Sacrificed to the Dragon (22 page)

The healers didn’t waste any time and rushed forth. Cassidy, their leader, told Melanie, “Stay to the right side of his head while we fix him. Your touch and voice will help ground him and, most importantly, keep the human-half in charge.”

Mel nodded and moved out of the way, but she never severed contact with her dragon.

She looked into the huge dragon’s eye in front of her and whispered, “I know you’re all big and strong, but that wound has to hurt like hell and I want to help you forget about the pain. I’m not sure what to do, though, so I need your help. I’ll try scratching and caressing certain areas, and blink twice if it’s good or three times if it does not. Now, blink once if you understand.”

The dragon blinked and Melanie smiled. “Good. I’ve always wanted to feel up a dragon.” She winked. “Now, where to start...”

~~~

Thanks to Melanie, Tristan had managed to battle back into control of his dragon-half.

His human was cleverer than he’d realized. Her threat of walking away to find another male had been enough to drive his dragon crazy and to turn to Tristan for help, asking what they needed to do to keep her.

And now she wanted to touch, scratch, and caress his dragon hide. She really was a different type of human.

While waiting to see what Melanie would touch first—he hoped behind his ears, because it itched like hell—someone poured something into his wound and a blinding pain rushed through his body. What the fuck? Were they trying to kill him?

He gritted his teeth and just barely resisted roaring into his female’s ear. His dragon pushed and growled to come out again. His beast said,
We need to knock the dragon-shifters away again. The pain is proof they are trying to kill us. They will use our weakness against us.

Tristan growled inside his head.
Our female is right next to us. If we roar or thrash about, we will hurt her, maybe even kill her. Is that what you want?

No. I never want to hurt her. She is our mate.

Then shut it and leave me alone for awhile.

His inner beast grudgingly retreated to the back of Tristan’s mind.

As the pain dulled slightly, he could feel Melanie stroking his snout. His human said, “It was just some antiseptic. Stop acting like a big baby.”

He tried his best to frown, but dragons didn’t do facial expressions all that well.

Still, Melanie laughed and the sound helped to ease both the dragon and the man. She gave him a pat and said, “Men. No matter if they’re human or dragon-shifter, they’re all the same. If you’re this bad when you’re hurt, I hate to see what you’re like when you catch a cold.”

Tristan growled and decided right then and there he was going to live because he wanted to feel what it was like to have Melanie take care of him.

Something must’ve shown in his eyes because Melanie tapped his snout a few times and said, “Don’t get any ideas. You have to be can’t-get-out-of-bed sick before I start giving you any special treatment. Faking a headache isn’t going to make me wait on you hand and foot.”

He grunted in disappointment, not that he hadn’t expected anything less.

Melanie waved a hand. “But now that you’re acting yourself again, let’s go back to the part of me getting to touch you.” She ran a finger from his snout up to his eye ridge and scratched. “How about here?”

While it wasn’t bad, he wanted her hands to keep going so he blinked three times. She frowned. “Okay, let’s try something else. I know you’re not a dog or cat, but how about here?”

She scratched behind his ear. He leaned into her touch and hummed in contentment. A dragon-shifter could learn to get use to this.

His inner dragon poked his head out again and said,
Yes, she is our mate. You must keep her. We love her.

Tristan stopped humming and tried to process what his inner beast was saying. Yes, his dragon had been half in love with the human since the first day, but did the human part of him feel the same?

He didn’t get the chance to think on it because Melanie stopped scratching as the clan’s head doctor, a female dragon-shifter named Dr. Sid, came to stand in his line of sight. She said, “We’ve stopped the bleeding, Tristan, but I’ll have to put you under to fix all of the damage. Nod if you will allow us to do this. The sooner I can cut you open and repair the rest of the damage, the better.”

Tristan didn’t like being unconscious in the hands of anyone, except maybe his human.

Then Melanie leaned against his snout and whispered into his ear, “I’ll watch over you, Tristan, and make sure they don’t try to sneak out any organs, or whatever strange dragon things are inside of you that I have no idea about.”

He snorted. Like he had secret treasures stashed inside of him. His human could be silly.

But if Melanie watched over him, he would trust her not to let them harm him. She could stand up to just about any dragon-shifter if she put her mind to it.

For reasons he didn’t want to think about right now, that made everything suddenly seem all right. He nodded to Sid and she turned her back to start ordering her team to get things ready for surgery.

In the meantime, he simply leaned against his human and into her caresses, wanting to memorize her touch. While his chances at living were better than before, he could still die. But the more Melanie accepted and maybe even cared for him, the more fuel it gave both him and his dragon to live.

Chapter Four

Melanie paced in front of the large tent that had been constructed over Tristan’s dragon-form for surgery. Cassidy—or, as most people seemed to call her, Sid—had finally kicked her out once she’d started cutting into the dragon. Not that Mel could blame her. Her little dragon baby had decided that the sight of blood and knives was not okay, and had thrown her a crippling wave of nausea.

Now that she was back outside in the fresh air, however, her stomach had settled, allowing her mind to whirl through all the possible outcomes. She dismissed half of them because she refused to believe Tristan would die.

At least most of the crowd had been sent home so she could fret in peace. She wasn’t sure if everyone had left because the danger had mostly passed or because the tent blocked them from trying to take a peek. At any rate, she was glad they had left or she would’ve had to think of a way to get rid of them. Human or not, her dragonman was not to be eyed as some freak show accident to provide entertainment.

She had reached one edge of the landing area and was about to head back toward the tent when she heard a familiar deep voice. The words were a little faint and distant, but she could just make out, “We’re nearly there. And see? Just like I told you. Everyone is gone.”

Bram had finally decided to show up.

When he came into view, she marched toward him, about to demand what had taken him so damn long when she noticed Arabella beside him.

Mel blinked and stopped in her tracks. Arabella MacLeod was outside, and in the main living area no less.

Before she could get her mouth working again, Bram approached her and said, “You really should close your jaw or a bug might fly in.”

Not realizing she’d had her mouth hanging open, Mel promptly shut it. Bram’s words had kicked aside her shock and she frowned up at him. “What took you so long? I had a hell of a time of first getting to Tristan and then convincing the healers to let me calm him down. Your words could’ve made everything happen that much faster.”

Rather than looking angry, Bram looked amused. “Your backbone never ceases to amaze me, lass.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. As if she wouldn’t do whatever it took to save Tristan’s life. “Whatever. Tell me what happened.”

Bram shrugged. “The mobile service signal at Ara’s house is less than reliable, so I didn’t hear about Tristan until you had already arrived and allowed the healers to work on him. Since you had things in hand, I decided to focus my energies on getting Ara here to see her brother.”

Mel glanced over to Tristan’s sister and noticed the woman was no longer in the strange trance-like state she’d been in earlier. If anything, the woman was frowning. Mel decided to go easy at first rather than incite the dragonwoman’s temper. She could use Arabella’s help against Sid and her healers if the doctor tried to keep information from her. “It’s nice to see you again, Arabella. Tristan will be pleased.”

She waited to see if Ara would simply ignore her or not. Thankfully, Bram also kept quiet.

After glancing to the tent and back, Tristan’s sister said, “Why aren’t you in there with him? They could be doing anything to my brother right now.”

Mel resisted a smile at the dragonwoman’s censure. “I was, but once the knives came out, little Tristan junior or junioress decided he or she wanted to leave. I figured vomiting on him wasn’t the most sanitary of ways to show support.”

Bram chuckled. She didn’t dare hope for Ara to do the same, but the woman’s frown eased a bit. At least that was something.

Ara said, “Who is operating on him?”

“Cassidy.”

Ara nodded. “Good. Sid has the best reputation in the clan.”

Mel didn’t want to push her luck, but her curiosity pushed her to ask, “How do you know that?”

At first, Arabella said nothing. Since Mel knew how difficult this was for her, being out in the open and not fifteen feet away from a dragon no less, she didn’t mind the woman’s pauses. Hopefully, with time, they would lessen.

Finally Arabella said, “Word of mouth travels in cyberspace just as much as in real life.” She scrutinized Mel from head to toe. “You’re not taking the best care of yourself, let alone my future niece or nephew.

Convinced Arabella was no longer trapped in her memories like before, Mel wasn’t going to tiptoe around Tristan’s sister. That wasn’t her style. “And when did I have the chance to do so? I figured making sure my baby’s father stayed alive was more important than finding something to eat.”

To her surprise, Arabella nodded in approval. “I like your answer.”

She stared. Maybe, just maybe, she and Ara would truly be friends one day.

Bram laid a hand on her elbow and started walking. He guided them toward some rocks lining the landing area and motioned for Mel to sit. “Ara’s right, though. You should sit and I’ll fetch something for you to eat and drink.” He looked to Arabella. “Can you handle keeping Melanie company?”

Bram’s tone had been strong, as if his question had been more an expectation than a request. Even Mel felt compelled to answer in the positive. She was beginning to understand this whole dominance thing.

Arabella dipped her head in the affirmative and Bram said, “Good. Call me if anything happens. Since I’m in the main area, I shouldn’t have any more service interruptions.”

With that, he was gone. Mel looked to Ara and patted the rock next to her. “Come. Sit down. I’ve been pacing for too long and it really doesn’t help Tristan any.”

Ara didn’t sit. Instead, she said, “Thank you for fighting to save my brother’s life.”

Mel blinked. She hadn’t seen that coming.

She shrugged, downplaying her actions. “I’m sure he would’ve done the same for me.” She patted the rock again. “Now, sit down. You’re super tall and looking up at you is giving me a crick in my neck. My little dragon baby might not care, but I do. Sit down, Arabella. I won’t bite.”

The dragonwoman hesitated a few second before gingerly sitting next to Mel. It took everything Mel had not to wrap her arm around the woman’s shoulders for support.

But for now, she was content that Arabella MacLeod would sit next to her.

The two of them sat in silence, staring at the tent and no doubt both hoping Tristan would pull through.

~~~

Tristan was trying to sleep, but his inner dragon kept repeating, “
Wake up
” over and over inside his head. Nothing, not even a growl or a threat of not shifting for a week, would make the beast stop.

Finally tired of it, he cracked open an eye and promptly shut it again. He moved his arm over his eyes. The light was too bloody bright.

He heard a breathy, “Tristan,” before a soft, warm hand grabbed his other hand and squeezed. He could scent Melanie Hall.

Suddenly, he remembered everything she’d done for him back in the clearing.

Clearly, he was still alive, and now in human form, which meant he was no longer in danger of dying. Yet he had no bloody idea what had happened between then and now. Maybe Melanie could tell him.

He moved his arm and opened his eyes more slowly this time to adjust to the light. Then he looked up into the face of his beautiful human. The way the light played along her cheeks and highlighted the red glints in her hair took his breath away. “Melanie.”

His voice sounded more like a choke than his usual calm, deep voice. But before he could ask for water, Melanie threw her upper body against his and hugged him tightly.

Pain seared through his shoulder, and despite the surge of joy at her touch and warmth, he couldn’t help but say, “Ouch.”

“Oh, sorry!” She released him and moved away. His dragon growled at that, but Melanie then moved to stroke his forehead and both the man and beast settled down. His female smiled and said, “I would tease you about being a big man baby when it comes to pain, but I’m beyond happy that you’re awake. You’ve been out for nearly a week, Tristan, and everyone was starting to think you wouldn’t wake up.”