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The healer put his hands on my head, checking for a fever, then moved down my body and to my leg.
“Oh, this looks like it was very painful.”
I groaned as his fingers pressed into my tender flesh. When I glanced down, I could see the thigh was red raw and the flesh was indented and crisscrossed with scarring. I had begun healing, but it was still pretty bad.
“It’s not bleeding anymore,” I managed to choke out in a semblance of humor. “I thought I was going to lose it, to be honest.”
Anselm and Dad moved closer, sitting nearby.
“How did you shift?” Anselm asked. “I thought you’d bleed out or die before your dragon could take over. I was shit-scared, to be honest. But I wasn’t going up against Veronica. She was ferocious.”
Dad turned away but I could tell he was still listening.
The healer smiled and I couldn’t stop my own laugh. “Yeah... even though my life was literally hanging in the balance, no one was going up against the dragon daughter.”
“I did,” Dad said, his voice hollow in the big room.
I laid my head back on the sofa, a wave of tiredness washing over me. “Yeah, and even you backed down.”
Silence.
“You still didn’t answer the question,” Anselm said. “How did you manage to shift with so much blood loss, and the pain must have been... bad.”
I groaned. “It was so bad I passed out.”
Silence again, then my big brother poked me in the arm. “Yeah? And?”
I smiled at the memory. “Veronica slapped me and screamed in my face. So, I got up.”
Dad’s laugh was loud. Unmistakable in its meaning. But he didn’t say anything.
It was Anselm who had the guts to ask the question. “What’s with you and the dragon daughter? I thought you hated each other.”
I sighed heavily then gasped as the healer rubbed some ointment into my leg and said, “Sit up and drink this tonic. It will help you to replace some of your lost blood.”
I sat up and took the vial he handed me, tossing the contents back even though it smelt like a pond.
“Eek, that’s vile,” I said, gagging after it slid down my throat.
Dad walked away then came back a moment later with a glass of whiskey. “Here.”
I grabbed it and took a large swig into my mouth, swallowing the drink down with relish.
“Thanks.”
I lay back against the pillows and the healer walked over to my dad. “King Stavrok. I’m going to retire for the night, but if you need me at all, I’ll be in the servants’ quarters.”
The man bowed and left.
I shifted on the sofa, my leg still aching like it had taken a beating. “How’s Uncle Damon? No-one’s said anything about him, but I assume he made it back? Told you where I was?”
Anselm and Dad shared a look, then my brother said, “Ah... no. Well, Damon made it back... just. Collapsed outside of the castle and he’s still unconscious. That’s why Veronica came back. Theo messaged her in the human realm and she flew straight home.”
I rolled onto my side so I could face my family, the whiskey doing its job to warm my belly and relax me. “So how did you find me?”
There was a bell ringing in my head, some piece of information I wasn’t piecing together.
Anselm slid forward, to the edge of his seat, and clasped his hands together. “We would never have found you, except for Veronica. Or if we had... you’d be dead. No-one knew where you and Damon had gone, and with him unconscious, we didn’t even know where to start looking.”
