Page 12 of Tease Me

Save the Dragon

Fleur smacked Steele’scheeks, trying to get him to open his eyes. She wasn’t sure how or why, but she could feel the life draining out of him by the second. It felt like it was draining her, too.

“Someone call an ambulance,” she yelled, but there was no way even the best first responders would how to save a dragon. Fear for his life and a need to help him bubbled inside of her chest, smoky and hot.

Humans didn’t even know about shifters. Their doctors wouldn’t be able to help and Fleur would have let a secret kept for millennia out. She didn’t care. She had to save Steele.

Dax, ran over and slid to her side. “Damn, damn. Why doesn’t he shift and heal himself?”

“Can you help him? I don’t know what to do.” The light from the green crystal the black dragon-lizard thing dropped was fading, too.

He shook his head. “I’m a red dragon, not a green. I can’t heal. He was supposed to save my sorry ass if anything happened to us.” He shook Steele’s shoulder. “Come on, man, shift.”

Galyna appeared with her in-case-of-emergency-werewolfing bag and handed out clothes to the women who had shifted back to human form and a blanket for Steele. “Here, I’m sorry. I don’t think I have anything else that can help.”

Fleur kept one hand on his wound, keeping the pressure on, and spread the blanket over him with the other. If she could keep him warm until she figured out how to help him heal, he would have a better chance.

She swallowed down the acrid taste in the back of her throat. No way a blanket would be enough. She knew basic first aid, and could treat all kinds of illnesses with her medicinal garden, but she had to figure out another way to help him. Think, think.

The rest of the women joined them, all in various states of disrepair, clothing torn, scratches and bruises all over their bodies.

“Hey, how come you guys are fully clothed and we’re over here in shreds?” Zara asked Dax.

“Our shift isn’t like yours. We were gifted the power to move between forms by the White Witch, mate to the First Dragon. The magic allows us to keep our forms, our possessions, and our clothing.”

“I need to make friends with this witch. I go through clothes like there’s no tomorrow,” Jules said.

“Unfortunately, she died about seven-hundred years ago. So, I don’t think that is possible.” Dax waved the girls’ questions off and touched Fleur’s shoulder. “Can you help him?”

“Do you want me to run up and get some of your herbs or the salves? The one you made for my sunburn worked like a miracle. Would they help?” Galyna asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. They’re for minor first aid, like bug bites and PMS, not for sucking chest wounds.”

Did she have anything on hand that could stop the bleeding? She did have some wild iris root. That would help with bleeding, but not this much.

“What the fuck happened? Heli, Mom are you okay?” Kosta pushed his way into the circle of women and gathered Heli into his arms.

“I’m fine. But this guy isn’t.” Heli pointed down at Steele.

Her assessment of Steele’s wounds tore at Fleur’s gut. Heli was right. He really wasn’t fine. He was dying, and she didn’t have any way to stop it.

She’d only just met him like an hour ago, and she didn’t understand why, but she could not lose him. Something inside her would break if he died.

“Dirmo.” Kosta swore in Russian and shook his head.

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