Zan’s face goes blank, and I hiss out in surprise at the ragged, oozing hole the nasty ass worm left in the delicate lavender membrane.
“This is really bad,” I murmur, casting my gaze back to his face.
“I’ve had worse,” he says stoically.
“You’ve had worse?” I gape at him. “You’ve had worse than a giant fucking hole in your wing?”
“I was a soldier,” he says simply. “It will heal in a year or so.”
“A YEAR OR SO?” I explode, kicking slightly, trying to get free of his grip. “Ken, what the fuck? A year or so? Your worms hurt him so bad that Zan won’t be able to fly for a whole year? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“I am not fucking kidding you right now,” Zan says.
I don’t bother telling him I was asking Ken and that it was mostly a rhetorical question, since rhetorical questions ingeneral don’t seem to be part of the natural Draegon dialogue. Or maybe they just don’t translate well.
I’ll have to learn his language if I want him to really understand how hilarious I am. Alas.
I turn to where Ken is, not even bothering to tell Zan to put me down, just savoring being in his arms.
“You’re going to get him a healer or whatever it is you have on this hellhole to help him out. We did your stupid little task. Now where’s our fucking food, you piece of water-hogging shit?” I scream at him.
Zan lets out a laugh, the sound cutting off as the ground beneath his feet shakes. It’s not the normal shaking of Ken summoning something to the surface.
I clutch onto Zan, my heart hammering as adrenaline zips through my body again?—
And all I know next is darkness.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
ZAN
Lily is shaking.My little female shivers in my arms, and whether it’s with rage at my injury or rage at Ken’s cruelty or fear for herself, I’m not sure.
It is clear that she is quite a spitfire, and that I may have continued to underestimate her warrior side.
I’m not sure if she was this fierce on her own planet or if this is something that this strange competition has brought out in her, but I treasure it all the same.
Never have I had anyone look at an injury on my body—even ones that took years to regrow, like the time I lost my hand on the front line—with anything other than casual dismissal, even from the healers assigned to me.
But Lily… Lily is ready to go to war on behalf of the wound in my wing, on my behalf.
And now that little warrior goddess is holding on to me so tight that I can feel the dull bite of her nails in between my neck scales as she clings to me.
Thrust into darkness, falling down into whatever crevasse Ken has opened beneath our feet, reflex has me spreading my wings, trying to catch an updraft and slow our descent.
A mistake.
My injured wing immediately collapses under the force of the wind buffeting them, and I tuck it into my side to protect the injury from further damage.
If I push too hard it will tear the membrane further, up to the bone.
But with one wing snapped out and one wing tucked in, we begin to spiral off-kilter.
“I’m doing everything I can,” I say through clenched teeth.
Lily is whimpering, a noise I haven’t heard from her before, and it absolutely breaks my heart. For my mate to be in my arms and panicked at the same time is a torture unlike any I’ve ever faced.
