Page 47 of Burn for the Dragon
Pushing her hair out of her face, she looked around, and then down at herself, trying to remember what had happened. Bruises covered her torso and legs, and she moved her body a bit, assessing her injuries. She appeared to have none that were serious.
To her left, the building that held the lab her brother was kept in was a nothing but a pile of smoking bricks. Turning her head to the right, she stared at the body lying there, feeling nothing but a strange numbness tingling through her body, starting at her hands and feet and working its way toward her center. Matthew lay there, as naked as she, with a large wooden post stabbed through the center of his chest. As Everly crawled toward him, she searched for any signs of life. But as soon as she got close enough to touch him, she realized it was too late. He was gone. His face slack and peaceful. She waited to feel sorrow at his loss. Rage. Guilt. But she must’ve been in shock, for the only thing she felt was a sense of relief.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move in the grass.
Hawke.
Clumsily, she got to her feet and turned in a circle, searching for him. Hawke lay facedown about twenty feet away, partially hidden by debris from the collapsed building. As she made her way toward him, she saw his clothes were burned away, and the exposed skin of his back and part of his ass was red and blackened and blistered in places.
Everly knew nothing about burns, but she knew this was bad. Very bad. She looked around for something to cover him with, to protect him from the rain, but found herself at a loss as to whether that would be better or worse, so she knelt down near his head, shielding him with her body, and carefully touched his hair.
His mouth opened as though he were in pain.
Her heart fluttered in her chest and her eyes immediately filled with tears. Angrily, she swiped them away. It seemed all she’d been doing the past twenty-four hours is cry. “Hawke?”
He moved again, and after a few tries, his eyes fluttered open, black as the night. They shot back and forth wildly for a moment before they focused on her bent leg, so close to his mouth. His upper lid pulled back and he flashed his fangs.
Without a thought to her own weakened state, Everly offered him her wrist.
To her surprise, he pulled back, rolling onto his side. “Help me up.”
She managed to get him into a sitting position. Then she offered her wrist again.
But he shook his head. “We need to get out of here.”
“You need to feed,” she countered. “Please, Hawke. Take it. It’s okay.” She shoved it closer to his mouth.
Taking her arm in both hands, his mouth twisted into a snarl. He looked at her once more, and when she nodded, he sank his fangs deep.
Everly winced from the roughness of the bite, and then sucked in a breath as he took his first draught. Her body, numb with exhaustion and grief, woke up with a vengeance, flashes of dark heat shooting straight to her core. She moaned as he sucked at her vein with deep pulls. Dark eyes flashed open, locking on hers, and shivers ran up and down her spine, the air suddenly thick and hard to breathe.
Soon, he was sitting straighter and those eyes were roaming over her body. Everly felt everywhere they touched her, like embers burning away the chill of the rain with sweet heat. She felt the vibration of his growl. Heart pounding, her breath caught. Her free hand touched his arm, his face, before dipping between her thighs to ease the ache there. His eyes burned as he watched her. But it wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted Hawke. So she contented herself with the feel of his strong thigh beneath her fingers and waited for him to finish.
As she watched him feed, a flush of guilt heated her cheeks and chest. He was injured. Her brother was dead. And here she was thinking about nothing but sex.
With one last pull, Hawke withdrew his fangs and licked her wound closed before pressing a fervent kiss on the sensitive skin. Releasing her wrist, he took her face between his hands and pulled her in for a kiss. “Thank you,” he told her, and then pulled her to him again.
Everly returned his kisses with wild abandon, rising to her knees to get closer to him before she remembered and lurched away.
Hawke cupped her cheek. “What is it? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. No, of course not. It’s just…” The words tumbled over each other on her tongue, so finally, she just waved her hands around, taking in everything around them. Where they were. The rain. Her lack of clothes. Her brother. Him.
As though he were snapping out of a trance, Hawke jumped to his feet, bringing her with him. She barely caught a, “What the fuck…” before she lost sight of his mouth. She spun around, terrified someone had caught them. Someone from Parasupe.
But Hawke gripped her arm to get her attention and shook his head. “No one is here. Not yet. But you’re right, honey. We need to get the hell out of here. Gods! I wasn’t fucking thinking.” He kissed her again, fast and hard. Then he left her shivering in the rain as he retrieved her lab coat and brought it to her. It was wet, and it had a few burn holes, but at least it covered her.
As she pulled it closed and buttoned it up with shaking hands, she turned to ask Hawke about Matthew, but Hawke wasn’t with her. He was over by her brother. She watched as he carefully pulled the large piece of wood from her brother’s chest, and then lifted him into his arms.
Silently, her heart in her throat, she waited for him to join her, and then they walked out of that place.
Together.
The ride back to the caverns was silent. Hawke had taken off what was left of his shirt and laid it over Matthew in the back seat. Every few seconds, Everly saw him checking the rearview mirror, but no one followed them. She assumed most of the guards had gotten blown up in the explosions. The ones who weren’t in the building had taken off and probably wouldn’t have a job come tomorrow.
They arrived back at the caverns with about forty-five minutes to spare before the sun came up. Gathering her brother’s body from the back seat, Hawke took him around the back of The Caves, then went into the little storage shed the groundskeepers used and returned with a shovel. Everly picked out a nice spot, and Hawke got to work. Together, they buried him. Then Hawke gave her a few minutes alone, though he didn’t go far.
Everly stood in front of her brother’s grave. She wasn’t used to this sort of thing, and she didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry, Matthew. For everything.” Then she just stood there silently, thinking of the years they’d missed out on, and the ones they could’ve had. She didn’t cry. She just felt…hollow.
