Page 101 of Stealing the Dragon's Heart (Dragon Lords 3)

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“She’s going to be okay,” Aidan reiterated from the entryway of their bunk, where Caryn now lay unconscious. Onnika sat at her bedside, holding her hand. Behind Aidan stood Lear and Asher, both tensely stoic. Onnika could tell they were every bit as anxious as she was.

Having the three big males in their tiny bunk made everything appear that much smaller, especially fragile-looking Caryn, but their presence was comforting. She felt safe. Guarded. Protected.

Dragoon, though grounded and suffused with the cloying scent of smoke and fuel, had been deemed safe enough to re-board.

“She’s just lost a lot of blood,” Aidan continued to assure her.

If she’d lost even an ounce more, she might not have made it at all. Knowing Caryn was a Phase Nine contestant, the doctor hadn’t been surprised by the very obvious stab wound, but he was perplexed by what might have caused the deep laceration across her right shoulder. He wrongly assumed she’d run The Gauntlet and failed, like so many of his other recent patients. Onnika and the others decided that it must have happened when Caryn had been sucked out of Tag’s ship. She must have caught a sharp edge of metal from the torn hull. Asher had a similar wound in his forearm, but had refused to let the doctor take a look until he had finished treating Caryn.

Onnika tucked the beige blanket tighter around Caryn, troubled by her sickly paleness. With her wounds tended to, her color should return soon.

“How’s Zeek doing?” she asked. To hear he’d survived had lifted a fraction of weight from her heavy heart, but he was nearly as bad off as Caryn.

“Bruised up and mad as hell,” Aidan responded.

She stifled a flinch. “I should go apologize to him.”

Aidan affectionately touched her arm. “It’s not you he’s angry with.”

“He should be,” she muttered.

“This wasn’t your doing.”

Onnika didn’t reply. Didn’t even look up. Aidan had no idea she and Caryn both should have gleaned what was about to go down. If they had been paying even the smallest attention to their magic, they could have taken some sort of preventative action…kept Zeek and the others out of it while thwarting Tag and his cohorts. As it was, the ship was trashed, their supplies plundered, and any hope of winning Phase Nine was doused. Not to mention the emotional damage to everyone involved.

“We should have left the ship when you tried to send us packing.” The pain in her voice was practically palpable.

“No.” Aidan knelt beside her and cupped her shoulders. Turning her to face him. “If you had, Tag would have taken you. And we never have known you were in trouble. You’d just be...gone.” He closed his eyes, a shudder running through him.

“But your ship? The race? Everything’s lost.”

“Not what’s important. Not you. Maybe you think you should have seen Tag coming for you. Berate yourself if you need to, but you’re both safe and back where you belong. Nothing else matters.”

She blinked at him, momentarily stunned into silence. He’d overheard her earlier conversation with Caryn and knew she was chastising herself for not anticipating Tag’s attack. She suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed, her skin itching with prickling sensations that made her want to close her arms around herself and hold on tight. Then the second half of his speech sank in. “Where we belong?”

He gave a curt nod. “We can get you back to your people. Where you’ll be protected from others like Tag.”

“Our people?” Her gaze darted around the room with apprehension, her mind whirring. “You mean the, uh, Pakovian?”

Aidan’s lips thinned with a touch of pity while his gaze held an ocean of knowing. He slowly shook his head and reached up to lightly pinch one tender point of her ear. “The Faieara.”

She gasped in a harsh breath and pulled away. Her hands shot up to cover her ears as her world flipped on its axis. Her holo-gear was gone. It must have fallen off at some point during her struggle with Tag. How long had she been without it, totally on display?

“Hmm.” He cocked his head at her. “I always thought it was a trick of the light, but your eyes really do flash silver with your emotions, just like Anya.”

She had no idea who Anya was, but her heart revved into hyper gear.

“Only yours are not quite so pronounced. I’ll bet anyone who sees it brushes it off as a trick of the light, as I did.”

She was still searching for her voice. He knew what she was. Had he encountered her kind before? He spoke as though he had. How was that possible, when she had never crossed paths with another of her kind despite having searched endlessly?

His gaze remained steady, burning with curiosity. “Of all the other ships you could have picked, it’s interesting that you boarded mine. I’d say it screams of fate, but I have to ask, does your magic guide you?”

He knows! Oh gods! He really knows!

Worse, he was making connections, ferreting out their powers.

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