To my surprise,Liam wasn’t the one who found us. Neither was Sloane. Jess earned that honor. Though based on her mortification at discovering us in a pile of limbs in the dirt, she wished she had skipped her morning run.
“Jess.”I wiggled my arms and legs to flag her down before she made a quick escape. “Thank God.” I was so low on energy after the surge of magic, it was a miracle I was still conscious. “Get Liam.” Moisture streaked from the corners of my eyes. “Tell him to bring an SUV. And Burdock.”
“Um.” She shielded her eyes. “Are you two…?”
Unless dragons had anatomy no one had explained to me, I felt confident us lying in this position—with Rían’s back to my front—wasn’t going to result in any dragon babies, if that’s what she was hinting.
“There was a fire,” I blurted, desperate to get her moving. “Rían threw us into the lake but almost drowned. I got him out, and he collapsed on top of me. He’s okay, I think, but he’s exhausted from the magic exchange. I need Burdock and transportation herenow.”
“Oh.” She dropped her arm and made a determined fist. “I’m on it.”
Within minutes, she returned with Liam. Sloane had come with him, but he sent her to fetch Burdock.
“What did you do?” Liam squawked at me. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you two go off alone.”
Fresh guilt swept through me, and I wanted to hurl. I’d had plenty of time to grasp that my poor control had caused this, and Rían almost died in the process. I was a bad luck charm. No two ways about it.
From the first time we met, after he had been mauled by Mercer in town, resulting in thevampirein the potting shed, our time together had been calamity after calamity until this latest catastrophe struck.
Grunting with the effort, Liam hefted Rían up while I scurried out from under him then laid him on his side. A flurry of activity sprang up around us as Burdock arrived with a few extra helpers. He performed an on-site exam and announced Rían was simply exhausted, and the others descended on him, lifting him and carrying him to an idling SUV, which made it easier for me to fade into the background and then escape.
I cut through the park on the east side and hit the sidewalk, unsure where I ought to go.
The answer came to me when my feet guided me to my house, not Rían’s, and I let myself in. No one was here, but the gaping hole in the floor had been sealed and some type of magic wafted from it. As certain as I had been I would never come back here, I didn’t have a lot of options that didn’t end with Liam flapping his arms like a chicken and pecking at me for his cousin’s sorry state.
Burning through that much magic, then manhandling Rían, had left me empty and wobbly on my feet.
Though I felt none of the old comfort that came from sliding between the sheets on my bed, I still curled in a ball, damp and miserable, and allowed my mind to drift away.
Heat burned through my spine, and a solid weight draped across my waist. I snuggled into the covers and caught a fishy whiff rising off my skin. Determined to ignore it, I shoved my face into my pillow.
The movement prompted a groan to rise behind me, and flipping my eyes open, I glanced down. I could just make out the outline of an arm under the sheet with me. Adrenaline crashing through me, I aimed a mule kick, slammed my elbow back, and screamed bloody murder.
“The fuck,” a muffled voice whined as my strike landed, the mattress dipping.
Already in motion, I leapt to my feet and jumped off the bed, landing in a crouch.
“Who are you?” I swiped the nearest item off the floor and brandished it in front of me, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “What do you want?”
“To not get elbowed in the nose and kicked in the lady nards for starters.” The lump of blankets sagged over the edge, smacking onto the hardwood. “Good thing I don’t want kids.”
“Sloane?”
“What did you expect? You disappeared. Everyone lost their shit. Everyone but me, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Brilliant best friend that I am—” she was on a roll now, “—I shifted and tracked you here. Then I paid a kid to walk his dogs the way I came to muddle the trail.” Her head burst from the twisted fabric, her hair a static halo, and she squinted at me. “What’s with the sandal?”
“Huh?” A quick check of my hand proved I was, in fact, clutching a sandal over my head like a weapon. “That’s beside the point.”
“You just spayed me, so I feel it’s a valid concern.”
“The room is spinning.” I clutched my head, dropping the shoe. “I think I sat up too fast.”
“Probably the lake fumes.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “Those sheets need washing.”
Despite the raging ache in my skull, I had to get it together. “How long was I out?”
