Page 43 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

That claw embedded in him had been a piece of the wraith. Asher was being poisoned with darkness.

Gwen jerked up straight, staring down at the man she still loved, suddenly knowing what she had to do.

Light was the only thing that could make the darkness go away, but she had drained herself of moonlight when she’d lured the wraith away from Asher, and she hadn’t been given an opportunity to absorb more.

This time, the boom came at the same exact time as the flash, and Gwen flinched.

They’re so close. I should wait.

Wait for the storm to at least get farther away before she tried what she was thinking.

She rolled Asher to his back, wincing when he groaned in pain. “Sorry,” she whispered as she laid over the top of him. Yes, putting more pressure on the wound, but the sand would help his back side retain a little heat. Gwen pulled both leaf blankets up over them, and then wrapped herself around him, trying to get as much contact with his torso as possible.

It would be better for them to be skin to skin, but she needed to be ready the second she got a chance to go.

Goosebumps chased across her skin in shivers at the icy feel of his neck against her forehead. His shaking was violent enough to rattle her a bit. Like lying on a giant vibrating bed. His teeth took up chattering, clicking away above her head, but her ear was pressed over his heart, and the beat there was strong. Rapid. Too fast. But strong.

“Hold on just a little bit longer,” she whispered.

The storm outside raged, sending sheets of water into the entrance of their cavern. The booms and flashes crashed into the island over and over in a simultaneous battering that seemed never ending.

Gwen kept her gaze glued on the only way in and out, expecting with every flash to see a shadow figure crawling inside. Coming for them.

She pressed herself to Asher, and continued to listen to his heart, and prayed while she waited for her chance.

“She hates me…” Asher groaned these words like they pained him, his voice a blurred echo inside the cavity of his chest against her ear.

Gwen frowned but didn’t lift her head. He was delirious. Besides…he didn’t necessarily have to be talking about her. They’d been apart a long time. There had to have been other women in his life.

Blinding jealousy, apparently, was like fire in the veins, and she didn’t deserve to feel it, but she did. Even though she’d walked away.

“She hates me,” he muttered. He thrashed his head to the side. “Gwen hates me.” His voice choked around the words as if they were worse than the shadows poisoning his blood. As if that knowledge poisoned his heart. His soul.

“…hates…me…”

Flash. Boom.

Almost like the violence of the storm had struck him directly, Asher took three, rapid, harsh breaths, and then sort of shuddered before going so still, she choked. His body was dead weight under her.

“No,” she growled the word. “You won’t die on me. Not tonight. We have too much ahead of us, and you need to be here for it.”

She tucked her head to his chest, pressing her ear tight to him, and her breath escaped in a pent-up whoosh. His heart was still beating.

But barely.

Asher’s pulse had turned threadbare, almost impossible to hear, his chest barely moving.

The storm was still raging overhead, no further away, but she couldn’t wait. Not any longer.

Asher was going to die if she didn’t try something now.

“Trust me to save you,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m coming right back.”

Gwen threw herself off his body and to her feet and grabbed a weapon Asher had fashioned which lay in the sand by the coconuts. She burst out of their cavern and, unfurling her wings, which immediately turned heavier in the rain, took off into the skies.

Her right wing and back muscles screamed at her for the sudden effort, not fully healed. And between that and the winds and rain knocking her around, she had to push hard. But she would do whatever it took to save Asher.

Keep going.

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