Page 99 of Raul

“No! Follow the dragon!” Erica yelled as she felt the boat veer again. “It’s nothing but a few cuts. I’m fine!”

Of course, Dario obeyed his prince, not her.

She grabbed Raul’s shoulders, smothering a gasp at the jab of pain her movement caused. “Tell him to follow the dragon. Don’t let everything we’ve gone through be for nothing.”

“I can’t tell how deep those wounds are,” Raul said, his tone frantic. “Pascal, did you find the first aid kit?”

She cupped his face and pinned him with a glare. “I will be really pissed if that dragon dies.”

And he would feel like he had failed.

“Here,Señor.” Pascal knelt beside them with a white plastic box in his hands. “Perhaps I could take a look at the injury? I’m a trained paramedic.”

Erica didn’t let go of Raul, even though she knew she was showing disrespect to the prince in front of Pascal. “The dragon,” she said.

They locked gazes and wills for what seemed like a long time, the boat still moving in the wrong direction.

Raul wrapped his fingers around her wrists, turned his head to kiss one of her palms, then shouted, “Dario! Can you still see the dragon?”

Erica held her breath as the boat slowed, but Dario said nothing. Pascal stood and scanned the sea around them. “She’s at two o’clock!” he yelled. Once again, the boat began to bounce over the waves.

Relief poured through her, and she sagged against Raul’s chest.“Gracias a Dios,”she murmured.

“You are as stubborn as…” Raul muttered, releasing her hands and turning her so he could examine her side.

“You can finish the insult,” Erica said, giving him a challenging look.

He shook his head. “I meant to say that you are as courageous as a lioness.”

His words sent a ripple of pride through her. She wished her father could hear them. He would be proud too.

Pascal knelt again and pulled supplies out of the first aid kit, but Raul was the one who cleaned the wounds with a stinging antiseptic liquid and smeared antibiotic ointment over them with a featherlight touch.

She gasped when he popped the studs and cuff links out of his tuxedo shirt and shrugged out of it. “What on earth are you¬—?”

Then he ripped off a strip of the fabric. “We need to keep those wounds covered,” he said, ripping another strip.

“Not with your shirt.”

“It’s only fair, considering what I did to your dress,” he said with a quick smile as he folded the rest of the shirt into a neat square.

“You’re going to freeze,” she said. “Take your jacket back.”

“I didn’t dive into the ocean like a demented mermaid, so I’m fine,” he said. “Pascal, will you hold my shirt over the wounds while I tie it on?”

“‘Demented’?” She was trying to ignore the delight of his face being right beside hers as he wrapped a strip of shirt around her rib cage. “I carefully and rationally thought out my actions.”

His cheek brushed hers when he shifted back to secure it. “Then why didn’t you taketwolife vests so you didn’t nearly drown?” She was surprised by the harshness in his voice.

“Too much drag when I swam,” she said. “It was hard enough to pull one behind me.”

He blew out a breath beside her ear. “I lost several years off my life when we couldn’t see you in the waves.”

No point in telling him that she had too.

After tying the strips around her, he sat back on his heels to inspect his handiwork, tugging one knot tighter before he nodded in satisfaction.

Did she ogle the muscles of his bare torso and its snarling dragon just a little? Yeah, she did, but only to distract herself from the sweetness of his tending to her. Unfortunately, Pascal took off his jacket and handed it to his boss.