Despite her grogginess, she complied when he held the waterskin’s spout to her lips and told her to drink, though she managed only a few sips before withdrawing from it. She laid her head down again and fell asleep immediately.
As more time passed, Dragonsbane’s call strengthened, and the Red Heat thickened in the air around Falthyris. He could not stop the ache in his loin, but it was her body heat—which seemed to be steadily intensifying—that held his attention.
Unfortunately, though he could resist Dragonsbane, there was another force at work, one he could not withstand completely—weariness. He turned his will toward Elliya, toward staying awake to monitor her condition, but darkness was pressing in from the edges of his consciousness, making his thoughts cloudy.
Sleep took him some time before dawn.
16
Falthyris dreamed, and in those dreams he could not escape the comet’s glow. Crimson stained everything. But whatever visions to which he had born witness in the realm of dreams vanished, disappearing faster than a drop of water spilled in the Forsaken Sands, when a sound awoke him. All that remained was a fading red haze and a lingering sense of dread that sat like a lump of molten stone in his gut.
The Red Heat thrummed through his body as though it were part of him, creating a fast-throbbing ache in his erect and fully extruded shaft. That torturous pressure was already building in his loins, as powerful and desperate as ever. Seed seeped from his cock with its every twitch.
Falthyris gritted his teeth and released a heavy breath, battling the urges racing through him—he would not tear off his female’s loincloth, would not plunge into her sex, would not even take himself in hand. His only purpose now was to care for Elliya, to ensure she recovered. It should not have been so much of a struggle to maintain his composure.
The sound that had awoken him came again—a low, strained moan from Elliya.
The lingering unease and disorientation from Falthyris’s unintentional sleep was burned away in a flash of heartfire.
Elliya was still curled against him, and her little body was radiating a startling amount of heat compared to its normal temperature. Her skin was slick with sweat, her dark hair damp, and she was shivering. Wasn’t the latter what humans did when they were cold?
Falthyris thrust aside the questions that followed that one. He didn’t have answers, and he doubted those answers would have made much difference regardless. His limited knowledge of humans was adequate enough to determine that this was not normal—this was the sickness she’d spoken of, the result of her tainted blood.
A cold, dark force wrapped around his heart and squeezed, making his breath ragged and granting new weight to the dread lumped in his gut. Elliya’s confrontation with those beasts had only been the first part of her battle for life.
“I am here, Elliya,” he said softly. “You are not facing this alone.”
She whimpered and pressed herself closer to him, stilling some of her trembling against his solidness. “S-so cold. Burning up.”
Frowning, Falthyris reached aside to grab the waterskin. He uncorked it and, carefully as possible, helped her lift her head. “Drink, Elliya.”
When he touched the rim to her lips, she parted them. It seemed more of the water trickled down her chin than flowed into her mouth as he tipped the container, but at least she drank some.
Perhaps he lacked expertise concerning humans and the way they worked, but he was fairly certain that expelling so much water through their skin would eventually drain all the moisture from a human’s body, leaving them like a carcass that had been dried out by the desert sun and sands. Even if that were not the inevitable outcome, he would not risk it. She needed to consume water.
She turned her face away after only a few moments, having likely swallowed even less than she had the last time he’d made her drink. His frown deepened, and the tightness in his chest somehow intensified.
“You must have more,” he said as gently as a command could be spoken.
“Cannot,” she rasped.
“You must try.” Falthyris returned the waterskin to her mouth.
After a little more coaxing, she finally took a few more sips. That would have to be enough for now. He replaced the stopper and set the waterskin aside. Though he would do his best to make sure its contents lasted, he had to face the reality—he would have to leave her alone soon to refill the container.
That understanding only made his dread impossibly stronger.
Still trembling, Elliya settled against Falthyris and closed her eyes. All he’d learned over the last few weeks about how agonizingly slow time could feel from a mortal’s perspective had little prepared him for the days to come.
Elliya’s sleep was fitful even when she was still. Falthyris made her drink whenever she seemed awake enough to listen, but she swallowed a little less each time. Her temperature rose and fell through the night, though even during the lows it was well above the heat she normally emitted.
She eased into a deeper slumber sometime after he could taste the morning sun on the air, and he withdrew from her briefly to check her wounds. Most of her skin was ashen pale, but the flesh around her bite wounds was an even angrier red than before. That red seemed to have crept into the delicate veins beneath her skin, also, creating an alarming web of sickness.
Not knowing what more to do, he spread a little more of the plant paste over her wounds, focusing on the spots where it had thinned out, before lying with her again.
She woke shortly after midday for a brief period during which she drank a little but said she had no stomach to eat. Falthyris didn’t argue that; dragons could go decades without food or water. He had no idea how long humans could do the same. She told him she had a fever, that she was very sick. He told her she had no choice but to survive, that he would accept nothing less.
Those lucid moments were her last for some time.
Elliya shivered, sweated, moaned, and muttered. Sometimes she moved weakly but restlessly, as though she could not find comfort or was fighting some unseen force. Sometimes she was motionless, but somehow continued putting off that unquiet energy. By that night, her hair was a tangled mess, and Falthyris found himself frequently brushing the sweat dampened, clinging strands out of her face.
She was suffering. Even if he weren’t feeling it through their mating bond, he could see it on her face. And as her condition continued to deteriorate, the persistent tightness in his chest intensified, and the sinking feeling in his gut grew heavier. All of it was compounded by a sense of helplessness he could no longer deny.
He did all he could for her. After the next sunrise, he cleaned her wounds again and reapplied the paste. He moved her and supported her the few times she managed to communicate that she had to relieve herself. He kept her drinking despite her often-silent protests and left—with great reluctance—to fetch fresh water when their supply ran dry. No matter how hastily he made that trip, his heart constricted a little more with each moment he spent away from her.
Dragons were not immune to sickness, but it was rare for them, and Falthyris had never witnessed it firsthand. All his might, all his fire and fury, all the titles he’d earned and the legends he’d inspired— it was all for naught now. None of it could help him. He could not battle the enemy assailing his mate, could not frighten it away with his presence or incinerate it in dragonfire. He could not rend it with his talons or bludgeon it with his tail.
When the red comet had first appeared and driven the dragons around Falthyris mad, when his efforts had failed to prevent the deaths of his parents, he’d felt powerless. When he’d first been forced into this human form, he’d felt powerless. Now, it was more than a feeling—it was his truth.
As time wore on, Elliya’s mutterings became more frequent, her words easier to understand but no less troubling or confusing. She often seemed confused herself—confused, frightened, and in pain. She spoke at random, referred to places he did not know, called out to people who were not there, and occas
ionally pleaded as though this could somehow just stop. Those ramblings occurred even when she appeared to be awake.
Falthyris did not know what visions she saw in her mind’s eye, could not guess whether she was trapped in her own nightmares or something more sinister. The Red Heat still battered him relentlessly, but his bond with Elliya had grown stronger than Dragonsbane’s curse. Whatever physical discomfort he suffered due to those primal urges was negligible. He had to care for Elliya.
So he did the only thing he could think of—he talked to her. When she began her delirious struggles and muttering, he talked to her, told her he was there. Told her she was safe. When her rest seemed more peaceful, he told her of her strength, her willpower. He told her about the little huntress who had claimed a mighty dragon—who had tamed a dragon.
Falthyris tenderly stroked her cheek. “You are Elliya the Huntress, daughter of Telani, Queen of the Shimmering Peaks and all the lands visible from their summits. Your strength is unrivaled, for you have bested Falthyris the Golden. You have conquered the Conqueror. You will survive this, human.”
Sometimes, his voice seemed to soothe her, easing her down from the heights of delirium. Sometimes, she would press herself against him or cling to him with surprising strength considering her state. On a few rare occasions, she responded by rasping his name.
But her body heat did not diminish, her paleness had taken on a sickly cast, and he swore she looked thinner than she had a couple days before.
By the fourth day after the dunehound attack, he could only get her to accept water a few drops at a time. Her lips, once that luscious, delectable pink, were dry and cracking, and her breath came in irregular, wheezing gasps.
Falthyris was at once numb and suffering the agony of immense pressure crushing him. Some instinctual part of his mind recognized the way she was breathing, the way she looked, as a sign of her impending death.
Fiery rage met icy sorrow in his heart—and the fires, for once, were powerless against that deep chill. He cradled her against his chest, wrapping a wing around her, and said, “Please, Elliya. Please, do not leave me.”
His voice sounded alien to his own ears—broken, rough, desperate. Nothing in all his life had ever been as important as her. He’d never wanted, had never needed, anything as much as he did her. They’d only just begun. The end could not come this soon.
“Nothing matters but you,” he continued, emotion constricting his throat. “All the years behind me are as meaningless as dust in the desert wind, and any ahead would be equally so without you beside me.”
She stirred, body trembling against him, and her warm breath fanned across his chest. “Finally free,” she murmured. “You may…finally be free…of me.”
Falthyris’s breath caught in his lungs. He could neither inhale nor exhale as agonizing pressure built in his chest. His heartfire sputtered like a fuel-starved flame, and his heart was utterly consumed by sorrow, shattering into countless shards of ice.
Had she resigned herself to that fate? Had she given up her hope? Where was the tenacity, the spirit she’d displayed before?
“No,” he rasped.
His heartfire rekindled on a fresh burst of fury. Just as Dragonsbane had sought to control Faltyhris, this blood sickness was driving his mate to despair, crushing her beneath the weight of the suffering it had inflicted upon her.
Would that Falthyris could take that weight onto himself, that he could take her pain into his body and spare her all this.
“You will stay with me, Elliya,” he growled, clasping her face between his hands. “You will not leave me. You will not give in. This is not my request or my hope, it is my command as your mate. To leave me alone would be the cruelest act, for no matter where you are, I will never be free of you. You are entwined in my soul. Your heat burns in my heartfire, and our bond pulses in every beat of my heart.”
He held her closer, and she clutched at him weakly. His throat felt suddenly raw and ragged, his breaths trailing fire through it each time they came or went, and terrible heat coursed just beneath his scales.
The circumstances of how he and Elliya had met, of how their bond had been formed, no longer mattered. He needed her in his life. There was no truth greater than that, no desire or necessity that could outweigh it.
“You must stay with me, Elliya. Please,” he begged.
Falthyris bowed his head, resting his forehead atop her hair. Her strength, already so diminished, was fading along with her resolve. Whatever he’d once believed, no matter how he’d once behaved, dragons were not gods, and Falthyris the Golden was far from all-powerful. He could not bend the world to his will, reality would not change to suit his desires.
He was small, he was helpless, and he was scared—scared for his mate’s life. He was terrified of losing her. What skills he’d developed during his long life had been focused on fulfilling his ambitions. His thousand-year-old conquest of the region had been driven by his ability to mete out death and destruction, by his mastery of intimidation and cunning use of reputation, by a honed dramatic flair that ensured his every action was worthy of legend.
But Elliya did not need a conqueror now, and her need for a defender had likewise passed. She needed a healer, a medicine man, or whatever it was the humans called them. She required someone with knowledge and skills beyond his own.
His tail lashed across the nest, rumpling the blanket and rustling the grass mats beneath. His wings shuddered and snapped firmly against his back. He knew what he had to do, and that knowledge only deepened his pain, sinking the claws of regret and sorrow deeper into his heart.
His female was in this state because he had refused to live amongst her people, because he had rejected the very notion of it without a thought, without hesitation, without compassion. And now he had to go to them. Who else could help Elliya if not her own people? Though he maintained a glimmer of hope that she would pull through on her own, he would not risk her life based upon it.
Falthyris did not know how to help her, and her tribe was the only group of which he was aware in the surrounding area. They were the only option. They were her only true hope.
His pride was a small sacrifice to make to save his Elliya’s life, and he’d make that sacrifice gladly, again and again, if that was what was necessary to protect her.
With immense care, he withdrew from her. She made a small, distressed sound and curled up on her side, folding her arms across her chest and drawing knees up. The position made her look so small, so meek—even more so than normal. A pang struck Falthyris’s heart, reinforcing his guilt and desperation. Every bit of him rebelled against seeing her like this.
With all the haste and care he could muster, he gathered her belongings, stuffing the little tools, scraps of cloth, and bits of food she’d left around the lair into her bag. He kept one of her robes and a sun-faded rag out. He knelt beside her and used the rag to mop the sweat from her skin. She moaned and curled up tighter, pressing one of her flushed cheeks down on the blanket.
Dressing her in the robe required a bit of forcefulness, and it pained him to feel her brief resistance when he lifted her into a sitting position and gently tugged her arms apart. His cock strained toward her as though sensing her bared chest even though he did not allow himself to look upon her directly.
Her limbs were limp, and her head lolled as he pulled on her robe and guided her arms through its billowing sleeves; apparently, that fleeting struggle had sapped what little strength she had retained. Only her shallow, rasping breaths and barely audible whimpers signaled that she was alive—those and the heat still radiating from her body.
The way she moved in his hold was too reminiscent of a dead thing.
Falthyris’s heartfire railed against that thought. The reaction was so strong, so sudden, that it was almost physically debilitating—his muscles convulsed, his breath hitched in his throat, and a terrible pressure clamped over his temples, squeezing hard enough to make his vision waver. Worst of all was the mating b
ond around his heart. That pain was great enough that he wondered if it would be his demise.
She is not dead. Nor am I.
Falthyris forced himself back into motion, setting her down on the grass mats to gather the blanket. The fabric was damp with her sweat, but it would have to do—she needed whatever protection he could provide from the nighttime air currents to which she would soon be subjected, which often bore a chill no matter the weather.
Elliya didn’t resist at all as he wrapped her in the blanket. Her eyelids fluttered open briefly, and her dark eyes, now unsettlingly distant and glassy, sought him out. “Falthyris?”
“Shh. Rest.” Holding the strap of her bag in one hand, he scooped her into his arms. “I have you.”
“Wha…what are…”
“Conserve your strength, Elliya. I am bringing you home.”
She curled against him, fingers brushing over his chest scales before her hands fell away.
Heart pounding, Falthyris carried her into the tunnel and hurried toward the mouth of the cave. The night sky was visible through the opening, with countless stars glittering against deep blues and purples—and Dragonsbane, faint but unmistakable, amidst it all.
One more day and the comet would be gone, and Falthyris would never see it again. One more day, and that accursed Red Heat would finally dissipate. One more day, and Falthyris and Elliya would be free to define their relationship on their own terms, free of the comet’s influence.
Falthyris paused at the opening as the Red Heat washed over him anew, as it attempted to assert control over his body and bend him to the comet’s will. Dragonsbane glared down at him spitefully, and he could almost hear its voice in his head.
To Tame a Dragon (Venys Needs Men) Page 16
