Page 31 of Crash Landed with My Weredragon

"Marina …"

"Not here," she said. "Not now. Peter's in there, and the Colony just had an earthquake, and there are a hundred things that need my attention. But I said it, and I meant it, and when all those things are handled, I'm coming to find you."

She turned and walked back into the medical bay. Professional, composed, in control. Her hands were shaking. He could see them from the doorway.

Athena emerged a moment later. She leaned against the opposite wall, looked at him, and crossed her arms.

"You look like you've been hit by something," she said.

"Your sister told me she loves me."

"It took her long enough." Athena's dust-covered face held an expression that was simultaneously unsurprised and deeply amused. "I've been watching her fall for you since Ceylara. She moves slower than a glacier on personal things."

"She said she'd come find me."

"Then go somewhere she can find you. And clean up. You smell like fire and rubble." Athena pushed off the wall. "The deep caverns below the main waterfall have warm pools that are geothermal springs. Third tunnel on the left past the secondary junction. Auren told me."

"When did you ask Auren for directions?"

"I didn't ask. He volunteered the information. Loudly. In front of six people. He has no concept of subtlety."

"He's very enthusiastic."

"He's very annoying. There's a difference." She paused at the medical bay door. "Toren, she’s, my sister. She's the only family I have left. If you hurt her, the earthquake will be the least of your problems."

"I understand."

"Good. Third tunnel, left at the junction. The pools are warm. Don't drown." She disappeared back into the medical bay.

Toren stood in the corridor for five more seconds. Then he went to find the warm pools, because Marina had said she was coming to find him, and Athena was right about the shower, and his hearts. Both of them were beating faster than they'd beaten during the earthquake.

CHAPTER 11

*** MARINA ***

She found him three hours later.

Three hours of crisis management, structural assessments, and making sure every human on her team was accounted for and treated. Three hours of being the person everyone needed; calm, competent and in control. Peter was stable, his shoulder was immobilized and the Weredragon healing compound was already working miracles on the laceration. Patel was in the research caverns with Melessra, comparing seismic data with an enthusiasm that bordered on unseemly given the circumstances. Athena was running a security assessment of the guest wing, processing stress the way she always did; through methodical, exhaustive, slightly aggressive competence.

Three hours. Marina had given every one of them to her crew, to the Colony, to the alliance. The next hours belonged to her.

The tunnel was where Athena had described, third on the left past the secondary junction. The stone narrowed as she descended, the walls closer, the air thicker with moisture and warmth. She could hear water, not the thundering cascade of the Colony's main waterfalls, but something gentler. A constant, soft rush that echoed off the stone with a sound like breathing.

The chamber opened around her like a secret being told.

The low ceiling was covered in bioluminescent organisms that glowed a deep, warm gold. They were different from anywhere else in the Colony, richer, softer, like firelight captured in living tissue. Steam rose from three pools carved into the stone floor, each one fed by a thin stream of water that emerged from the rock wall and fell with a musical sound into the heated water below.

Toren was sitting on the edge of the middle pool, his feet in the water, wearing loose Dobromian trousers and nothing else. His rose-gold scales caught the golden light, and the steam softened the edges of his form until he looked like something from the stories he'd told her about. He looked like a figure from Weredragon mythology, carved from stone and given breath.

He looked up when she entered. Surprise, warmth, and then something deeper that he didn't try to hide.

"You found me," he said.

"Athena gave me directions. She also told me to tell you that if you hurt me, the earthquake will be the least of your problems."

"She told me the same thing. I believe her."

"You should. She once broke a man's arm for cutting in line at a coffee shop."