EMMA

I never thought I’d be so relieved to see Zohr pass out. 

The last few hours have been straight-up hell. He’s completely snapped. No matter how many times I called his name, he wouldn’t answer. It’s like he’s lost inside his own thoughts and can’t pull himself free. Constantly growling and snarling and wild-eyed, I feared he’d squeeze too hard and kill me. Or drop me. Or anything, really. He’s bigger than a city bus and he could crush me easily. But he’s never once hurt me, and eventually my fear fell away to tears of frustration. How do I get through to someone that’s mindless? Even with a mental connection, there’s no way to reach him.

In the pre-dawn hours, he starts to stagger through the streets, and that’s when I realize just how much blood he’s losing. My fear over my own safety changes to fear for him. He’s risking his life to save me, and I can’t let him die. When he pauses with exhaustion, I’m finally able to connect to him.

When he changes to his human form, his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps to the ground. I panic as he topples forward, and it’s only when I see the messy ribbons of flesh that make up his back that I realize he’s not much better off in this form. I was hoping that transforming would make his bleeding stop, but maybe not so much. I hastily rip off my shirt—from two to zero tonight—and dab at his wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. 

I need to get him somewhere safe. I don’t know if Azar’s men are following us, and I don’t know how long Zohr will be in his right mind, but I need to do something. I’m not the kind to sit around and wring my hands. Jack taught me how to take care of myself, and now I can use what I’ve learned to help someone else.

But first, safety.

I press the fabric of my shirt onto Zohr’s wounds as gently as I can, doing my best to stave off the worst of the bleeding. It looks like it’s slowing, which is good. I slip my jeans off and then put my boots back on. Another thing that Jack taught me? How to move a heavy object. I’m never going to be the strongest person in the room, and he helped me realize early on that it didn’t matter. I just need to be the smartest. I lay my jeans down horizontally and roll Zohr onto his back, on the waist and thighs of my jeans. I have to ignore his groan of pain, even though it kills me. I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry, Zohr, I send to him even as I knot each leg to make a handle and then use them to drag him along down the street.

To my frustration, the fabric starts to tear—Zohr’s heavier than I’d hoped. I glance around, scanning the streets of the Scavenge Lands. I don’t know where we’re at after hours of Zohr’s wild racing and mad stomping. We could be in Oklahoma for all I know. The buildings are thinning out, which tells me we’re out of the worst cluster of downtown, and in the distance, past trees and broken buildings, I can see regular little triangular roofs. Toward the suburbs, maybe. Those don’t interest me as much as the buildings around us. I scan them, hoping for something useful. Old restaurants and salons in a nearby strip mall don’t hold my interest—I’ve learned from experience that those won’t have much of anything good in them. A bit farther down, there’s a pharmacy that looks like it’s been completely raided. I head toward it, and as I do, I see the remnants of an old hardware store sign off in the distance.

Jackpot. 

I drag poor Zohr over to a sheltered spot between two long-crashed cars and nestle him there, out of the way of anyone’s view. I don’t like leaving him alone, but I’m not going to get him very far if my jeans rip. I jog to the hardware store and race through the broken shelves and scattered contents. Some of the good stuff’s been taken, but there’s still enough for me to be happy with. I grab a hammer off an endcap to use as a weapon, tuck it into my belt, and then head to the garden department.

Five minutes later, I’m racing back down the broken, grass-covered streets of the city with a rusty wheelbarrow. It takes some maneuvering to figure out how to get Zohr onto it, but I eventually manage it by tipping the wheelbarrow on its side, rolling him in and then slowly righting it. It’s not the most comfortable ride for him, but we can move faster, despite his big legs dangling over the sides.

I kind of have to laugh at the mental image we present as I wheel him down the road, looking for a suitable hideout. I’m in a bra and panties and combat boots, wheeling an unconscious man down a deserted street. Life in the After is definitely never boring.

I find a row of apartment buildings not far from the strip mall and wheel my dragon toward them. For a second time, I park him safely into a hidden spot and then go to check the closest apartment and make sure that it’s safe to inhabit. I don’t want to wander in on a place covered in black mold, cockroaches, or infested with snakes—or worse, other armed squatters. Luckily, the place I check out is empty of people, and I wheel Zohr’s unconscious body inside and then barricade the door.

It’s hot as fuck inside the apartment, so I spend a few moments cracking windows and trying to get a breeze flowing. Some days, I remember what air conditioning was like and could almost cry with the loss. Most times I don’t notice that it’s gone—I’m too used to the heat now—but when you walk inside a place with stale air, it hits you like a wall. I do what I can to make the place comfortable, and hope that the day isn’t too hot.

I poke around in shelves and dig through the rooms of the wrecked apartment, looking for salvageable things. This place isn’t as picked over as most. Everything central is usually pretty scavenged, so we must be farther out than I thought. There’s clothing in one of the closets, a few dust-covered blankets on a bed that can be shaken off, and a pantry that’s seen better days. Still, there are a few cans of food, and I feel like I hit the jackpot when I turn one of the taps on the sink and it dribbles out fresh water.

Thank god for that.

I collect the water in a pan, grab the cleanest shirt I can find off of its hanger, and then move to Zohr’s side. I set my stuff down, spread out a clean sheet over the floor, and then gently roll him out of the wheelbarrow and onto his stomach. Everything is a slow and arduous process because he’s so big and ungainly, but I manage to do it without making him groan too much. He doesn’t rouse from his faint, which tells me he’s under pretty far. That’s good, I guess, but it worries me that I won’t be able to rouse him later.

I can’t stress about that. Right now, I need to tend to him. 

With the water, I gently bathe his wounds and clean them with an old bottle of mouthwash I found in the bathroom. I hope its disinfectant properties are still good after seven years, but who knows. It can’t hurt. His back is sliced up badly, though, and it quickly becomes obvious to me that stitches are going to be needed.

“Fuck you, Azar, and your shitty vest,” I mutter as I dig through the apartment for needles and fishing line.

It takes me three apartments and two hours of searching to find what I need, but when I return, Zohr’s still asleep. I try to send him comforting thoughts as I work on stitching his back, but it doesn’t matter. He’s completely out of it. I make my stitches as small as I can, moving up the lower portion of his back. I can see exactly where the spikes buried themselves as he transformed, because they get deeper the closer to his shoulders I go.

I have to pause and get fresh water and clean my hands off. I’m tired, sweaty, and hungry, but I can’t stop. I don’t know how fast—or slow—dragons heal, and I want to make sure his wounds are taken care of as best I can. Jack cut his leg open once and I had to sew it up, and I thought that was awful work, but it’s nothing compared to the multiple stab-like wounds poor Zohr has. I take a small break, choke down one of my granola bars, and then get back to work.

When I get to his shoulders, I have to pause. His skin and muscle are more torn up here, and I spend extra effort cleaning the wounds a second time to try and stave off infection. As I go over him, gently moving torn portions of skin back into place, I notice something odd. His shoulder blades are shaped differently than my own. They seem wider, flatter. I knew his shoulders were large in human form, but this seems…odd.

On a hunch, I use my needle to push aside skin and peer into a wound. I see something that looks like tendon in a place that shouldn’t have tendon. Oh shit. I swallow hard, rinse my hands, and then dig into one wound, gagging the entire time. I’m glad he’s unconscious, because this can’t feel good.

My hunch is right, though. I pry his jagged wound apart and pull on the strange object, and as it unfurls in my hand, I realize what I’m looking at.

His wing. It tucks under muscle when he turns to human form, and that’s why I’ve never seen it. But it still exists, in a more delicate and far smaller shape than I expected…and it’s nearly torn to pieces. With gentle fingers, I try to straighten what I can. The cuts are terrible—I remember looking back as he carried me and seeing nothing but bloody ribbons as he stormed through the city in our escape—but they’re clean, straight cuts.

I…wonder if I can stitch these together for him.

I swallow hard at the thought. I’m terrified of making a mistake and crippling him further. I don’t know how dragon wings work….but I know if I don’t try, he’ll never fly again. His wings aren’t even wings anymore. But maybe…maybe they can heal, even a little, with stitches. If they at least heal straight…

I gently extend one wing, swallow hard, and prepare to make the smallest stitches I’ve ever made.

* * *

It takes all day to stitch Zohr’s wings back together.

It’s almost like working on a bird. There are tiny tendons and hollow bones that seem impossible and downright absurd on a dragon. But then I think about the fact that he turns into a human and maybe I need to throw “impossible” out the window.

I stitch tiny lines, sewing his wing back together into the world’s most delicate canvas. I make my stitches as small as possible, but that takes time and effort, and I grab a pair of reading glasses that I find that help me focus. They give me a blistering headache, but I can see closer, at least. Once one wing is done, I carefully fold it back into place and tuck it under the torn muscle before stitching everything closed.

Please let me not be making things worse. Let it help his wings. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for him to lose the ability to fly. I’m going to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.

By the time I finish his second wing and close up the last of his wounds, I’m exhausted and shaking. I wash my hands, get fresh water and gulp it down, and then move to lie next to Zohr on the sheets.

I wake up sometime later with intense thirst. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s not my own thirst.

It’s Zohr’s.

I touch a hand to his brow, and he’s scorching hot—hotter than normal. Shit. I crush a few expired aspirin into some water and dribble it into his mouth, then wipe down his body with cool cloths. The sun’s finally set and the intense heat in the apartment’s starting to fade. I open the windows more, even though it’s not safe, and soak sheets with water and drape them over his body, changing them out regularly.

I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. Zohr needs me.

This is my fault, too. 

He wouldn’t have been imprisoned if it wasn’t for me. Now I have the added guilt of the destruction of his wings. He tore free from his bonds to save me, because he felt I was in danger. I’m horrified and sickened, and if he dies, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

So I’ve just got to make sure he doesn’t die.

I spend the entire evening swapping one wet sheet for a newly dampened one and dribbling aspirin-laced water into his mouth. 

The sun rises, and the day promises to be another hot one. I consider trying to find an apartment with better airflow, but when I look out on the skies, I see red dragons in the distance. Shit. This is a dragon attack day, and the reds will be attacking until dusk all week long. There’s nothing to do but hide and hope they don’t nail the building we’re in.

There’s a breeze this day, at least, but with it comes the smell of ash and char. I nap for a few hours and then begin my process of wetting Zohr’s overheated skin down once more and trying to get some water inside him. He tosses and turns fitfully, and with every passing hour, I worry more and more that I’ve done more harm than good. I don’t know how to heal a dragon. What if I’ve done things all wrong?

I place another wet sheet over his body to cool him, and lie down next to him to catch a quick nap. The moment I do, a flurry of images fill my mind.

Deserts.

Distant, hard mountains against a reddish sunset sky. 

Sand. So much sand. Impossible heat. The comforting smell of fire. Wings. Flight. I can feel the breeze ruffling through my wings, and I gasp at the intense joy that rushes through my system. This is Zohr, dreaming. He’s flying in his dream and it’s the most incredible thing. It feels free and light and wonderful. He dives high and then swoops low, landing at the feet…

Of a woman. A beautiful woman with reddish-gold skin and long, flowing hair that’s the same shade. She’s naked, and as I land, she rises to her feet. Her eyes are bright, liquid gold and she looks down on me with such intense love…

I gasp, my eyes opening.

Another woman. Zohr lied to me. Or maybe he doesn’t remember. Sasha says the dragons have fractured memories of their past and that Dakh can’t remember much of anything. But it’s clear that Zohr has some images from his world before. The desert is burned into my mind, a beautifully hellish, bleak landscape. The woman is less clear, and even now as I try to recall her, all I get are images of bright reddish-golden skin and a beautiful smile.

And love, so much love.

Envy rushes through me, and jealousy. Why should I care that there’s another woman in Zohr’s past? That he loved someone else before he got trapped here and forgot all about her? It shouldn’t matter. I’m not in love with him. We’re only “bonded” because it was necessary to save him.

But…I had sex with the guy. I can’t not have some feelings for him. And right now, I’m feeling a lot of things with the vision of the woman in my head. I touch my mind to Zohr’s again, trying to see if he’s still dreaming about her, but all I get is chaos and anger. His face is rigid, his eyes flicking back and forth under his lids, as if his dream is an unpleasant one.

I touch my hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I guess you lost her and I shouldn’t be jealous.” But I am. The only person in the world that gives a crap about me at the moment is him, and he’s not even mine. I wonder if he remembers her, will he regret that he’s mated to me?

Another horrible thought crosses my mind. What if he blames me for stealing him away? I instigated our mating. I practically fondled him until he got hard because I needed to talk to him and that was the only way I knew how to connect our minds.

Oh god, am I the bad guy?

I look down at Zohr, his burning cheek under my hand. He’s calming, his bad dreams fading with the touch of my fingers.

I have so many questions and so few answers.