Oh, Gods, he groaned inwardly. Fisting sand between his fingers, he bore down hard, riding out the currents of pain. Each one surged and ebbed, one on top of the other so that he never felt a moment’s respite from the ache. Pulsing heat burst from his body with each exhale, only to jet back inside and carve out another slice of his soul in a tearing lick of flames. Until he felt the fire burn him alive, hollowing him from the inside out. Until he didn’t think he could stand another moment.
“Gods, brother.”
He heard the softly spoken words seconds before he felt a presence beside him. Sensed hands on his shoulders, propping him upright.
“What have they done to you?”
Kestrel reached back, groping for his brother in a blind panic. “The king…and queen,” he gasped, nearly blacking out at the pulsing wave of agony washing through him. “Go to them.”
Instead of complying, his younger brother sank to his knees. His hands pressed down hard on one of Kestrel’s legs.
“We have to stop the bleeding.” Falcon said, digging his heel in farther, bearing down on the injury.
“I said go,” Kestrel grated, pushing him away. His gaze fixed on the bloody handprint he’d left on his younger brother’s bare chest. The bold crimson mark stood out, commanding, dominating every thought in Kestrel’s head. It appeared black, like a talisman of death coming to claim him. Again his brother’s voice called to him, but he couldn’t tear his focus off it.
A pair of strong hands, slick and warm with blood, grasped his face, forcing it up to one he’d known since he was a hatchling.
“It’s too late! They’ve been taken,” Falcon shouted, and this time Kestrel heard every word.
Oh Gods, he heard.
He sucked in a breath and held it. Falcon’s words ripped through him with more agonizing force than the vampire whose ax had nearly hewed off his legs. The bare truth lay before him too brilliant and potent for him to ignore.
They’ve been taken.
He’d failed.
He, the Captain of the Dragon Legion responsible for the safety of the flock and their mission, had done the unthinkable. He’d allowed the king and queen to be captured.
His lungs burned, screaming for air. Yet he couldn’t seem to breathe. Another bolt of agony wrenched tighter, twister farther in his gut. When he realized it came from Falcon knotting his holster belt around his thigh, Kestrel used the last reserve of strength to form a plea with his brother.
“Leave me,” he panted, his eyes suddenly heavy. In fact, he noticed his entire body suddenly felt heavy. His eyelids slid closed, as if weighed down by tethers.
“Sorry, brother.” Falcon released his hold and backed up a pace. Kestrel forced his weak eyes open, watching as his brothers face shifted seamlessly into bone and scale. Glittering green scales nearly too brilliant to look at filled Kestrel’s blurring vision. Within seconds Falcon, now in the shape of a green dragon, towered over him.
“You saved my life tonight. Whether you like it or not, I’m repaying the favor.”
A clawed hand curled around his waist, the long fingers tightening firmly yet tenderly around his middle, preparing to lift him.
“Falcon, no…” Kestrel rasped.
“Don’t talk. Just hang on.”
Chapter Two
“Is he the only one?”
Sparrow Rose pulled her blond ponytail from the collar of her white lab coat as she jogged toward the operating room.
“Yes.”
She blinked up at the dragon lord who answered. Falcon, she believed they called him. Sparrow had worked on him before. In fact, as the flock’s only healer, she’d healed most of the dragon lords and legionnaires at one point or another.
“No one else was injured?” she clarified, half wanting to ask if he needed any attention. Caked blood coated his hands and the black combat pants he wore. Streaks of it smeared his temple as if he’d been running his fingers through his long black hair. However, he shook his head, his neck craning toward the auld women wheeling a gurney toward them. Sparrow focused on them, too, hoping the warrior injured wasn’t Tallon. The king and queen’s daughter had always been the only warrior she felt some kind of connection to. While she hated to think of any of them hurt, she especially worried about the female.
“No,” Falcon replied. Curt, clipped, concerned. Better than angry, she decided.
“He’s the only one.”
For some reason, a knot formed in Sparrow’s throat. She swallowed it just as the rolling gurney stopped under the circular fluorescent light. At the sight of the man atop it, her heart thudded. Every shred of confidence she’d managed to piece together came unglued, crumbling like the fragments of her heart.
She’d forgotten. There was one other warrior who intrigued her, whose well-being she prayed to the gods for each night.
“The captain?” she said on a disbelieving exhale.
“Yes.” He spoke the affirmation in a soft whisper that tugged at Sparrow’s already taut heartstrings.
“Come, young lord.” One of the elderly sisters, dressed from toe to capped head in white, took the warrior by the arm, ushering him out of the ancient cavern. He went willingly, but paused at the archway. His broad shoulders rose and fell beneath his deep breath a moment before he looked over his shoulder, his piercing emerald eyes awash with grief. “He saved my life. Please do what you can to save his.”
Sparrow glanced back at the captain. She knew she had to act fast, and yet couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take her eyes off the man lying so broken and bloody before her. Disbelief shrouded her senses, warring with the inherent healer within her who wanted to get started saving his life. The fact she’d learned to accept as truth failed to register with the sight before her.
Captain Grey had never been healed. In truth, part of her had begun to think of him as invincible. The ideal and perfect dragon warrior.
To see him lying in the infirmary, his pale skin nearly the same color as his waist-length silver dragon lord mane—a mane sullied and stained with streaks of blood and Gods knew what else—sent an ocean of sickness churning over her, nearly drowning her. An overpowering cloak of fear enveloped her. Fear of failing him, of not being worthy enough to save him, wrapped around her in a tight cocoon of dread.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”
The litany ran over and over and unbidden in Sparrow’s mind. It was only when she heard a voice beside her that she realized she’d repeated the phrase aloud.
“He is out cold, young Sparrow,” one of the elder sisters said. “We made certain of it. You’ll do fine.”
Sparrow nodded, unable to verbally acknowledge the auld woman. Then she was gone, leaving Sparrow in the room with the wounded dragon lord.
How it always had to be for her to heal.
How she always felt.
Alone.
Forcing in a breath, she exhaled it slowly, her attention hovering somewhere between his strong jaw and the vein that throbbed sporadically and wildly at the base of his throat. With him safely asleep, Sparrow could allow herself to admit he had such a strong, handsome face for an elder dragon lord. In fact, his silver hair was the only indicator of his age. Like all dragons, his body seemed enormous and strong to her, each fragment of bone surrounded by a bulging sinew of muscle. Yet unlike most of the warriors, she