I don’t give them any warning, gliding in from behind on silent wings. Only when my shadow engulfs the gathering crowd do they turn away from gawking at the cliff above, screaming and scrambling under the cover of the trees. Inhaling my first full breath in days, I embrace the fury burning low in my gut and exhale a steady stream of fire at the base of the cliff. After one pass, I carve out another, widening the wall of flames to keep the gawking humans at bay and use the thick smoke to hide her from prying eyes.
Their screams are lost on the wind as I break through the smoke to land on the cliff. A momentary surge of panic rips a snarl from my chest, head whipping to the side in search of her. But a small, familiar cry pulls my attention fifty feet away, where Avery’s flitting worriedly above a rocky outcropping. Rushing over, I round the pile of rubble, my newfound oxygen burned from my lungs as I find a lithe, golden dragon lying in the dirt. She’s more blood than dragon at this point, and completely still.
A distressed rumble builds in my throat that has her eyes snapping open, and I thank every god that will listen as I close the distance between us. Her head whips up suddenly, teeth bared and a feral warning vibrating the pebbles surrounding my feet. Pausing in my tracks, all of the rage driving my instincts up to now goes out like a doused flame, and I shift back in an instant.
“Easy, beautiful, it’s only me.”
But it’s like she doesn’t even recognize me, growling another warning. The fine hairs on my arms stand on end as the air builds with a subtle, static charge, like the calm before the storm.
“Ssh, it’s alright, dragonfly. I’m not going to hurt you. You know me, remember? Raiden.”
A bolt of lightning strikes the ground a foot away from me, the heat of it scalding even to me. Rubbing a hand over my twinging leg, I look back at her in surprise, only to find her narrowed glare staring right back at me with a hard gleam in her golden eyes, yet she still hasn’t gotten to her feet.
It’s not that she doesn’t recognize me,I realize desolately.
She does, but her dragon is in the driver’s seat, and she’spissed. Why wouldn’t she be? Her mates didn’t protect her.Shesaved Amara.
“I know,mo chuisle. I hate myself, too, and you can eviscerate me later. But right now I need to see where you’re hurt so I can help you, alright?”
Waiting until she lowers her head, I slowly close the distance between us despite every instinct raging against me to scoop her up and make a beeline for the nearest hospital. Turning to Avery, I bark, “Find Stone and Kodiak; bring them here.”
She hesitates, and it’s yet another blow to the gut. A second look reveals an abundance of blood on her speckled feathers, most of the white obscured. By how steadily she’s flying, though, I assume it’s Amara’s. Whatever the two of them went through at that madman’s hands, it shifted Avery’s loyalties over to my mate. It’s only when Amara releases a shuddering breath and winces that Avery takes off like the bats of Hell are nipping at her heels.
As she fades into a small speck in the distance, I stroke a hand down the side of Amara’s neck, pausing at every bloody gouge, gently tracing beside them and committing each to memory. Every wound she endured that’s completely our fault for failing to protect her.
“I’m so sorry, angel.”
Smoothing a hand down her side in a slow inspection, I pause at the sudden warmth. My palm comes away wet with fresh blood, and I growl involuntarily. A sharp pain makes me wrench my hand away, blue static dancing across her golden scales, flakes of dried blood chipping off and falling around us like morbid dust.
“Can you stand up so I can see your stomach, gorgeous? You’re still bleeding pretty badly, and I need to see what’s going on to fix it.”
A low warning sound rumbles throughout her chest, but she reluctantly gets her feet under her after a few attempts, pushing upright on trembling legs. The ground was clearly putting pressure on the wound since a new rush of blood streams out steadily, adding to the pool she was concealing beneath her.
Panic flares in my chest as I duck my head and slip beneath her. If I can’t get it to stop before Avery returns with Stone, whether it makes her hate me or not, I’m going to have to shift and physically drag her to the nearest hospital and threaten a doctor to stitch her up.
“The pressure as she was laying down should have been enough to give her healing a chance to kick in,” I murmur to myself, gently running my fingers over her scales to wade through the blood and assess how severe the wound actually is.
Unless she doesn’t have accelerated healing anymore.
Moving my efforts lower, I run my palms across the larger, smooth scales of her stomach, relying on touch since visibility is damn near zero in her shadow and with blood still pouring out everywhere. It’s tiny, but there’s a small bump, and when I stroke my thumb across it again, she doesn’t make any indication that it hurts her. Wiping away as much of the blood and dirt as I can, I trace the outline of the gem Stone gifted her, the scales forming around it and overlapping the metal pierced through her belly button to hold it in place.
My relief is short-lived as she redistributes her weight on trembling legs, sending another flood of fresh blood slithering down her body and into the growing puddle beneath her. The ground is too hard to absorb it quickly, nearly swallowing my feet up to my ankles as I return to the wound, one theory knocked off the list. If she still has the stone helping amplify her abilities, then it’s either the wound is so severe that even advanced healing can’t keep up, or there’s somethingpreventingit from closing.
“This is going to hurt, love, but I promise to be quick.”
Preparing to be crushed or electrocuted at any second, I find the edge of the gash, slip a finger inside, and run the length of it as swiftly and gently as possible.
A godsawful sound assaults my eardrums, and she dips a few inches as her legs threaten to give out, but she keeps herself from crushing me. My momentum grinds to a halt as I bump into something hard, and I blow out a heavy breath of relief. At the same time, I’m sick to my stomach over causing her any more pain, but there’s really no option.
I’ll take her rage as my penance, so long as she’s alive to hate me.
Bracing one hand against her stomach, I force my thumb in next. Once I have the object carefully pinched between my fingers, I close my eyes to concentrate, extending my claws. It’s too slippery to expect any form of grip, and I want this over with as swiftly and painlessly as possible. With a little effort, I manage to embed the tips of my talons into it and pull it out as carefully as possible, keeping up a steady stream of nonsensical praise all the while.
A small eternity later, I’ve extracted it and slide out from beneath her. She collapses heavily to the ground, chest heaving, and I stroke the side of her neck, turning my bloodied hand in the light to inspect the object pinched between my fingers.
“That motherfucking-” I bite my tongue as she releases a weak snarl, squeezing my eyes shut and taking a few deep breaths before glaring down at my hand.
That son of a bitch tried totear her apart. Slashed her so deep that one of his talons broke off in her stomach.
