Page 10 of Burned By Love

West nodded.“Good.You need to get out of here.”

“What about you?”

West gave Jonathan a crooked smile.“This is my job.”

There wasn’t much he could actually do, though.He wasn’t working right now.He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.Theybothneeded to get out of there.

“You don’t have your uniform or whatever you call the jacket and the other stuff you wear on the job.You should leave with me.”

The air was steadily filling with smoke.Jonathan coughed, then pressed his forearm against his mouth, hoping it would help.It didn’t do much, unfortunately.They both needed to get out of therenow.

“Come on,” West said as he guided Jonathan forward.

An explosion threw both of them sideways.Jonathan’s ears rang, and he tensed for the expected pain when he landed.Everything happened so quickly that he didn’t realize West had caught him until his body was pressed against something much softer than the floor.

Jonathan blinked up to see that West had wrapped his arms around him and was holding him against his chest.He looked grim, and as soon as he was sure Jonathan was okay, he helped him to his feet.

Jonathan looked around and instantly wished he hadn’t because chaos and destruction filled his vision.Things had been bad before, but they were worse now.The explosion had come from the back of the store, and everything there was engulfed in flames.Jonathan swallowed heavily when he saw bodies on the floor, some of them with limbs twisted in unnatural positions.He wanted to go to them and make sure the people were okay, but they weren’t.They weren’t moving, and at least one of the bodies was on fire.

The acrid smell of smoke and burning flesh was overwhelming and made Jonathan retch.It was getting hard to breathe, and he was sweating.His legs felt like jelly, and he wasn’t sure they would carry him outside.That wouldn’t stop him from trying, though.He wasn’t going to die in a grocery store, dammit.

“Come on,” West said as he pushed Jonathan toward the front of the store.

People were screaming, some from pain, others for help.West refused to allow Jonathan to go back when he tried, but they did stop to help a woman to her feet.Her foot had been stuck under a shelf, and Jonathan had been sure they wouldn’t be able to help her, but West had picked up the thing as if it weighed nothing.Maybe to a big, strong firefighter, it didn’t.

Or maybe it didn’t to a dragon shifter.

The woman could walk on her own, even though she was limping, so they stopped to help an older gentleman with a bleeding gash on his forehead.The man kept stumbling, so Jonathan pushed West toward him.

“Help him.”

“I’m already helping you.”

“I can walk on my own.Come on.We’re almost at the exit.”The metallic taste of fear coated Jonathan’s tongue.His mouth was dry, no matter how many times he swallowed.

Jonathan should’ve known better than to tempt fate.Theywerealmost at the exit, which meant that it was the perfect moment for another explosion to occur.

The floor shook under Jonathan’s feet, and he tilted sideways.The blast was stronger this time, making Jonathan’s ears ring as his back hit a shelf.The air whooshed out of his lungs, and he tried to grab the shelf so he’d stay upright, but he realized it was a bad idea when the shelf tilted toward him.He attempted to scramble out of the way, but his foot caught something on the floor, and he fell.

The shelf fell with him.

* * * *

WEST SWORE AND SCRAMBLEDto his feet.He’d been thrown down by the second explosion and separated from Jonathan.Jonathan would yell at him if he didn’t make sure the old man they’d been helping got out, though, so West quickly pushed the man in the direction of the exit.His brain and his dragon were screaming at him to look for Jonathan, but he was afraid of what he’d see if he did.

As soon as the man West was helping was close enough to the exit that someone else stepped forward to help him, West ran back.He didn’t go far before he heard someone coughing.Whoever it was sounded like they were low, maybe even on the floor.

West was lucky that his dragon allowed him to withstand the fire and smoke much more easily than a normal human body would.Smoke didn’t bother him.The heat felt good on his skin, and he wouldn’t get burned even if he stepped in the flames.When it came to fire, he was pretty much immune to whatever it could do to him.

Jonathan wasn’t.

West finally noticed something moving under a collapsed shelf.His heart jumped as he rushed forward.He swore as soon as he realized what had happened and that Jonathan was in trouble.

“I told you to leave the store, but instead, you managed to end up under a shelf,” West complained.He didn’t want Jonathan to see how worried he was, even though he had to know already.

Jonathan’s body was buried under the shelf.The only visible parts of him were his head and one of his arms, but it was enough for West to realize that he’d been trying to drag himself out from under the unit.He couldn’t lift it off his body because it was too heavy, but dragging himself away would hurt—if it was even possible.

West crouched down and put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.“Stop it.”

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