Free The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) by E.C. Jarvis

people a little farther out—Friar Narry
and Sandy—and her heart thumped a little harder at seeing them. Perhaps
everyone had escaped the brig. Still, she didn’t stop until she reached the
Admiral.
    “Admiral,” she called.
The body swung as the two Marines carried him along; his chest was mottled with
blood, a great gash leading up to his neck. “Stop. I can heal him,” she yelled
to the two men carrying him.
    “Get away, you witch.” The
man carrying the Admiral’s legs let go and swung his fist across her face,
punching her with enough force to send her straight back down into the mud.
    She shook it off, the
pain lasting only a moment, and as she turned over, she saw Holt flying over
her legs and launching into the Marine with full force. The two men punched and
wrestled with one another as the man carrying the Admiral’s arms let go,
dropping him to the ground to go join in the fight.
    Larissa’s eyes rolled.
All around, she noticed small groups of people fighting. Marines battled
pirates who had emerged from their own fallen ships. Swords clashed, pistols
fired, bodies grappled in the mud. Utter chaos descended around the burning
wreckage.
    She crawled forward,
ignoring Holt, who seemed perfectly capable of fighting two men on his own,
presumably still fueled with strength from the Anthonium shot. While she
knew he wouldn’t last long at such a pace, she intended to take advantage of
the distraction.
    Admiral Vries was on
the verge of death, blood pouring from his wounds. The rise and fall of his
chest as he took final breaths seemed laboured. Larissa began with the biggest
wound on his neck, unsure if she still had the strength to heal such a cut
after healing both herself and Holt. The headache blooming across her forehead
pulsated angrily as soon as she reached out to him, but she refused to give up.
Fingers spread across his neck, her hands grew slick with sickly hot blood, and
she struggled to maintain her grip. She concentrated on the slash, visualising
knotting the muscle back together, invisible stitches forming in her mind, heat
cauterising flesh piece by piece. Slowly but surely, the wound healed under her
touch, though it took longer than expected.
    Sounds of fists
smashing into flesh and bone, swords clashing, and pistol shot faded into
background static. Though Larissa was vaguely aware of Holt nearby grappling
with someone, she didn’t dare stop to look up.
    Finally, the Admiral
opened his eyes and looked directly at her, his face a pale shade of grey. “My
men…will you do the same for them?” he asked, his voice gravelly and shaking.
    Larissa looked up. Holt
had knocked one of the Marines to his knees, though the fight with the other
had turned into a larger brawl of men fighting to the point where it almost
looked as though Holt and the Marine were working together against a group of
pirates.
    Two pairs of boots
landed in the mud beside her, and a body slumped down, a man doubled up and
groaning. Larissa noticed the problem right away. He had a large wound bleeding
down his back and clutched at his chest; he’d been shot. She grabbed hold of
the man, barely thinking about what she was doing as she placed one hand over
the exit wound and battled at his hands clutching the entry point. When he
finally gave in and let go, she set to work.
    By the time she had
finished healing one Marine, she looked around to see a group of other bodies
in varying states of distress piling up around her. Vries was up on his knees,
and had stripped off his shirt, ripping it to pieces as he tried to tie strips
around wounded arms and legs of the Marines nearby.
    “Go on, heal them,” he
yelled to her.
    “I can’t heal them
all.”
    “Do what you can,
please.”
    Holt was nowhere to be
seen. She had wanted to save Vries—felt the need to save him for some reason—but
now she just wanted to leave. The flaming canopy disintegrated entirely, though
the ferocious heat from the fire now spreading throughout