Minutes pass. Each one an eternity. I count her heartbeats. Count her breaths. Watch the dark veins crawling toward her face and will them to stop.
Please.The word is foreign to me. I don’t pray. Don’t beg. Haven’t in centuries.Please.
The dark veins stop spreading. Start to recede. Color returns to her cheeks—slowly, painfully slowly, but returning.
I sink to my knees beside the couch. Press my forehead to the cushion near her hip. Try to remember how to breathe.
She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s?—
“Drayke?”
Her voice is weak. Thready. But it’s her voice, and my chest cracks open at the sound.
I lift my head. Find her watching me with those gray eyes—still glassy, still unfocused, but open. Alive.
“You stayed.” She sounds surprised.
“Where else would I go?”
“Don’t know.” Her hand moves. Finds mine. Holds on with strength that shouldn’t be possible given what she’s just survived. “You usually run.”
The accusation lands. It’s deserved.
“Not this time.” I turn my hand over, lace my fingers through hers. Her skin is still too cold, but her grip is firm. “Not anymore.”
She sleeps for hours.
I don’t leave her side. Don’t let go of her hand. The dragon paces inside me, restless and guilty, replaying the attack over and over. Every moment I was too slow. Every second I failed to protect her.
She killed a rogue with her bare hands. Incinerated him with fire that rivaled my own.
And it nearly cost her everything.
When she wakes again, the sun has set. The cabin is dark except for the fire I’ve built in the hearth—real fire, not dragon flame, though I had to remind myself of the difference.
I’ve cleaned her wounds while she slept. Applied salves that will speed the healing. Changed her into a clean shirt from the dresser—an act that required every ounce of control I possessed, keeping my eyes averted, my touch clinical despite the dragon’s howling protests.
She’s my mate. Injured. Vulnerable. And I had to undress her to tend her wounds.
The dragon wanted to wrap her in my arms and never let go. I settled for clean bandages and a blanket.
“Water?” Her voice is stronger now. Rough with sleep, but stronger.
I have a glass ready. Help her sit up, hold it to her lips while she drinks. The wounds on her shoulder have closed—the antidote working faster than I’d dared hope—but dark scars remain. Marks that may never fully fade.
She’ll carry those scars for the rest of her life. Because of me. Because I wasn’t fast enough.
“Stop.” Her hand covers mine on the glass. “I can hear you blaming yourself from here.”
“I should have?—”
“You should have what? Been in two places at once?” She takes the glass from my hand, sets it aside. “There were two of them, Drayke. You were fighting one while the other came after me. That’s not failure. That’s math.”
“You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.” She holds up her hand, and a small flame dances to life on her fingertip. “I burned him to ash. With my bare hands. That’s... that’s insane, right? That actually happened?”
“It happened.”
