Page 27 of Damien’s Mate

Lion Guard soldiers did not cry from pain. Or from anything. She felt like her father was watching her from the spirit world. Judging.

I can’t finish it yet, Father. I need to rest.

She could almost hear his strong, resonant voice. We rest when the mission is over.

Damien laid her down gently on the bed and pulled the covers up over her. Then he opened the night table drawer and got out a vial and a disposable syringe.

She caught at his arm. “Promise me you’ll take me to the safe house tomorrow.”

“I already promised.” He tore the wrapper off the syringe. “Like I said, if it’s waited twenty years, it can wait another day.” He stopped, eyeing her warily. “Unless… that shit isn’t going to self-destruct in the next twelve hours, is it? Because I’d appreciate a heads-up on that. You may find this hard to believe, but today was not the first time in the last few months that I’ve been stuck in an exploding building.”

That had to be an interesting story. “Seems like a bad habit to get into.”

“I’m trying to break it.” He started filling the syringe. “Do you take a regular human dose?”

She wasn’t really sure of the dosage—Lion Guard soldiers didn’t take painkillers, so her father had never let her take them either. “Better start with that. I might need more later—I metabolize quicker than a human.”

He concentrated on the vial as he pulled the dose into the syringe, and then pumped a drop out of the needle to make sure there were no air bubbles.

He wrapped a rubber tube around her arm and said, “Make a fist.”

She did, watching the veins start to come up on the inside of her elbow.

Damien took her hand again. It was odd and intimate, somehow, them sitting in the small pool of light, his fingers gently probing for the vein. He slid the needle into her arm with barely a pinch, and eased down the plunger.

For a moment she felt nothing. Then the morphine spread through her system like cool water, easing the pain, carrying her away on its current.

Damien removed the needle and pressed down on the injection point with a square of gauze, but the wound was already closing.

He ran his fingers over it. “You’re magic.”

That made her laugh. “Not hardly.” She was just an ordinary Lion Guard soldier.

She raised her hand slightly, the bracelet gleaming in the lamplight. “This is magic. Dragons are magic.”

He stared at her. “Dragons?” he said. “Those artifacts belong to dragons?”

“Of course,” she said. She forgot that she hadn’t actually told him about the Draken.

He shook his head. “I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of magic. Or dragons.”

“They’re beautiful,” she murmured, even though she could barely remember them.

“You’re beautiful,” she thought she heard him say, but that had to be wrong. He stroked a strand of hair back from her face. “Go to sleep,” he whispered.

She felt the white cotton clouds coming for her, and she knew she was going to sink back down into them again.

A little piece of her began to panic. Last time she almost hadn’t made it out.

“Don’t leave me.” She thought she shouted, but it might have been only a murmur. “They’ll smother me. I won’t be able to breathe.”

“You’re okay.” Damien’s voice was warm in her ear. “It’s okay.”

“No. The clouds—I’ll suffocate.” She tried to fight her way out, and the pain threatened to come back.

“You’ll be all right. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She felt him lie down next to her, slowly and carefully. Lila reached for him. Damien. Warm and solid. He wouldn’t let her slip away.