"It just stings a little, my Queen," Caspian murmured, his hoarse voice dropping into a soft, placating whisper. He leaned his face into her warm palm, completely melting under her touch. "You shouldn't worry too much."
But Roxy was worried. She was incredibly, overwhelmingly worried.
Her eyes meticulously scanned the swelling, purple-and-black bruise blossoming across his sharp cheekbone and the bright, sluggish trail of red blood leaking from his split lip.
If Torian or Zarek had taken that punch, their ferociously potent Alpha biology and the lingering magic of their beasts would have already begun knitting the tissue back together.
In an hour, it would have been nothing more than a faint red mark.
But Caspian wasn't an immortal merman anymore. He had traded his impenetrable abyssal scales and his rapid, magical healing for a fragile, human existence. He was mortal now.
He was exactly like her.
