My dragon reared his head to stare down at me, the bonddrippingwith warning.
I must have said it out loud. The female hissed and several of the dragons rumbled their indignation.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… ofcourseyou know. It was just the shock,” I mumbled quickly, turning back to the girl under the dragon’s wing. “It’s only, she’s female. And a child. That seems—”
“I am n-not a child!” the girl snapped, grasping the dragon’s leg and pushing herself to her feet—where three things happened very quickly.
I saw her form and learned that she was, indeed,nota child.
Both dragons hissed and as I turned to soothe them, the woman got herself upright—and promptly toppled over with a small cry.
I stopped trying to rationalize what was happening. It didn’t matter if she was female, if the dragon was confused, or even if the bond was real. We had an injured woman, a young and distressed dragon, and the Primarch glaring amber-hued murder at me for embarrassing him.
Not my finest hour. Also, not the time to think about it. I let my training kick in.
‘You keep the female calm while I assess the Flameborne,’I sent without preamble. Kgosi carried responsibility for the dragons and I carried their people, and neither of us was precious about the other assigning orders when it was needed for our charges.
Butthiswas a first. And not just for us.
Kgosi crooned to the female as I crept forward, making myself appear as submissive as I could to clamber over the dragon’s leg, then under her wing that kept us blessedly hidden from the gathered crowd, but dimmed the sunlight as well.
When I made it into the impromptu nest under that wing, I went cold.
Shit.
Either she’d fainted, or her blood loss was a great deal more than I could see from here. Her face was deathly pale under brown hair that shone red even in the dim light, and her eyes were closed with no sign of movement.
“Was she injured before you landed? How did you find her?” I asked the dragon thoughtlessly. Thankfully, Kgosi relayed her answer without complaint.
‘She… fell from the cliffs. Akhane caught her. She held strong for a great while, but the landing was unstrapped.’
Shit. That meant there might be broken bones. Internal bleeding. Or a head injury. All of which meant I couldn’t move her.
“Do we have any healing pairs nearby?” I asked Kgosi, but his reply was swift.
‘No.’
‘Then please use the dragons to find the closest and most skilled. This could be only a faint after her first flight, but it’s possible she’s very gravely injured.’
‘You humans do injure so easily,’Kgosi said grimly.‘…Nila and her Tato are close and will be here in moments. She’ll call some of the others if—’
The woman’s eyes fluttered open. I was crouched at her side and watched her gaze travel up from my boots to my face.
Then her eyes widened and she jerked up to a sitting position.
I hurried slid one hand to her back and the other to her knee. “Whoa, whoa—not yet. We don’t know where you’re hurt. You just took a serious fall from a dragon. Lay down, Miss. Please. You need to lay down.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine,” she dismissed me, though her voice shook.
I felt the jolt of Kgosi’s offense on my behalf when she contradicted me so blithely, but I grinned. Two hundred plus years old and my dragon still faltered at the human line between authority and respect.
‘Don’t worry, she’ll learn,’I sent to him with a laugh.
I must have chuckled in truth because the woman turned her head quickly, as if I’d shocked her. But then her gaze cleared and she locked on me.
“You’re Donavyn Arsen,” she breathed. “The… important one.”
Swallowing a chuckle, I nodded once. “That is my name, though my dragon might argue your second point,” I said dryly. “And you are?”
