Naomi couldn’t move. At his side, she could see the dark scorch mark the black dragon’s attack had left. The fire had singed the storm dragon’s silver-gray scales.
It’s real. It’s really all happening...
The dragon groaned in agony. Even as she watched, his beautiful eye closed.
His head alone was as large as her entire body. She knew she should be terrified—but for some reason, she couldn’t feel fear anymore. Something about the dragon’s eye had been familiar. Something inside her suddenly yearned towards the beast, as though an invisible string was pulling her forward.
It’s impossible. I should run; I should call the police, she thought, even as she moved a little closer on her knees, drawn by an irresistible force.
And then the huge form of the dragon shimmered and turned translucent.
A moment later, the dragon was gone. In its place, an unconscious and very well dressed man was lying motionless on the ground.
It was a man she knew.
Gregory!
How was that possible? She’d seen the dragon with her own eyes—a heartbeat ago, the dragon had plummeted from the sky, and now—
Once more an angry roar broke through her thoughts. When Naomi looked up in fear, she saw the dark dragon soar, black wings blocking out the sun for a moment as he rose higher and higher—and then he was gone, swallowed by the clouds.
Naomi stumbled towards Gregory, all of her limbs aching. Her hands were still tied behind her back. When she fell to her knees by his side, she realized that now that she was no longer tied to the rock, there was enough give in the rope that she could wriggle out of it.
The coarse rope irritated her already sore skin, but she didn’t care about the pain. Right now, all she could think about was that Gregory’d been injured.
She gasped with relief when her hands finally slipped free from her bonds. Immediately, she reached out for Gregory. She pressed one hand to his cheek, the other to his chest—and there it was, the strong, reassuring heartbeat. It thudded steadily against her hand, despite the fact that she’d just seen Gregory turn from a dragon into a human.
He feels real... All of this is real.
She swallowed thickly. Nothing made sense—but she’d been attacked, and Gregory was hurt. She could think later. Right now, she needed to act, and do it quickly, before the fire dragon returned.
“Can you hear me? Gregory, it’s me,” she said, taking hold of his shoulders. “It’s Naomi. Are you okay?”
Gregory didn’t answer.
“Of course you’re not okay,” she said out loud, taking a deep breath to center herself. Then she peeled back the shirt, which had been scorched by the black dragon’s fire.
There was a large patch of burned skin, red and blistered, where the other dragon’s fire breath had burned Gregory from his stomach up to his chest.
Naomi drew in a shocked breath. No wonder he’d lost consciousness. It had to hurt like hell. She’d once managed to scald a finger with boiling water while cooking, and she’d wanted to cry for two hours straight at the pain. This... this had to be agony.
“You need a doctor,” she said shakily. “Okay. Don’t move. I’ll... I’ll figure this all out.”
Helplessly, she looked around. She wore no more than her by now tattered, former nicest dress she owned. She had neither her purse nor her phone. And she didn’t know this stretch of coast either.
It was all rocky and quiet except for the sound of the waves hitting the shore. When she’d gone to the ocean, she’d always visited the nice, sandy beaches further south. Up here, there were only scattered, overpriced vacation homes for rich people who valued privacy over nice beaches...
“There!” she exclaimed in relief. In the distance, half hidden behind another formation of weathered rocks, she could see the roof of one of those houses.
Perhaps whoever lived there had already called the police. The roaring of the dragons and the fire would’ve been hard to miss.
But even if no one was there, she might manage to find a way in and use their phone. Or at least trip an alarm and alert the police, which would work just as well.
Gregory needed a doctor, which was all that mattered.
Clenching her jaw, she grabbed hold of Gregory’s shoulders and began to pull.
As she quickly found out, all that muscle was heavy. The house she had spied wasn’t very far, but still it took her almost ten minutes to drag Gregory across the rocky ground.