Page 44 of A Matter of Dragons

“Rayne?” I whispered.

Slowly, very slowly, Rayne's eyelids opened. Her eyes rolled back, then drifted across the sky. Finally, they came to rest on my face; something like contentment spread across her features like honey melting over warm bread. An answering warmth blossomed in my own chest, and despite everything, despite the fact that we were sitting next to a nascent forest fire and a possibly dead body, despite my certainty that she’d accepted my advances last night only so that she could get information out of me, my heart suddenly insisted that I should kiss her. That now, right now, as she was returning to consciousness in the middle of what must have been a battle, was, in fact, the perfect time to kiss her.

Then her eyes widened and her muscles tensed. Her full, bloodied lips parted, and she gasped.

“Eadberh,” she groaned.

No, I thought, disoriented by the force of that sudden desire to kiss the woman who’d manipulated me so handily last night. I’m Doshir.

Rayne rolled away from me and staggered to her feet. She limped over to the motionless figure who smelled so strongly of blood. I followed, trying to stay in the shadows so it would be slightly less obvious that I was completely nude.

Rayne bent down and pressed her fingers to the man’s neck. Her face contorted in a strange mixture of concentration and grief. Recognition finally dawned on me. This was Rayne's companion, the man who’d been in the Duck and Goose with her. The man who’d been introduced as her brother but almost certainly was not.

A sob choked Rayne's throat. She pulled her arm away from her companion’s neck, then tugged off her shirt. I was briefly mesmerized by the sudden appearance of her pale stomach, bare back, and the basic linen swatch holding in her perfect breasts. Then the sound of ripping fabric wove together with the rhythm of her rough, jagged breath. I brought my hands to my waist to cover myself and cleared my throat.

“Um, Rayne?” I asked as she methodically tore her shirt into bandages. “Is there something I can do?”

Her gaze flickered back over me, then tightened. I had the distinct impression that she didn’t like what she saw, although a moment earlier she’d been staring up at me like she was actually happy to see me. Of course, two moments earlier she’d been unconscious, so perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into that dreamy smile she’d given me.

“Get a stick,” she growled. “Something solid.”

I waited until she’d turned back to the bandages before rummaging around the forest floor. I handed her two sticks that she discarded without comment before finally finding one that must have been acceptable. By then she’d twisted the remains of her shirt around the big man’s thigh just above the gaping, open wound that was spurting weak little jets of blood onto the forest floor.

She grabbed the acceptable stick, rammed it through her knot, and twisted the tourniquet tight. I winced.

“He needs medical attention,” I said.

“Yes, thank you, genius,” she snarled.

Rayne rocked back on her knees and wiped her hand over her forehead, leaving a streak of her friend’s blood across her face, before rising unsteadily to her feet.

“We need to build a litter,” she said. “I have to—” Her voice caught in her throat. She pulled in a breath and began again. “I have to get him down the mountain.”

I adjusted the scant covering of my hands over my privates and cleared my throat. “I could fly him,” I said.

Rayne looked at me with an expression that might have been wild hope or might have been terror. I took a step back, further into the shadows, and shifted into my draconic form with relief. Uptight and bureaucratic as dragons might be, at least they didn’t insist on wearing clothes.

Rayne sucked in a sharp breath and dropped her hand to the sword at her waist.

“It’s still me,” I said, hearing the low rumble of my dragon voice as it must sound to Rayne. “I could fly him to the healer, to Ailen.”

Rayne's teeth flashed in the firelight as though she were trying to growl at me. “You’re going to fucking eat him!” she snapped.

“Please, that’s just rude.”

Rayne pulled her sword from its sheath. The blade trembled, flashing in the glow of the flames.

“He’ll be dead before you can finish that litter,” I said, as softly as I could manage. “Please. Let me help you.”

“Why?” Her eyes flashed wildly. For just a moment, she reminded me of Mad Scarlett, of the way her pale yellow eyes had narrowed as she’d asked me if I’d come to make apologies.

“Why would you help us?” she demanded.

“Because.” My gaze dropped to my claws as my heart pumped to the tune of the thousands and thousands of insults it had absorbed over my very long life. Weak. Coward. No kind of dragon. “I don’t like to watch anything die,” I admitted.

Rayne made a noise that was something like a cough and something like a sob. Her eyes left me and lingered on the ashen face of the enormous man who’d come with her from Cairncliff. There was a softness in that expression, a connection that was its own kind of love, and I suddenly realized that I honestly did not want this man to die. The feeling was so strong that, even if Rayne said no, I thought I might still take him in my claws and fly him to Ailen.

“Go,” Rayne choked.