Kayden woke from his sleep like clockwork and his body protested immediately. Pain. Shoulder, strong but blunt. Thigh, sharp, bearable. Ribs, just a dull ache. Headache. Possible dehydration. He’d live.

  Slowly, he climbed out of bed and stretched to get his body moving again. Only when his muscles didn’t scream at him in protest, he reached for his clothes to dress and, just to be safe, he strapped his sword around his waist. Just because they were in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t mean there weren’t demons around.

  Water. He needed to drink to get rid of the headache.

  Stepping into the corridor, he caught sight of Kieran entering Todd’s cabin. He motioned to his brother to hurry because they needed to take over. Kieran nodded and closed the door behind him.

  Arelyn’s door was open. He frowned. She should be sleeping like the rest of the passengers.

  He walked over and leaned on the doorframe when he saw she was awake.

  “Is there a reason you can’t sleep?”

  Arelyn gave him an assessing look, starting at his feet and working her way up. Finally, she said, “I didn’t want you to be disturbed so I stayed up. I’ll sleep while you take your shift.”

  “I appreciate your kindness.”

  Another unreadable look from her and she continued, “I told Kathy, the owl shifter, I’d pass on her report. There’s water not too far away but it might be a little difficult for some to get to it. I have a plan,” she waved at her bed and he noticed the map there, “and hopefully Kieran is up for helping me with it. After your shift that is.” Lyn yawned. “I’m going to sleep now. Thank you for keeping us safe, Kayden.”

  He nodded. “Thank you. Good night, Arelyn.”

  The rest of the night was eventless, and the first rays of the sun rose, Kayden went to work on the tracks. It was better to use brute force and all the power of his fire now that everyone was sleeping. He could bark out orders later, leave the more precise work to those who actually understood what they were doing.

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  The iron glowed orange when he pulled his hands away and reached for the large clamp to move it back to its place. Then came the other end. Once it was aligned, he released another bolt of flames to heat it again, then came the hammering. Using water would help cool the metal more effectively, but they needed all the remaining water, and the tracks would still work this way.

  With one side done, he went to drink some water and give orders to get the water from the oasis to the train. Hopefully Arelyn had been right and there were enough water wielders to do it.

  When everyone got back to work, Liam joined him, helping with his own fire. His clothes were soaked with his own sweat, his shoulder was killing him and his wounds bled by the time he finished, but it was done. As soon as the engineers fixed the locomotive, and the water tank was filled, they could leave.

  Kayden limped back to his cabin, cleaned himself and tended to his injuries. Thankfully, Arelyn wasn’t back yet to give him her worried looks. He’d rest in the evening and ask Kieran to heal him in a day or two. Until then, he should be fine.

  With nothing else to do, he saddled Thunder and took her for a ride, checking on the water wielders to see how things were going. It was magical from a distance, how the giant bubble of water moved above their heads. As he got closer, he noticed that Kieran and Arelyn were the ones doing the heavy lifting and the others basically just made sure the bubble wouldn’t fall apart. Sure, all of them were sweating, and doing their best, but the weight of the water and the magic lay on the two of them.

  To make sure he didn’t disturb them, Kayden turned Thunder around and galloped back to the train to check how things were going there.

  “What’s the status?”

  The engineer wiped sweat from his forehead. “We’ll be ready to leave tomorrow, Your Highness.”

  “Perfect. Anything you need?”

  He shook his head. “It’s just a lot of tiny things. Thank you, King Lionheart.”

  Kayden nodded and took Thunder back with the other horses before returning to his cabin to wait for Lyn. After the events of the past twenty-four hours, he wanted a relaxing dinner with her. Alone. Roll his eyes at her chatter, complain about how annoying she was. And see if he could kiss her again. He needed to know if that passion was there, even when they weren’t in danger. He needed to know how her skin felt under his fingers, and how her moans sounded. He needed to get Arelyn out of his system before he developed feelings.