Page 16 of Fire Dragon
Chapter Three
In the dream, Liam lay at the bottom of the lake, cushioned by a thick layer of red sand sediment. He didn’t know how he was breathing underwater, but he was so comfortable, so deeply relaxed he wanted to stay there forever.
But after awhile, he grew restless and began to swim for the surface. Something was on fire, but it wasn’t a bad kind of fire. In fact, it smelled wonderful.
The surface, however, seemed miles away and the soft mud kept calling to him.
But so did the fire and the smell of something meaty that began to make his mouth water and his heart pound even though he was asleep.
When he finally woke up, his whole body felt weighed down as though he was covered in bags of cement. He could hardly move.
Shifting slightly, a familiar pain shot up the length of his spine beginning, as usual, in his tailbone.
It was one of the weaknesses of being dragon and man. When he used his massive tail in battle, somehow it had a negative effect on his human bones around the sacrum, as well as surrounding nerves.
He let a moan escape him and worked at sending his limited healing to that part of his anatomy.
He was so tired, though, that he felt drugged. He also had no idea where he was.
“Hey.” A woman called to him.
Had he been drinking? He couldn’t seem to pull his mind together to figure out what was going on.
A face came into view.
Ah. Emma. He’d taken her on her virgin battle-ride.
“Your two-inch steak will be ready in about fifteen minutes. Anthony was here. He brought clothes and other provisions.”
Emma had taken him to her cave, and with blood still seeping from his chest, he’d fallen asleep on her sofa.
She tried again but spoke more slowly. “Anthony brought clothes, your shaving gear. Batya’s setting up as we speak.”
“Masseuse Batya?” Relief rolled through him like a welcome flash flood.
“Yes, that Batya.”
“Thank God. I’ve got lightning strikes up my spine right now. She’ll know what to do.”
Batya came into view next and Emma stepped out of the way. “Come on, handsome, let’s get you fixed up, shall we?”
He took a deep breath and with long practice, he let her lift him to his feet. Batya was a big muscled woman with Gantor dragon in her blood, one of the largest of the dragon species. Her kind tended to serve on caravan transport where the big bucks could be made. He didn’t know whether she could shift or not, but right now all he carried about was the magic of her practiced fingers digging into his muscles.
He withheld a lot of cursing as he put one foot in front of the other. He also repressed a serious desire to shift to his dragon state and blow fire over the entire interior of the cave.
She led him to her extra-strong table, and he stretched out. It occurred to him that he was naked in Emma’s house. But he was too damn tired and in too much pain to care.
As Batya began working his glutes, as well as the muscles of his lower back, his thighs and every small muscle lining his spine, he began to relax. His eyes closed more than once as the deep lake sediment called to him over and over, but the smell of the meat kept waking him up.
Within a few minutes, Batya had put his tailbone back together. He sat up and thanked her. She in turn kissed him on the cheek and suggested strongly that he shower before he sat down to dine.
He nodded then excused himself to take care of his various odors and issues, not least of which was some caked blood on the back of his torso.
Once he removed the bandage over his chest wound, he spent most of the time in the shower with his head pressed against the cool tile and his shoulders beneath the hot spray. He sent healing to his eyes. They’d never been so bloodshot, but it was rare he did back-to-back shifts. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d worked so hard.
He also couldn’t remember why he was here, in Emma’s home.
What he’d seen of it, he liked. There was lighting in unusual places, but it seemed to accentuate the coal-black of the rock walls. She hadn’t smoothed-out the walls, either, but had left them rough-hewn.
