Page 52 of Fated to the Drakarn Commander (Drakarn Mates 4)

No argument. No hesitation. My wings beat the air with frantic power, thrusting us skyward. I held her tight, the harness that had earlier felt like betrayal now the only thing keeping her secure against my desperate flight. Each shallow, shuddering breath she took rippled against my chest, a counterpoint to the frantic pounding of my own heart.

She was dying. My mate. Dying in my arms.

Panic clawed at me, raw and blinding, making my flight path unsteady. Faster. I needed to fly faster. My wings strained, muscles screaming, driving us through the darkening sky towards the distant glow of Scalvaris. Towards the healers. Towards hope.

"Stay with me," I commanded again, the words rough, torn from my throat. "That is an order,vrakasha. Do you hear me? Stay. With. Me."

Her eyelids fluttered. Her gaze was unfocused, clouded with pain, but she found mine. "Not … taking orders …," she rasped, a faint echo of her infuriating defiance flickering through the agony, "from you …"

A strangled sound ripped from me, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Stubborn … always stubborn …"

"Not … the end …," she whispered, her fingers weakly clutching the harness strap across my chest. "Not … letting you … win … that easily …"

Scalvaris loomed. I didn't slow, didn't signal. I arrowed straight towards the opening that led deep into the mountain, towards the life-giving heat of the healing caverns.

She would not die. I refused it. The bond pulsed, a desperate anchor in the storm of my fear. I would tear down the mountain stone by stone before I let her fade. She would not die.

17

HAWK

Darkness pressed down.I fought my way up through it, clawing against a pressure inside me that made it feel like I was drowning even though I was miles from water. Sound bled in first—low murmurs, alien and guttural. The soft, grating clink of metal on stone. Then sensation—a raw, grinding throb between my ribs, pulsing like a second, jagged heartbeat. Bandages scraped rough against skin. And heat. A thick, ambient heat that clung to everything.

My eyelids were fused shut. I forced them open, blinking against the glare of heat crystals dotting the cavern ceiling like embers. Panic detonated—a pure adrenaline dump before memory caught up. The ambush. Stone shattering. Ignarath claws ripping air. Pain exploding through my chest like a shaped charge. Khorlar?—

I tried to surge upright, a feral instinct to move, but hands clamped down, firm and unyielding. My vision swam, focusing slowly on Selene's face—sharp angles, brown skin, eyes that missed nothing.

"Easy," she murmured, her voice low. It was steady and clinical. Her fingers probed the bandages wrapping my torso. "Move like that, and you tear the sutures." It was blunt and practical.

Reality slammed back. I remembered the sickening crunch of my own bones. I tasted the copper tang of blood flooding my mouth. I heard the roar that had ripped from Khorlar’s throat as I went down—a sound primal enough to shake the stone. My heart hammered against the cage of my ribs, each beat agony.

"Khorlar," I rasped, the word torn from a raw throat. "Where—? Is he—?" The question died. I couldn't ask it.

"He's fine," Selene said. A minuscule tilt of her head indicated the space beside me. "There."

I turned my head. Muscles screamed, protesting the simple movement. Pain lanced through me, sharp and immediate. But the sight stopped my breath cold.

He sprawled on a wide stone slab nearby, his immense form terrifyingly still. His power was leashed by exhaustion. One wing, its leathery membrane marred by neat, precise stitches—Selene's work—draped off the edge, inert. His chest rose and fell, slow, deep. Gray scales drank the molten light.

He was alive. Not broken.

Relief hit like a physical blow. Weakness flooded me, dizzying and unwelcome. My gaze traced the lines of his face, unguarded in sleep, the harsh angles softened. A rare, dangerous vulnerability.

"What—" I cleared my throat, forcing the words past the knot tightening there. "What happened?"

Selene's fingers continued their assessment, efficient, detached. "You took a killing strike. Your lung collapsed. There was severe internal bleeding." Her eyes, dark and direct, met mine. No softening. "Three ribs fractured." She paused, letting the starkness land. "He carried you to the healing caverns. Just in time."

Just in time. Those were words like ice picks. A breath away from too late. The abyss yawned.

"The others?" I demanded, gritting my teeth against the relentless throb.

"Stable. Kira is recovering from sedation. Minor injuries elsewhere." Her expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "Reika and Rachel are already back in their quarters, they were just knocked out."

My eyes kept dragging back to Khorlar. There was an invisible tether to him. "Is he hurt?" I couldn't filter the edge from my voice. Couldn't pretend indifference.

"It's exhaustion. Lacerations and wing tears." Selene’s mouth twitched, a fleeting acknowledgment of something complex passing between warrior and healer. "He refused treatment until I confirmed your life-signs stabilized. Refused to leave this slab until he physically collapsed. I threatened to sedate him. It took Mysha coming in here and staring him down to get him to back off."

Something hot and volatile coiled low in my gut, unrelated to the pain. The thought of him, standing guard, bleeding, refusing aid while I hovered near death … The image pulsed through me, a dangerous resonance. Control slipping.

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