Stay awake, dragon. Tristan knew that as soon as his dragon fell asleep, that would be it. He wouldn’t wake up again.
In a last burst of strength, Tristan shouted at his dragon. We need to stay awake. If you fall asleep, we’ll never see our human again. Never hold her. Never fuck her. Never stand by her side as she births our young. Don’t you want to live to see all of that? We must stay awake or she will be alone.
But his beast merely ignored him and tried falling asleep again. Tristan used what precious strength he had to battle his dragon-half. Tristan wasn’t one to beg, but in this moment, he would do it if it meant he could see Melanie again.
As the last of his energy faded, Tristan tried one last tactic. If you don’t let the healers help us, we will die. There will be no one to protect our female. She needs us. But his dragon was too far gone to listen to reason.
As his beast closed their eyes, Tristan was out of options. They were going to die.
~~~
A group of dragon-shifters she’d never met before surrounded Melanie. They were all telling her to go home, but she wasn’t about to cow down to them. She could hear Tristan’s dragon in pain, and the sound only strengthened the steel in her spine.
Putting her hands on her hips, she looked to the dragonwoman directly in front of her. The woman with mousy brown hair tied in a ponytail seemed to be their leader. Melanie would focus on her. “You all haven’t been able to help him, have you? So let me try. His dragon is attached to me. Tristan and his dragon would never hurt me.”
The ponytailed woman frowned and said, “No. I’m not about to put you or your baby at risk. Bram would have my head.”
Melanie shook her head and decided if the woman was going to use Bram as an excuse, so would she. “I don’t agree with you. Bram would want us to try everything we could to save a clan member. And right now, I’m Tristan’s last hope.”
One of the males in the group said, “She’s right, Cassidy. If he can scent her, he may let her come near.”
A few of the other dragon-shifters murmured their agreements and Melanie felt a glimmer of hope in her heart.
Cassidy crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, and Mel wasn’t sure what to think. Then the woman said, “I’ve done all that is required of me at this point. If you want to get yourself killed by a pain-crazy dragon, then that’s your own damn fault. Just make sure he doesn’t shift back into a human because doing that right now will kill him.” Moving aside, she motioned behind her with her head. “If you understand all of this and accept the risks, then go to him.”
Thank goodness. Mel nodded and squeezed between the dragon-shifters, not wanting to waste any more time talking. Once past the circle of dragonfolk, she could see Tristan in dragon-form curled up on the ground, the dragon’s eyes closing and then opening again as if he were trying not to fall asleep.
She had a feeling that if the dragon fell asleep, he’d never wake up again.
Mel knew she didn’t have long, so she did a quick scan of the dragon to find his injuries and sucked in a breath at the huge gash along one of his shoulders. Thick, red blood dribbled from the shoulder wound and she fought back the vomit threatening to come up. No, little dragon baby. We’re going to help your dad, so buck up.
With a deep breath, Mel took three more steps toward the dragon and said, “Tristan. It’s Melanie. Please. Look at me.”
The dragon’s eyes fluttered open, but otherwise ignored her.
She didn’t like the look in the dragon’s eyes, as if he was in such pain that there was no hope of relief. Tristan’s human-half would never give up, which must mean he’d lost control. She needed to try again.
She inched another foot closer and decided to screw the gentle approach. That wasn’t really how she operated anyway.
She waggled a finger in the dragon’s direction and said, “Now listen here, Tristan’s dragon-half. You’re hurt and maybe dying. If you don’t let some of those nice dragon-shifters over there help you, you’ll die. And if you die, that means I have to find another nice, handsome dragon-shifter male to take care of me, caress me, and even fuck me. Is that what you want?”
She heard murmurs of “she must have a death wish” behind her, but she focused solely on the dragon.
She was rewarded when the dragon’s eyes flicked to hers and she saw a small spark. It wasn’t much, but she’d take it as encouragement to keep pushing. She took another step closer and said, “That’s right. If you die, then another male’s hands will be all over me and another male’s cock will be inside me, branding me with his scent. And if that isn’t enough, then realize you dying means that another male will raise your young.” She turned half away. “If you don’t let us help you, maybe I should start looking right now. I passed quite a few hot males on my way here.”
The dragon raised its head and growled. Resisting a smile, Mel turned her head back toward the dragon, looked him in the eye, and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t like those possible scenarios, now, do you? Well, then, if you want to be the only male who touches this body, then you’d better let the others help you so you can live. To do that, I need you to let your human-half come back into control.”
As the dragon continued to stare at her, Mel wasn’t exactly sure how she’d know if the dragon-half ceded control or not. But no doubt the dragon-shifters behind her would know if she couldn’t figure it out.
She was about to start scolding and taunting again when the dragon’s head lowered to the ground and let out a long, slow breath of air. The beast’s eyes were no longer frenzied, but rather stoic.
Yes, stoic like Tristan’s default expression.
“Tristan,” she whispered and barely restrained herself from running to the dragon. She was hopeful, but not stupid. She needed more than an expression to convince her it was safe to approach.
She clenched a hand over her heart, took a steadying breath, and said, “If it’s truly you, flick out your tongue.”
While there was still pain, something that looked like amusement hovered in the dragon’s eyes. Then he flicked out his long, forked tongue and turned his head to the side, exposing his chin.
Cassidy’s voice came from right behind her. “Tristan is back in control. No dragon would ever expose the vulnerable, soft skin of his chin unless the human was calling the shots.” The woman moved to Mel’s side. “Calm him a little further and convince him to let my people near enough to heal him.”
Mel was on the verge of tears, but managed to push them back and nod. Her job wasn’t quite finished just yet.
She took a few more steps toward the dragon and said, “Tristan, let me touch your beautiful, smooth scales again. Blink if you feel I can do that without you hurting me.”
The dragon slowly blinked and Mel’s heart warmed. She fought the tears that threated to fall and walked at a steady pace until she was less than two feet from the dragon. She raised her hand and slowly reached out until she could lay it on his snout. At the contact, the dragon gave a little hum.
She couldn’t hold back her emotions any more. She whispered, “Oh, Tristan,” before taking the last steps between them and then hugging his snout as she caressed the scales of his head and jaw. He might live.
She couldn’t prevent her voice from cracking as she said, “Please let the healers help you. I don’t want to live without you, you stubborn dragonman.”
The dragon chuffed and Mel decided that was a yes.
Only through sheer will did she convince herself to let go of the dragon’s snout. She quickly wiped her eyes before she turned and shouted, “He’s okay. Come help him.”
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?”
Sacrificed to the Dragon: Complete Boxed Set (Parts #1-4) Page 16
