands relaxed and she let herself reach around him to hug him back, "I'm sorry."

"Angel's mercy... I saw that thing grab you and lift you away, and I was so scared that I had lost you," He pulled them apart and looked her straight in the eye with a firmness she had only seen in mothers, "Never, ever do that again."

She nodded and looked down at the floor, feeling as if she was being scolded for climbing up too high in a tree.

"Um... Whose wagon is this?" she asked.

Aiden leaned back against the wall against the driver's seat and rubbed at his face, "I got it from an old man who was making his way down the road."

"You didn't steal it did you?"

"No!" he said, "I offered him money to take us as far south as possible but one look at you, the naked, bloodied, girl who was soaked from head to toe and he gave the whole thing to me, even the horse."

She put her face in her hands, "Oh heavens, an old man saw me naked?"

Aiden snorted, "No, I had wrapped you up in my cloak before that."

She swallowed, "Where are my clothes?"

He reached across her legs and grabbed at her pack. He brought it closer to himself and dug through it until he pulled out her dragger and the belt it was attached to.

"This was the only thing on you when I found you on the shore. You tell me where your clothes went."

She thought back to when the bat had bitten into her leg. As a last resort, she had set herself and the bat on fire. Her clothes must have been burned away in the process.

"I had to use your other shirt to stop your bleeding, but don't worry," he said, "apparently there's a small village around less than an hour away. I'll find someone who can give us some spares. You'll just have to sit tight back here until then."

And so they went, Selene hidden in the bed while Aiden steered the horse towards town.

As they traveled, she pulled the cloak away to reveal her leg and, as gently as she could, unwound the dirty cloth. When she saw the wound, she had no idea how she wasn't feeling any pain.

The demon's bite had completely destroyed her leg. The skin had been ripped away, revealing torn muscle beneath it. At the place it originally bit her was four holes that went all the way to her bone. She couldn't move it at all, and as she tried, the exposed muscles twitched and convulsed.

By normal methods, this would never heal. It would've been amputated, and she'd be cripple for the rest of her life. Perhaps that's why Aiden hadn't mentioned how terrible it was.

There was one type of ability she hadn't tried out yet with her raw magic. Healing.

Closing her eyes, she delved into the immense power she'd been pouring into her tattoo. even after the battle, she still had enough energy left to fight three more times. Her body, however, would refuse.

As she pulled out that magic, she directed it into her leg and slowly, she felt it begin to itch. Opening an eye, she watched as the muscles snapped back together, the holes closed, and the skin regrow. The entire process took around three minutes and she was exhausted after it.

It seemed that she was able to heal any type of wound as long as she had the energy needed by the human body to heal it. It was like she was just speeding up the process. She could tell by the scars that were left over where the four holes had been. If it had been real healing magic, they would've been gone too.

After she'd finished, she felt completely drained and decided to sleep. There was nothing else she could do right now. So she laid back down, pulled Aiden's cloak up to her nose, and drifted off wrapped in the scent of firewood and pine.