Page 14 of Fire Dragon
He did lean on her and it was a lot of muscle to support, but she expanded her kinetic energy which helped. He thanked her. With one hand pressed to his chest and blood covering his fingers, he began to walk.
“We need a compress.”
As they moved into the hall, she saw the admin offices were deserted just like the hangar. Santos clearly wanted everyone on dragon interrogation duty.
She noticed a shawl hanging on a rack with an assortment of coats. She headed him in that direction, grabbed the shawl and jammed the soft cotton against his wound. He held it to his chest.
She would determine the owner later and make amends, though she doubted anyone would be troubled knowing it was to aid an injured dragon warrior.
“Listen, Emma, I need you to get me out of here. Can you do that? I mean this building. I don’t want to stay here. Can’t explain it and I definitely don’t want to see Santos right now.”
She had no problem with any of it. “I’ve got you. Can you levitate? I think we could get out of here fast if we flew. This walking is for the birds.”
He chuckled then moaned as he lifted into the air a couple of inches off the floor. She levitated with him and she was right. It was much easier. She had her arm around his waist, but she told him to put his head on her shoulder, which he did.
She mentally charted the course then guided them down a couple of back hallways to the employee rec area outside. No one was there. She could hear the boats on the lake and a lot of shouting as the recovery work was being done.
“I’m taking you to my cave. If you remember, it’s not far but it is high. I know we can make it. Just stay with me.”
He shifted to telepathy.I will. Go for it.
She could feel his energy waning by the second. But she’d chosen her cave because of its proximity to HQ. The problem was that it was almost at the top of the five-hundred foot cliff.
She coached him the entire way, murmuring words of encouragement, telling him how far they had to go as the distance shrank.
She was sweating by the time that made her landing. She hurried him inside and to her couch. With a groan, he dropped onto his back, closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.
She’d forgotten he was fully naked, so she pulled the throw from the back of the sofa and covered him up.
She spent the next several minutes cleaning the wound on his chest and dressing it. He was a strong healer and only mumbled his complaints a couple of times in his sleep.
In an ordinary human, after having flown for hours on a caravan run then battling eleven dragons, he should have smelled like sulphur. Instead, his charred, dragon, and very male scent, struck her all over again.
He was a beautiful man, with thick wavy black hair to his shoulders, a cleft in his chin, strong cheekbones and a firm jaw. His skin had a golden color. He also had a number of tattoos across his upper torso including a rose over his heart, maybe in memory of his deceased wife.
There was little she didn’t know about Liam. She’d taken pains to learn as much as she could about each of the seven elite warrior dragons. Liam’s wife and infant son had both died within hours of what was a tragic birth. The young dragon had shifted more than once during the process creating agony for them both. Just reading about the nature of their deaths had burned a hole in Emma’s heart. She couldn’t imagine what it had done to Liam or just how much he probably blamed his own powerful genetics for the loss of his family.
She had a lot of compassion for the dragon on her couch.
His coloring looked off, however. She tried to imagine the amount of calories he’d burned given he’d performed two impossible feats today.
She knew he needed food. As soon as he came around, she’d make sure he had a good steak. She was starved herself after the exertions of battle.
Knowing Liam would sleep for awhile, she headed to the shower in the depths of the cave. As she moved, she mentally turned on all kinds of light. She preferred a variety from deep inset pot-lights that cast shadows over the natural chipped stone walls, to different kinds of floor lighting that created a similar effect in order to send shadows moving the opposite way. She had a handful of lamps as well, though not many. A number of pendants throughout also helped to illumine the otherwise fairly dark space. Her only windows, like most cave dwellings, were at the front of the house.
Her rooms at HQ were solely utilitarian. She used them only when she would be launching with dragons from the hangar for lake exercises and now for battle. Otherwise, she preferred the view of the lake and surrounding countryside from her cave landing.
The mesa above the caves at her elevation was a broad level region broken up by the paved, caravan landing strip that went on for miles to the south and the extensive ADF training grounds.
Before stepping into a warm jet of water, she called Jane to let her know she’d survived her virgin run but also to remind her to have a new uniform made for her.
Jane squealed at her phone call and insisted on a few details which seemed only fair.
As she recounted the events, she was struck by her own remarkable calm over everything that had happened.
But duty called and she chose not to tell Jane she had a dragon in her living room, dead asleep to the world. One mention of Liam and she’d have to spend another twenty minutes detailing that part of her story.
Instead, she excused herself as being in desperate need of a shower, which she was.
