Page 40 of Wildfire Witch

“And you elevated your feet?” I prompted in concern.

“Thighs spread too, while I was at it,” she said sarcastically.

Completely missing that nuance, Rusty rumbled, “Good girl.”

“Ooh. Put that sexy dragon voice away for now. This is serious,” she muttered.

“What’s more serious than making sure my mate is comfortable?” He’d hit a fine balance between dragon and man, and while Nix seemed to appreciate it, I rolled my eyes. He coaxed her into a bit of small talk while I focused more on the road.

Once we were about as close as the road would get us, I found a flat patch of grass to pull off. Leaving Rusty to talk to her with his special voice, I shut off the car and went around the back to retrieve my bag of medical supplies. He got out a moment later and jerked his chin, covering the receiver on the phone. “This is going to be embarrassing and shit, but I know how we’ll get there fastest,” he said.

Minutes later, I was riding on an earthen dragon’s back and holding onto his pants. Good thing I was a Moortide—just in case any unfortunate hikers crossed our path. Rusty was built with a serpentine shape, but layered with muscle and thick scales that transformed him from the sinewy, graceful beasts of legend into a draconic battering ram that ate up the ground between us and Nix. When trees grew too close together for him, he parted the earth between them without breaking stride.

Despite the situation, I clung to one of the ridges on his spine and cracked a stressed smile. Riding a dragon was not something I expected to cross off on my bucket list. Something told me I wouldn’t get another chance to climb on Rusty’s back.

We’d said goodbye to Nix for the moment, and I steered Rusty toward the blinking dot on my phone app. This really was the fastest way to travel, as he was soon saying, “I smell them,” and jerking abruptly to the left. He nearly unseated me in his haste to get to Nix’s side.

He remained shifted and lowered to the ground, letting me use his leg as a staircase to the forest floor. He loomed over Nix in concern, sniffing and nudging her with his blunted snout.

Since it was Ceridor who needed the most medical attention, I reluctantly left her to Rusty and I kneeled by his prone form. The fae was shirtless, his usual icy complexion ashen with blood loss. Haphazard strips of cloth crossed his torso, already soaked through in a crescent pattern of punctures. Patches on his side were blistering and swelling with second-degree burns.

“Fighting a dragon was ballsy, even for you,” I muttered.

Ceridor could be arrogant. Domineering, even. There’d been times I’d regretted being bound to the same woman as him, but that was before meeting the woman he was so obsessed with. As I looked from his unconscious body to Nix, panting and reddened, presumably because of her fire magic, I felt a wave of gratitude.

He’d protected her to the edge of death’s door. Very few men would do such a thing, but he had for her. Because of his actions, we could save both of them.

I laid out the magic-enhanced medical supplies I’d packed for the trip. He would need at least two shots of the advanced healing tonic, and an extra booster for red blood cell production, plus salve for the burns.

Nix got up with Rusty’s help. He’d shifted back and put on his pants, letting her lean on him as she made her way over ever so slowly. They watched me administer the shots first, then clean and re-bandage his wounds with gauze after giving him a thick layer of salve over his burns. I got into the zone of this familiar work too much; it was a surprise to look up and realize she was looking distraught. Teary, with no actual tears.

“He’ll heal, but he may not wake for up to twenty-four hours from now. The tonic I dosed him with will keep him in a type of healing sleep,” I reassured her.

She breathed a sigh of relief and limped forward, going down less than gracefully to fling her arms around my shoulders. “Thank you, Seth,” she said, holding me tight.

I hugged her back, despite feeling I was drawing dangerously close to a furnace. “Of course. Now, it’s time I looked at you.” I wanted to tend to her and make her comfortable.

She shook her head. “I’m just hot and in pain. Once my curse dies down more, you can check for other stuff.”

I ignored her denial and nudged her to sit in the leaf litter across from me. My fingers and eyes roved over her in quick, practiced movements. I was too much of a professional to have my touch linger, especially when she flinched a few times in pain. It seemed she was right…she was mostly okay otherwise. I picked out a syringe for her. “For pain management,” I said, holding it up so the gemstone green color of the potion within gleamed in the sunlight. “What did I hear earlier about a cold shower?”

She sighed and extended her arm. “It’s one of the few things that can cool me off if I overexert like this,” she explained.

I gave her the injection in the crook of her elbow and stroked the unshaved stubble on my jaw thoughtfully. “I can give you a groundwater bath. But you’ll want to take a real one soon after.”

She glanced down at herself and the brownish blotches over her clothes. “Oh no, not a shower. It’s not like I’m absolutely filthy,” she said dryly. She muffled a yawn, eyelids falling to half-mast. After the day she’d had, I wasn’t surprised the drowsiness was setting in so fast as a side effect of the potion.

I chuckled, standing, and offering her my hands. “Come over here away from Cer, dear.”

I helped her up and put an arm around her waist, helping her take slow, pained steps away from him. Once I figured he was out of the range of any splashes, we stopped and she leaned against me, head tucked against my collarbone.

Her amber-brown eyes fixed on me with sleepy trust and I just about melted. I was so damn lucky she was my anam cara. Even exhausted and roughed up, she was stunning, fine-boned and petite. Without her usual no-nonsense resting expression, she could stop me in my tracks.

Time to get this beauty wet.

I called on my magic, reaching deep into the placid pool of my control to feel the pockets of ground water underneath our feet, and a stream near enough for the range of my power. Closing my fist, Ipulled, and the water responded, flowing into a whirlpool a few feet away. I lifted my hand and it lifted too, forming an arc that dumped over our heads.

Blistering hot steam erupted around Nix, but the cold water also running over my skin protected me from the worst of it. She sizzled like a quenched fire, yet tilted her head up with a clearmoan that had the front of my wet pants tightening. “Yes, just like that,” she said breathlessly.

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