Page 83 of The Dragon Queen

“Brom…” I heard Draven’s voice break, which had my own throat working in sympathy, trying to dislodge the lump there. I couldn’t breathe, not until I saw that Brom was.

“Draven, we need to?—”

“Obsidian!”

My hands fluttered through the air, useless as Brom forced himself upwards, letting out an alarming cough before pushing himself upwards. I soon worked out why. I hadn’t heard a dragon ever make a sound like this before, and I never wanted to again. Just a low keen with each breath, like a child that had cried itself out and had no more tears to shed. I had plenty, my eyes filling as I walked towards the dragon. Obsidian tried to raise his head, then his wing, and was only successful with one. His wing flapped helpless against the ground like a downed flag.

“Lad…” Brom held his hands out and I watched the shake. “I know it hurts.”

Obsidian let out a high-pitched sound in response. It wasn’t that which alerted me to what the dragon was going through, because a connection snapped into place.

His wing felt like a fire that just wouldn’t be put out. Every movement tore something deeper inside him, but what else could he do? The projectile had to be removed. A downed dragon was a dead one. He wouldn’t be able to fly, to hunt, to mate with Glimmer when she was grown. That’s why he kept flailing around, trying to work out how to right that wrong, fix the issue.

“Settle, lad,” Brom said in a low, comforting voice, and I knew exactly how that felt, because he’d used it on me often enough. It told you that he was in charge and knew exactly what to do.

Except he didn’t.

When Obsidian stopped moving, Brom placed his hands on the wing joint. Either through luck or extraordinary skill, the assailant had managed to immobilise Obsidian’s wing.

“You did this for me.” Draven’s voice was like a plucked lute string, vibrating with tension. “You put Obsidian in the ballista’s way.”

“Of course I did it for you.” Brom ground that out with barely a terse look sideways, his hands running up and down his dragon’s wing. The javelin was still lodged there and everything in me wanted to wrench it free and damn the consequences. Dragons were huge,invulnerable creatures. It hurt my heart to see one brought down so low.

“I didn’t need?—”

“Yes, you did.” Brom whirled around, eyes flashing with much the same light as his dragon’s. There was something pained and desperate in both of them. Glimmer scrambled up Obsidian’s side, and right as I went to tell her not to, the dragon seemed to relax. He settled against the ground with a sigh, as she began to hum.

“You did. You were preoccupied with making those bastards pay and you weren’t watching your back!”

Brom seemed to be recovering his strength by the second, advancing on Draven, which drew me closer. I needed to step in, support, arbitrate, something.

Except that wasn’t what was needed.

“And you were there.” Draven’s tone softened a little as Brom’s brows creased. The wing commander shook his head, but my king forged on. “You’ve always been there.”

“I was just doing my job.”

Brom turned away from our king and went limping towards me, but Draven wouldn’t be denied. His hand whipped out, clamping down on the other man’s forearm. I watched the two of them struggle, each fighting the other, when I remembered what Glimmer kept telling me. Males protect and queens let them, but I think we had a far more important role.

Glimmer leaned in, pressing her head against Obsidian’s, the black dragon’s eyes falling closed then, his breathing slowing. Darkspire lumbered forward, joining the two of them, his deep hum providing a counterpoint to Glimmer’s sweeter sound. The glow of her scales, it was more than the last of the sunlight filtering through the trees to focus on her. She’d healed me back at Brom’s family estate, and now she would do the same for her mate. That was our role, to heal breaches, physical, mental, and emotional, and that’s what I tried to do right now.

One hand went to Draven’s shoulder, stopping him from forcing the issue, the other more gently sliding up Brom’s arm. I needed tofeel my husband for myself, check every inch of him for injuries and kiss each one away, but first this.

“How’s your head, your neck?” I asked, dimly aware that a fall like this could prove fatal if Brom’s spine was damaged.

“I’m not sure I can feel either of them right now,” he rasped out in answer.

“Then perhaps I need to check?” My hand slid up, feeling the warmth of his skin when I reached his collar, then the raw silk of his hair. Fingers spidered across his scalp, but when I found no evidence of blood, they strayed down to the strong line of his jaw.

“Much better,” he said, taking my hand in his and pressing a kiss to the palm. “But we need to see to Obsidian’s wing.”

Draven stared at Brom with wide eyes, seeing something he didn’t before, but he nodded.

“Unfortunately, this is something I have experience with. My brother’s dragon…” He swallowed and then took a deep breath in. “The javelin has to be pushed through.”

“Surely we pull it out,” Brom argued.

“The head is buried in his wing joint.” Obsidian’s breathing was coming faster, even as his eyes remained closed. “It’s shaped like an arrowhead, so the tang will be forced to dig in deeper if we try to pull it out.” Draven shot the dragon a wary eye. “If Obsidian was a man, I’d use others to hold him down as we pushed the spear head through. I’m not sure how the hell we’ll do that with a massive dragon.”

---