He didn’t pass it to her. “Take off your coat and shirt.”
“Excuse me?” She didn’t need her lioness’s fire to bristle atthat.
The corners of Julian’s mouth turned down. His expression changed, and Francine felt as though she had been struck in the chest. She knew that look: locked down, not letting anything out.
When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper.
“I hurt you. And if you’re not healing—please. Let me help.”
5
Julian
Julian kept perfectly still as he waited for Francine’s response. Holding himself back meant fighting every instinct he had, man and dragon both—but he would not let his instincts win.
Francine stared at him, her eyes like chips of ice. Something moved behind them, gold and fierce, and disappeared just as quickly. She looked away, her cheeks pink.
“Fine.”
She stood and marched through to the plane’s bathroom. Julian followed her, guilt pulsing through his veins.
Scales prickled beneath Julian’s skin as Francine stripped off her coat. Her movements were stiffer than they had been even twenty minutes before, when Julian first realized she was injured.
That he had injured her.
She hissed through gritted teeth as she pulled off her shirt. The soft gray fabric was dark and sticky with blood, and Julian swallowed hard as he saw the cuts his claws had left in her skin.
“I’m sorry.” The words were out before he could stop them. Francine’s head snapped around, and she frowned at him.
“Why? For saving me from an exploding building?” She made a low growling noise in the back of her throat. “I can stand a few cuts if it means not being blown to pieces.”
“I should have been more careful. Especially as you are … not well.”
Francine shivered and turned away, her jaw tight. Julian opened the first aid kit and pulled out a packet of alcohol wipes.
“This may sting,” he warned her, and began to clean around the wounds with careful, gentle strokes.
He’d seen this too often. He was experiencing it himself now, although that seemed less important than the pain of the woman in front of him. When a shifter was badly enough injured, in either their human or animal form, the injured part of themselves would retreat far within and not emerge again until they were healed. If the injuries were severe enough, or lasted long enough, then you got … this. A woman who should have shaken off these scratches in a matter of minutes, still tense with pain even as she tried desperately and uselessly not to acknowledge the injuries.
Of course, Francine Delacourt seemed not to wish to acknowledge a great many things.
A curse sprang to his lips. This woman was his mate. A star from the heavens, plucked by fate to live by his side.
Did she not feel it? The longing for closeness? The leap of attraction whenever their eyes met?
The dread?
He gritted his jaw. That last one, she certainly felt. And she was doing an excellent job of meeting his eyes as little as possible.
He had his own reasons for not acknowledging the mate bond. Whatever Francine’s reasons, he had enough clues to guess it was because she was as damaged as he was.
His own injuries were so deep that acknowledging them would make no difference. Cataloguing them would not make his dragon’s tattered wings or burned flesh heal any quicker. Only time would do that.
And until they were healed, neither he nor his mate would be able to risk shifting into their animal forms.
His dragon was hurt and restless, but it was a different restlessness from the frustrated rage that had ravaged him for the last six months as his own soul sunk deeper and deeper into gray despair. Francine’s skin was warm and soft under his hands, and even though she didn’t make a noise as he cleaned away the dried blood, his dragon’s urge to protect and care for her was so overwhelming, it made his blood hum.
It was the first purely good feeling he’d had from his dragon in a long time.
