Page 31

Jaz

Xandros flung his still transforming body over mine, and I clung to him. Powerful arms scooped me against a chest that had sprouted scales. The wind screamed and all I could hear was splintering wood and the sound of the building ripping apart around us.

He grunted as debris slammed into him. All of a sudden, something huge hit him hard, carrying us sideways. Holding me with one arm, Xandros sank his talons into the floor. They dragged along, tearing parallel rents in the concrete.

Then, as quickly as the violent wind was on us, it was gone. Still gusting though, the rain drove hard, but Xandros’s dragon easily held against it. His wings were mantled over us, shielding me from the settling debris.

“What was that?” I gasped.

“Tornado,” he replied.

I squirmed. “Put me down.”

He set me on my feet, and I blinked in astonishment—the warehouse was mostly gone, only the corner where our fire had been was still standing, along with a bit of the roof overhead.

We stood on the crumbling concrete floor, surrounded by debris scattered everywhere I looked-—shattered trees and branches, bits of wall and metal, and odd pieces of crate.

I spotted our salvaged wing thrown up against an uprooted tree—with the cut sections a small distance away. At least they had survived.

Amazingly, as I squinted into the rain, I saw that the storage building that the pack lived in still stood. The tornado had torn us apart, and left that alone.

A crackling sounded above the wind—I turned to see a flame showing.

For a panicked moment, I thought lightning had started a fire—but I realized it was the one we’d built.

Sheltered in the concrete walled corner, it had withstood the wind and rain.

An evergreen branch had fallen into it, and now the needles were aflame.

Xandros exhaled, and I heard his breath hitch. I turned to look at him, the first tickle of worry niggling at me. “Are you all right?”

“I will be fine.”

That wasn’t the right answer. His beast was enormous and powerful, a darker shadow amid other dark shadows, and the driving rain dripped off him—but something darker dripped onto the ground. It looked black, but I was pretty sure it was blood.

“You’re hurt,” I exclaimed, my heart squeezing painfully.

“Ribs,” he admitted. “Got hit by a wall.”

“You’re bleeding, too.” True panic coursed through me as I reached out to him, but he took a step away.

“That would be from my wing.”

“Let me see,” I insisted. I peered upward—the graceful lines of one wing were horribly distorted.

I took a step closer, but he pulled away again. “I will shift form,” he said. “That will mend the bones.”

I stared. “Shifting heals bone?”

“Yes.” He pulled his lips back from his impressive teeth. “The process hurts, though. The membrane tear is problematic. Soft tissue tends to get worse, not better.”

I swallowed. We had no way to heal that. How did one heal a wounded dragon ?

Could he bleed to death?

“I will be back.” He started to turn away.

“No!” I almost shouted it. “Stay here.” I didn’t want him to leave. Wounded animals crawled off to die—how badly was he hurt? Would he tell me if it was bad?

“This will be unpleasant,” he winced, his breath hissing through gritted teeth.

The rain dripped over his scales and plastered my hair to my scalp. “Do you think I care about that? If I can help, I will.”

“There is nothing you can do.”

“Stay,” I pleaded.

He hesitated. A moment later, the bones began to shift beneath his skin.

I don’t know what I had expected—but when his head snapped back, and his jaw shook with the effort of holding in his screams, I thought my heart was going to tear into small pieces.

His entire body trembled with pain, his talons sank into the concrete floor, before falling away, as his human fingers emerged from the dragon.

He did scream when the bones of his wings realigned. A hoarse, strangled sound that brought tears to my eyes. He collapsed to his knees, and then, forward onto his hands as the wing bones settled into a familiar pattern.

I found myself kneeling beside him in the rain, my hands wrapped around his arm. He was trembling. I would have done anything to spare him that pain.

Anything to keep him alive.

The realization hit me like a freight train, shredding the perception of my future, and what I really wanted for it. It came apart so easily—it clearly had been, at best, a patchwork project.

It was as though the hand of Fate had reached out, and touched me. Or rather, given me a hard slap up the back of the head.

Perhaps it had.

I swallowed, and found my voice, albeit a hoarse rendition of it. “Turn a bit this way.” I tugged on his arm .

He shot me a look, but he moved, shuffling sideways on his knees. In the firelight’s fitful and too distant glow, I saw how the wing membrane had been torn. Blood pulsed from it, mixing with water on the broken concrete. I so desperately wanted to heal him. If only I had a regenerator…

I didn’t have that. But we did have the laser cutters.

“Stay here,” I said.

“No problem,” he grated.

Casting my eyes amid the debris. My backpack had been near the fire—I started moving branches around, and eventually found it about thirty feet from where I’d left it.

I approached Xandros with the cutter in hand.

He raised his head to eye me warily. “What are you planning to do with that?” His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“It can cauterize the wound,” I said.

“It is a cutter ,” he pointed out.

“It is a laser. At a low setting, it should work.”

“It is the ‘should’ in that comment that brings me worry.”

“You’re losing a lot of blood. We have to get that stopped.”

“I have a lot of blood. I will be good.”

“Xandros.” I let the faintest aura of command into my voice.

He sighed. “Do what you must. Just do not cut my wing off. We need it to get back.”

“Come closer to the fire, so I can see better.”

“Again, not reassuring.” He tried to stand, and failed on the first attempt.

I slid under his arm to help him. His entire body trembled, and I pushed back on my panic. “You’re not in any shape to fly.”

“The bones will not take long to heal,” he said. “In an hour, I can shift again.”

I figured an hour, Xandros time, was likely at least two in reality. And unless we got the bleeding stopped…

He leaned heavily on me as we staggered toward the fire. Everywhere I put my hands, he flinched.

“That’s one hell of a healing process you’ve got there,” I said.

“Agreed,” he groaned as I lowered him beside the fire.

“Nothing hurts like, how do you say it, fucking bone. I would rather stick hot pokers beneath my talons.” He spoke with an uneasy mixture of Primal and English.

His trembling had started to resemble shivering, and his skin sizzled beneath my hands, like he had a fever.

“You’re so hot.”

He wrapped his arms around his body. “My body temperature rises as part of the healing. We don’t sweat, we just radiate heat—wings and talons, mostly, but when we’re hurt, skin too.”

I’d once broken a finger playing a silly ball game. The resetting of the bone had been excruciating. I couldn’t imagine how painful healing his ribs and wing had been.

I pushed the tree branch so that it would burn without jeopardizing anything else.

The flames flared, and the blood from his wing gleamed in the firelight.

I had him sit with his back to the heat as I leaned over him to examine the membrane.

It was torn in the center, and a large vessel running through it bled like mad.

When I wrapped my fingers around the wing bone, a shudder ran through him.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Do it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. The wings—they are sensitive.”

I lifted the cutter, and turned the dial to its lowest setting. Then I aimed with care, and ran the laser beam along the artery.

Smoke rose from the wound, and he hissed in pain, but the blood slowed as the laser sealed the vessel. It was working, just needed a minor tweak?—

It took a few minutes to ensure the wound was properly cauterized. By then, there was a substantial pool lying on the concrete, but I’d managed to stop the bleeding. Relief flooded through me—I felt almost giddy.

I helped him away from the puddle and pulled a shattered crate away to clear a spot for him. The tear itself would have to wait for us to get back. “Can you fly with this?” I asked.

“Yes.” His voice was a hoarse growl. “Once my wings expand, it will be fine.”

I ran my fingers along the membrane to check that the bleeding had actually stopped. He gasped, and the wing twitched beneath my hand. When I moved my fingers to the bone, he shuddered again.

My heart did a funny little jump, and unexpected heat flooded through me. “They certainly are sensitive,” I murmured.

He inhaled, hard. “If you keep touching them like that, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.”

The desperate undercurrent to his words had me pulling my hand away. He’d tucked his legs up and had his arms wrapped around them, and I could see how badly they now shook.

I took off my cloak. It was far too small for him to wear, but I tucked its warm folds around him. Then I turned to shove more debris onto the fire, which had started to burn with vigor.

I settled beside him, hunkering close to bring him my warmth. There was enough of a roof left overhead to keep the worst of the rain off us, except for the occasional gust.

He inhaled again, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “Go to the other side of the fire,” he said. And then he added, “Please.”

I pulled one flap of the cloak over me. “You aren’t in any shape to try any funny business.”

“You—you are hard to resist,” he rumbled.

He turned his head, and suddenly I was drowning in his sapphire gaze.

I think I stopped breathing.

“Are you ensnaring me with your Drake wiles?” I whispered.

“You told Zyair,” he rasped, “that you do not wish to be ensnared.” He blinked, and turned his head away.