by Ruby Ryan
I didn't know CPR or anything else medical related. But Sam's eyes continued fluttering, and his breathing seemed steady. Still, the urgency to get him to safety pulsed in my heart the same way it pulsed in the totem.
When we reached the van I had the sickening visual of the engine not starting because of the cold, or that the dragon had slashed our tires when he arrived, but neither was the case. We laid Sam across the seats in the second row, tied him with seat belts and the rope from the sled, and began the drive down the mountain.
Thomas was quiet in the passenger seat until he said, "You know Sam, don't you?"
I blinked. "Yeah, sure. From the intern program."
I kept my eyes on the road, but I could see Thomas shaking his head in my peripheral. "You know what I mean. The two of you knew each other prior to this."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I whispered.
"Your fingers are gripping the wheel so tight the knuckles are white."
I saw that he was correct, and tried my best to relax. "I'm just worried about what will happen."
Thomas nodded, but I could feel his quiet stare the rest of the way to Denver.
*
Nurses came running to the van to help with Sam, transferring him to a gurney and then wheeling him out of sight. I left the van--not caring what happened to it--and helped Thomas into the waiting room. A nurse took one look at his leg, heard the phrase gunshot wound, and took him to the back.
And then I was alone.
I tried to calm down. I'd done everything I could; it was out of my hands. But instead of relaxing me, that thought only made me more anxious. Like I wasn't helping.
I flipped through the shitty magazines on the table, stared at the news on the TV in the corner, and examined the others in the waiting room. I couldn't sit here like this or I would go insane.
"Mr. Harmon?" a nurse called from the doorway.
An old man with a walker slowly rose from his seat across from me. I hopped to my feet and put a hand on his back. "This way, here we go..."
He looked at me with surprise, but then accepted it. The nurse watched us inch toward the door with the walker.
"How long has he had the symptoms?" she asked me instead of him.
"Ohh, grandpa's had them for, uhh, three days now?" I met his eyes, and he seemed surprised, but he didn't reveal my cover.
"Three days," the nurse made a note on her clipboard. "And is he experiencing any other discomfort?"
I looked at him, and he said, "Oh, no... just the joint itself..."
We inched along down the hall. When we came to the first water fountain, I stopped to get a drink.
When they were ten feet ahead of me, I slipped away.
The building was a maze of hallways and doors, and the too-clean smell in the air was unnerving. I hated hospitals. It was worse knowing Sam was here somewhere, being poked and prodded. What if they found out he could turn into a gryphon? Were there any physical signs? Wing bones hiding in his back that might show up on an X-ray?
The totem hummed in my pocket, guiding my feet down the hall. Then to the left, along another corridor. I could feel where Sam was as if the walls were invisible and I could spot him across the building. Four doors down, on the right.
I stopped at the open doorway, hesitated, then stuck my head inside.
Sam reclined on a bed in a brightly lit room. A male nurse stood at his side hooking up equipment, and he blocked Sam's face.
I pulled my head back into the hall and stood against the wall with my arms crossed, waiting for him to leave, hoping I didn't appear out of place. The nurse left a few minutes later, thankfully without noticing me waiting outside the door.
I slipped into the room and went straight to the bed. The nurse had hooked up an IV drip to his wrist, and I could see his heartbeat pulsing on the monitor next to it. Pulsing in time with the totem. That didn't seem so weird anymore.
"Oh, Sam," I said, rounding the bed and taking his other hand in mine. He felt warm, and his face had the right amount of color to it. But he was still unconscious, whether naturally or because they'd put him on something for pain, and his eyes continued moving rapidly behind his eyelids.
Being there, simply holding his hand, made me feel a thousand times better. I pulled up a chair and sat down, never letting go of his hand.
I wouldn't leave until he woke, no matter how many nurses tried to drag me out.
24
SAM
I dreamed.
I was flying high over a mountain in an impossibly blue sky, a sky that was mine, with something precious clutched to my chest. Everything was calmer now, I somehow knew. Like I'd completed a nagging task and could finally relax.
And then I was flying with a group. Five other gryphons, two on my left and three on the right, in a V formation. We were in a different place, a place like hell, with smoke rising from the ground and the sound of explosions and the screams of dying men. My brothers and I recoiled from the terrible battle, the lines of trenches and machine guns and barbed wire as far as our eyes could see, and the smell of death was heavy on the wind.
There, in the distance. Specks of darkness in the sky, arranged in a line. One of my brothers screeched, and I joined my voice to his. These were who we would battle. Who we had always battled.
Who we would battle again.
The dragons roared in response, terrible beasts of scale and bone, grotesque abominations that did not belong in this world. I could feel their presence as we neared, an aura of doom emanating from them like waves. And I could sense which one was mine: the dragon on the far left, whose scales were a deep cobalt bordering on black, and I knew he possessed a sapphire on the back of his neck.
I screeched, and my brothers screeched with me, and then the battle was joined.
The dragons spewed their fire ahead of them like the machine guns below, but we gryphons were faster. Two of us dove low while the rest soared high, circling and distracting the dragons. I whipped past my dragon and joined with my Emerald brother to fight his beast, my talons lashing out across the dragon's armored neck, distracting him long enough for my brother to dart in from the other side and peck at the glowing emerald. There was a flash of light, and explosion that kicked us in the air, and then the beast fell to the earth like so many tonnes of rotten meat.
My Emerald brother circled around with me and we neared the Sapphire Dragon.
The remaining dragons went mad with the death of their brother, terrible roars which shook my hollow bones. And the Sapphire Dragon aimed at me, and at the last minute whipped his head away to target my brother instead, and I screamed as the lance of flame struck him directly in the chest and then his feathers were aflame and we all shrieked in mutual pain as--
GASP.
I woke suddenly, in a foreign place. It took my eyes a moment to take it all in: a TV on the far wall. Lights in the ceiling that were harshly bright. A bed that reclined my back at a slight angle. The needle stuck in my left arm.
And the women curled up next to me.
Ezra lay on the bed over the hospital sheets with her head tucked against my ribs. She wore layers of clothes like she was going on a hike.
A mountain hike.
Everything came back to me: the attack on the mountain. Fleeing from the dragon, then shifting into our special forms. And the avalanche that wiped him out... and nearly killed Ezra too.
"How..." I rasped. My throat felt like the desert.
Ezra bolted up in bed. "Oh my God! Sam! Holy fuck, I didn't think you would ever wake, and the way you were sleeping..."
I tried to swallow and failed, and Ezra hopped out of bed and grabbed a pitcher of water from the side table. I guzzled one entire cup, held it out for more, and then sipped on the second one.
"Okay," I said, testing my voice. "That's a little better."
Ezra beamed.
"How did we get here?" I asked.
Ezra spent the next minute catching me up to speed, while looking ov
er her shoulder to make sure nobody eavesdropped. The avalanche, then flying back to camp. Getting me and Thomas down to the van. She glossed over those parts, but it must have been one heck of a feat to drag my unconscious body down the mountain by herself.
"Thomas..." I said.
"He was discharged earlier. He didn't ask any details about the shooter, thankfully. I don't know what the fuck I would have told him."
"And the dragon?" I reached out with that sense we shared, but could barely feel him. He was faint, like he was very far away. Or maybe even just the memory of him. I was too weak to tell.
"The avalanche was on the news," Ezra explained, "but I haven't heard if there were any bodies pulled from the snow. I don't have a phone or anything else to look up what happened. So I know as much as you do."
I shrugged, which sent pain sizzling up my side. I pulled back the sheet and lifted my hospital gown to reveal rows of long bandages.
"From the trees," Ezra explained, taking my hand and squeezing it. I got the impression she wouldn't let go even if I had to go use the bathroom.
"I told you to stay put. During the avalanche."
"And the nurses told me to stay in the waiting room. Spoiler alert: I'm not good at following directions." But she blushed, and gave an apologetic smile. "It was one hell of a plan."
"Yeah," I said, adjusting myself in the bed. "Thank God it worked."
I pulled Ezra to me, and wrapped my arms around her with quickly growing strength, and held her for what felt like forever.
25
EZRA
They discharged Sam that evening. Once he was awake he seemed fine, and the blood tests didn't reveal anything abnormal. The doctors chalked it up to him being dehydrated on the mountain after the avalanche, and then we were signing forms and being led out of the hospital.
It was a relief for both of us to walk into his apartment. I took the hottest shower of my life, staying under the scalding water for probably 20 minutes. Sam wanted to do the same, but with the bandages on he had to settle for a bath, submerging his lower half in the water while using a sponge to clean the rest of him.
Still nude, I sat on the edge of the tub and helped. And my motivations were less than altruistic. I let my gaze linger on his body as he got out before handing him a towel.
"Ezra..." Sam began as he toweled off. I stopped him with a hand.
"You don't need to say anything. I understand."
"Yeah..." He looked at the floor. "I have to say it."
He paused, and I found myself holding my breath as I looked into his sapphire eyes.
"Ezra, I need you."
"I'll be your dutiful sponge-bather for as long as you need," I said with half a grin.
"I'm being serious. I need you, Ezra. More than all of this." His wave encompassed the room, the building, and his supernatural ability. "I still don't know what's going on. Why that dragon exists, or why he was trying to kill me. But I know I couldn't have survived without you. I would have died."
I tried to protest, but the words would not come.
"I'm glad it was you to steal the totem from me at the airport." He stepped up close, nude and glistening.
"And I'm glad I'm bonded with someone so sexy. It would have been much harder if you didn't have such a pretty face."
He raised his arm like a wing. "I'm not very sexy with these wounds..."
"Are you joking?" I barked a laugh, and ran my fingers along his ribs. "Scars are extra sexy. More than tattoos. I can't wait for the bandages to come off so I can get a peek."
Sam lifted me by the thighs with easy strength, and I wrapped my legs around him as we kissed. I wanted to do more, but wasn't sure if he was up to it with his wounds, but he carried me to the bedroom.
"Oof!" I yelped as he deposited me on the bed. Then he was crawling on top of me, kissing up my belly and chest to my mouth again. I sighed into his lips, feeling all of him surrounding me, and the world dimmed until the only thing that existed was his face and body and smell.
And then his lips were moving along the side of my head, gently nibbling at my neck and shoulder. I reached down to touch myself but then he grabbed my hand and held it out to the side, pinning me down, and I bit my lip with excitement.
"Ohh, you tease me."
I felt the mischievous grin on his lips as he kissed down to my breasts, brushing past the nipples as he continued farther south. He nuzzled his nose into my fluff of pubic hair, his own beard tickling my sex and making me thrust my hips toward him desperately. Then he moved sideways along my thigh, cutting across and then moving up my inner thigh on the other side, pulling a groan from my lips while he teased me, caressing along my thigh. Finally, when I didn't think I could take it anymore, he stuck out his tongue and tasted my sex, just the outside of my slit, moving slowly up until his touch reached my clitoris. I wanted to grab his dirty blond hair, to squeeze it and guide him on, but with my arms pinned at my side there was nothing I could do but take it.
He teased me a little more, tongue caressing my outer lips sensually, before he finally shoved his tongue deeper inside. I moaned as he pushed as deep as he could, taste buds widening the walls of my pussy while his lips pressed along the outside. He rolled his tongue up and down like that, waves of wonderful sensation which made me sigh and close my eyes and think of nothing but his tongue.
And then his tongue flicked out, and down.
"Ohh!" I gasped with surprise, then pleasure.
His tongue moved over my taint and across my tight rosebud, a tickling flicker than soon left me moaning harder than before. He let go of my arms so he could spread my thighs wider, lifting them up to tilt my ass into the air, giving him a better angle. I leaned my head back on his sheets and groaned, my eyes clenching shut with ecstasy.
"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, yes, right there..."
He fingered my pussy while giving me a rimjob, one finger sliding in easily, and then a second. He pistoned them back and forth while keeping his mouth on my forbidden place, and I squeezed my breasts together as I felt my sexual pressure growing.
I snatched a handful of hair and yanked him back up, then reached down to grab his enormous cock. I rubbed it into my slit, coating the head and the first inch of the shaft, slowly taking more and more of it until finally Sam groaned and thrust forward, burying his cock to the hilt inside of me. I gasped at the pressure of him, again surprised at just how much he filled me, our bodies two puzzle pieces that were made to be connected.
He kissed my neck as he slowly made love, because we were in no rush. No one was chasing us. Finally we had no reason to run.
Just Sam, and me, and our pulsing body parts.
And then he sat back on his heels. Taking care to stay inside of me, he twisted me to my right and fell to the bed beside me, behind me, spooning me. But his cock fell out, and I giggled as he grabbed it and guided it back in.
For the tiniest fraction of a second, as his cock was pushing into me from behind, I thought he was going to try to put it in my other hole. It brushed against it, and I held my breath, but then he found my pussy and it slid back inside wonderfully.
He wrapped his arm around me, and continued kissing the back of my neck.
This angle was intense, and wonderful, and feeling Sam's entire body pressed against my back was all I'd ever wanted. But as we slowly made love on our sides, I imagined his cock pressing against my other hole again. Widening it with his immense girth, taking me in a way I'd never been taken before, not with anything more than a finger alone. And thinking about it made me moan louder, and soon it was the only thing I wanted, wanted it now before I could stop myself.
I reached down between us and pulled his cock out. His lips paused on my shoulder, and I grinned as I guided the tip of his cock, rubbing it back and forth against my asshole.
"Is this what you want?" I purred.
"Only if you want to."
"Ohh, you know I do." I twisted to kiss him, then said, "You stay still. Let me do it."
"Oh fuck," he gasped.
The pressure was incredible--different and wonderful all at the same time. I reached back and pulled Sam forward in a long kiss, enjoying the moment and taking some time to adjust.
Slowly, I began pushing back against him.
Feeling his cock move deeper into my ass, one slow millimeter at a time, was unlike anything I'd ever felt. I could sense the tension in Sam's chest, his desire for more, barely restrained, and that mixing with my own pleasure made me reach down and rub my clit. And then he reached down, over my hand to my pussy, curling two fingers down into it at the same time as I rubbed myself. Triply stimulated, I pushed back on his cock harder and harder, feeling it go deeper.
When half of his enormous cock was inside of me, I gasped, "Give it to me."
"Yeah?"
"Yes! Fuck me!"
It was like letting an animal off its leash; he let out a long exhale and pulled back, then thrust forward again. It was so much more intense having him do it as opposed to me being in control, but the intensity was on the edge of what I could handle, riding that line perfectly.
"Holy fuck," he exhaled into my hair. "Ezra, oh God you feel so good!"
"What feels good?" I demanded, eyes wide to drink in his lust.
"Your ass," he said. "Ohh, your ass feels amazing..."
