As soon as his claws hit the wood, Artem’s legs buckled under him. Every muscle shuddered with terrible, agonizing cramps as his body finally allowed itself to relax.
He let out a pained chuffing noise, the only kind of complaint he could manage, and listed slightly to one side. His chest rose and fell with rapid panting breaths. Bracing his great, horned head on his foreclaw, Artem watched his lovely human from under half-lowered eyelids and willed himself to stay awake for a few moments more, to endure the pain for as long as he could.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she breathed, wariness melting out of her expression. Artem’s heart seized when she dropped to her knees in front of him. Her face, cast into shadow by the flames at her back but still perfectly visible to his predator’s eyes, was full of concern. “I wish I knew how to help you.”
He managed an appreciative whistle. Even in his muddled state, Artem wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of such a vulnerable creature going out of their way to help a rogue dragon before. Most sane beings would have run in the opposite direction as soon as his shadow passed over their heads.
But his human didn’t run. Reaching out, she dared to press one soft palm against the thick scales covering his cheek. He wished he had the strength to lean into her touch.
“It’s okay.” She skimmed the curve below his eye with the tips of her fingers. A featherlight touch that made everything in his exhausted soul keen. “You’re safe here, dragon. No one will hurt you, and you can stay as long as you need to. Just don’t fly off tomorrow morning, okay? If anyone sees you…” She trailed off, but he didn’t need her to finish. He knew what awaited him in the light of day.
Curling her hand into a fist, she withdrew from him to glance over her shoulder. The fire spat sparks into the air as the flames flickered from vivid blue, to sickly green, to their natural yellow. Letting out a shaky sigh, she sat back on her heels and rubbed her face.
Artem wanted to croon for her again, to soothe her anxieties away like a good mate should, but he couldn’t manage it. It was all he could do to settle into a more comfortable position as sleep crept in on him from all sides. Normally, he would have coiled his tail around her and held her against his chest as he slept, keeping her safe against his heart, but that would have to wait until his muscles stopped spasming.
For the first time in ages, his mind settled into a quiet stillness.
She lured me here, he realized, full of wonder as he watched her stand and put out the fire with a bucket of water. He breathed deep one more time, just to assure himself of what he already knew. There were no other scents in the vicinity, old or new. This is her roost. There is no mate to watch over her; no one to protect her. She made her own dragonfire to call me to her side.
Artem felt a rattling purr bubble up from the center of his chest as his eyes slid closed. The snarl of instinct smoothed out into a single, perfect thread connecting his heart to hers.
She Chose me.
* * *
Paloma slumped next to the hissing remains of the fire, her heart a thundering beat in her chest. She stared at the dragon currently sprawled across her deck with the distant expression of someone just realizing they are in way over their head.
On one hand, she was deeply relieved that her plan worked. On the other, she had no godsdamned clue what she was supposed to do now.
The dragon was a huge, dark shape barely illuminated by the glowing coals in the fire pit. Slumped to one side, he lay half curled around her house, his great, spiked tail between her and the sliding glass door.
Bracing her palms on her knees, Paloma tried to get her thoughts in order. The horns mean male, she noted, eyeing the vicious-looking spikes that fanned out around her dragon’s head. Her stomach knotted up with a sudden burst of nerves. Didn’t people talk about women staying away from male dragons? Wasn’t that a common joke on entertainment feeds? She couldn’t recall why. I guess I’ll find out why when he shifts.
She curled her fingers into the denim covering her thighs. If he can shift. One step at a time, I guess.
With her limited knowledge of dragons, she struggled to piece together anymore information from his appearance alone. Since the dragon was about the size of a large SUV and had a full set of horns, she guessed he was an adult. Aside from those two basic observations, she really had nothing to go on.
The fact that the poor creature was clearly exhausted was the only obvious thing about him. The dragon’s chest rose and fell rapidly. His eyes, those terrifying ruby-red globes that were bigger than her fists, flickered behind tough, scaly eyelids. His wings were folded haphazardly against his back, as if the dragon was too exhausted to even tuck them away properly before he lost consciousness.
Paloma swallowed hard. Sympathy for the poor, lost dragon made her throat tighten. She just wished there was something she could do for him.
A fixer by nature, she thrived on problem solving and caretaking. All her life, she’d played the caretaker and the companion to her softhearted father. It never felt like a burden, but helped hone her natural inclination toward showing affection with acts of care. To not know how to help the dragon who so clearly needed some care made her want to pull her hair out.
Frustrated and cold now that the fire was extinguished, Paloma levered herself up onto her feet. She carefully stepped around the dragon’s twitching claw to very, very slowly throw her leg over the spiked tail blocking her way back into the house. She held her breath, eyes flicking toward the prone dragon, before easing herself over the danger zone.
Her fingers were so cold they barely managed to flip the latch on the sliding door. She peeked over her shoulder, worried that her fumbling would wake the massive creature on her deck. There was no movement, though. Nothing besides that worrisome twitching and the sound of huge, gulping breaths being pushed out of a long snout.
Sliding the door aside inch by slow inch, she opened it just enough to slide through the gap before closing it in the same way.
Standing in the warm darkness of her home, Paloma stared out through the glass.
There’s a dragon on my deck.
Not just any dragon. A rogue dragon. A dangerous, unpredictable being who needed help that she couldn’t provide and wouldn’t get from anyone in the EVP. A massive, clawed beast that could breathe ice-cold fire or swallow her in one bite.
She pressed a shaking hand against her galloping heart, her eyes glued to the shadowed form of the dragon. Perhaps she should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. After all, if the dragon wanted to lash out, wouldn’t he have done so already? Besides, she knew the signs of a creature in pain. She’d had enough pets and rehabilitated enough wild animals in her life to know the sounds, the way they moved. Her dragon wasn’t aggressive — he was just lost, hurt, and exhausted.
And if the dragon was dangerous… well, that was something she would just have to find out in the morning.