Page 86 of The Dragon With A Girl Tattoo
“Becket!”Yrian yelled, running to me, pulling me out of the burning rubble.
“I’m fine, just winded.Get your brother,” I said, clambering to my feet.He whirled around, stalking through the surrounding inferno to the spot where Bael had stood.He was gone, but the door to the vault was blown off its hinges, fire filling the space inside.I could see Tenite’s shape there, as well, obviously searching for the blood moon.
Yrian whirled around to me.“Gather the energy!”
“What energy?”I asked, stumbling forward, ignoring the pain of the fire.I didn’t think it could kill me, since I was Yrian’s official mate, but it still hurt like the dickens.
“He broke the shard.Gather the energy into a glamour so it can be re-formed,” he said before diving into the fiery vault.
I tried to focus, but the pain, as well as all the dark power still present, made it difficult, but as I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be open to the possibilities, I automatically began gathering up the magic released by the breaking of the shard, weaving it into a glamour that I prayed would hold it safe until Yrian could do what he needed with it.
I slowed with each passing second, feeling my flesh start to burn.“I guess ...ow ...I’m not as immune ...shit, that tendril is just out of reach ...as I thought.Oh goddess.Not more.”
Another wave of fire poured out of the vault, Yrian being knocked backward past me.Just as I forced my blistering legs to move forward a few more steps to catch up the last bit of shard magic, Tenite appeared, laughing maniacally.
“You never learn, do you?”was all she said before she literally exploded into a massive ball of fire, hate, and vengeance.
The walls cracked and rumbled, and I knew the whole building was about to come down upon us.
Yrian wrapped his body around me, his breath harsh in my ear as he lurched forward, half dragging, half carrying me to the stairs.
I honestly don’t know how he got us out of there in time.I clutched the precious glamour to myself, my skin peeling, my lips cracked, as I hoarsely cried out when I tried to get my legs to function.Just as the pain was too much, black blotches starting to fill my vision, air hit us, blessedly cooler air.
Noises were all around us, voices that I recognized, and some I didn’t.Everyone was talking at once, shouting, demanding to know what happened, and why they felt as if pieces of their souls were destroyed.
Yrian staggered to a stop, and hands took me from him, holding me up while the voices continued.I managed to peel my swollen eyelids open, staring in horror at Yrian.He was scorched black, his flesh cracked and peeling, his mother’s fire clearly too much even for him.
“Where’s Bael?”Baltic asked, his arm around Ysolde.“Was that the shard we felt?”
“Yes.Kashi destroyed it to open the vault.Becket ...Becket ...”He toppled over without another word.
I struggled to free myself, tucking the glamour into my shirt as I knelt next to him.Around us sirens pierced my eardrums, but I had no mind for the destroyed, burning building in front of us.
It was the man who lay before me blackened and burned that held my full attention.
“You are the most amazing man,” I told him, taking his face in my hands just as Charity had done his father.I kissed one spot on the side of his mouth that was less burned than the rest, tears splashing onto both my hands and his face.
He moaned softly, his arms moving.
“He’s alive,” Gabriel said as he knelt next to me, reaching out when May handed him a couple of tubes of what appeared to be ointment.“But you are badly burned.”
“I’m fine,” I said, flinching back when he reached for me.“Take care of Yrian.He took the full brunt of his mom’s anger, not to mention a face full of magic dragon shard exploding.”
Gabriel quickly examined Yrian, then gave me a little nod.“He’ll survive this, although he may have some scars.”
“As if I cared about that.Just make him better.I am not going to fall in love with the big galoot only to live without him.”My voice broke on the last few words, and I gave in to the misery of the moment, curling up next to Yrian while sobbing with relief, anger, fear, and so many other emotions I couldn’t begin to pick them apart.
It took almost an hour before the dragons got Yrian to Drake’s house.Gabriel didn’t feel he should be moved until Yrian’s natural healing abilities started to function, but after much weeping on my part, hand-wringing by Aisling, Ysolde, and May, and some soft, wet snuffles by Jim that I interpreted as being an attempt to offer comfort, Yrian came around.
“Don’t try to talk, not yet,” Gabriel warned him.
Yrian made a horrible noise in his chest, one hand moving.
“Becket is here.She is burned, but she’s been your mate long enough to start her regenerative powers.Just lay still and try not to move.We have an ambulance for you.”Gabriel moved aside when I dragged myself the few feet to Yrian’s head.
“Everything’s fine,” I told him when his eyelids fluttered.I leaned down to kiss the unhurt spot.He didn’t look one iota better to me, but Gabriel had assured me that Yrian’s healing process had started, along with that offered by the silver dragon medicine.“You are the bravest person I know, and all the dragons will sing your praises for many, many generations.”
“Does that mean he destroyed Bael?”Aisling asked, then made an apologetic gesture.“Sorry, I know now is not the time to recap what went on down there, other than evidently Yrian’s mom blowing up the place, but we don’t know where Bael is.Is he still down there, trapped in the rubble?Did he go up in flames, too?Did Yrian kill him?”
