“Shit!”

She was falling, almost in slow motion. Or perhaps it was the way time seemed to slow down, dragging out like warm taffy.

I had no time to think. I could only react.

The calls of Dallas and Alan were only a whisper in the back of my mind as I shifted and allowed my dragon to burst free.

We took to the air, wings beating furiously as the body fell.

Faster, faster, catch her!

I elongated my body as much as possible and focused on centering myself beneath her.

The crash of her impact with my back knocked me off-balance, but I righted myself and sailed over the surface of the water, triumphant and frantic.

Warm blood spread over my scales, a warning. She was gravely injured.

Alan and Dallas were already ashore when I landed, allowing them to ease her off me before I shifted back to human form. They’d spread a towel out on the sand, and it was already stained dark red.

The girl’s leg was coated in blood which oozed from a compound fracture—her thigh bone stuck out, a stark, white splinter.

“We have to get her to safety.” Alan glared up at me. “You took quite the chance there.”

I slide into my cargo shorts, removing my belt as a second thought. “Does she need a tourniquet?”

“How the hell would we know?” Dallas snapped.

I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I looped the belt around her upper thigh, above the wound. When I pulled tight, the flow of blood appeared to lessen.

The dragon was pleased. As was I.

“Somebody could’ve seen you here on the beach, when you landed,” Alan insisted.

“Good thing no one did, then.” I looked around, trying to put a plan in place. “Do either of you know of a hospital nearby?”

“We’ve been here as long as you have,” Dallas pointed out, standing, hands on his hips, looking roughly as hopeless as I felt.

He was right, naturally. This was Mary’s resort. Not an area I was familiar with. Certainly not one Dallas and Alan would be familiar with. They’d been captives until we’d rescued them.

We were each as lost as the other.

There was no time to waste in attempting to locate a hospital.

“If we lift her in the towel and lower her into the bed of the truck, she might be able to make it through a ride back to the resort. Mightn’t she? We have to try.” It was the best I could come up with.

She had lost so much blood, and her entire right side was a wreck. Her arm was clearly broken in several places and beginning to swell, dark purple bruises standing out against her tawny skin. I didn’t dare touch her abdomen or ribs for fear of what I’d find there.

“What could they do for her?” Alan asked.

“There’s bound to be medical equipment there. They treated Klaus for his concussion, didn’t they? And any of you who required treatment, too. Phillip was a surgeon in the Army,” I added, flailing around for a plan. “We have to. We can’t leave her here to die.”

“She wanted to die,” Alan replied, his voice quiet.

“You don’t know that. I’ll take her on my own, if the two of you won’t.”

“Of course, we will.” Dallas gathered the towel by her feet, while I gathered it around her head and the two of us carried her up the beach to the truck.

I winced when we lowered her in the bed, sure she would wake up screaming, but she was unaware. I touched bloodstained fingers to the side of the neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak.

“Hurry!” I barked as Dallas slid behind the wheel, with Alan throwing himself into the passenger seat before we peeled out.

I wanted to stabilize her, hold her close, spare her every last bit of pain I could as we jostled over the unpaved roads. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We’ll get you there soon,” I murmured, peeling dark, blood-soaked hair back from her forehead.

She was a beauty.

She was dying.

The brakes squealed once we pulled through the large, circular drive and came to a stop in front of the entrance.

I leaped over the side of the truck and opened the gate, using the towel to pull the girl to me while Alan ran inside for help.

They brought out a gurney, and two of Mary’s guys lifted the body from the truck while I explained to Phillip what had happened.

“I think she hit something on the way down,” I barked. “I don’t think hitting me would’ve caused that much damage. And she was already unconscious prior to that—she never cried out when she made contact.”

“This is all important to know.”

We burst through the double doors leading into what I could only describe as a makeshift hospital room, complete with overhead lights which the weathered, brusque Army surgeon lowered and flipped on before examining her.

In such harsh light, she looked worse than ever. Her skin was so fine and delicate, every bruise showed up like an ugly, garish stain.

“She’s bleeding inside. Heavily.” Phillip’s craggy brow creased even further. “It would’ve been better to get her to a hospital, but there probably isn’t enough time.”

“Can you help her, though? Does she need more than what you can provide?”

He shook his head. “I’ll do the best I can. We have to open her up.”

“Can you use our blood? There was plenty taken from the lab,” I pointed out.

“Yes, yes, but I have to find the source of the bleeding, first,” he said, pushing me out of his operating theater. “Get out of here, so I can do my work. She’s in good hands.”

In good hands. He’d just said she should’ve gone to a hospital, but wanted me to believe she’d be all right with him.

I sank into a chair in the hall and held my head in my hands, elbows on my knees.

In good hands. That had to be enough.

The dragon wasn’t so easily put-off, of course, and he raged inside me. His rage was born of frustration and a feeling of uselessness. We had done everything we could for her, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough.

After all the energy and excitement of the last half-hour, I felt strangely hollow inside once there was nothing left to do. Her blood was all over my clothing, driving her essence into my subconscious.

The dragon breathed her in, let her sink into him. Into both of us. I worried that I’d never be able to let her go after such an intimate connection forged itself between us. I had no more control over it than I did over the tides, unfortunately. Such things weren’t within my power.

Feet shuffled around me, though it was a long time before I raised my head to see who’d gathered.

Leslie and Ainsley stood against the wall, heads inclined toward each other as their breathless murmurs poured forth.

Dallas and Alan.

They seemed more concerned about me than they were the girl. I wanted to tell them to stop looking at me as they were, that I wasn’t the one to worry about. I’d be just fine. It was her, bleeding inside. She was the one in true danger.

Martina and Gate walked down the hall, hand-in-hand as always.

“Any word?” she asked, looking at me with something dangerously akin to pity in her eyes.

I was the first to admit how much my cousin and I and the rest of the clan owed her, but that didn’t give her permission to pity me.

Resentment bubbled dangerously close to the surface.

Alan spoke for me, shaking his head before replying. “It didn’t look good, however.”

“Why don’t you wait a minute before declaring the girl’s life over?” I snapped.

His eyes flew open. “Ach, I meant no disrespect. I’m only commenting on the good doctor’s assessment.”

“We don’t want to see anything happen to the poor lass,” Dallas added in an attempt to smooth things over.

“And she jumped? This was purposeful?” Gate looked around, waiting for an answer.

Dallas glanced my way before answering. “Aye. It looked purposeful.”

“We don’t know that.” Why was I jumping to her defense? And why did it seem as though they all expected me to?

“Lad, none of us are trying to sully the girl’s character,” Alan argued. “It’s none of our business why she acted as she did. But let’s face facts, just the same. She didn’t slip and fall. She didn’t even scream, as one would if they were caught unawares. She stood there long enough for us to notice her.”

“As though she were weighing her options,” Dallas added.

A sick certainty revealed itself. Yes, she’d done it on purpose. She had tried to kill herself. There had to be a reason why she would go to such extreme measures. What if she were gravely ill and wanted to avoid the pain and indignity that would soon become her life? What had I done by prolonging things? Was our blood strong enough to heal her, if that were the case?

It was an excruciatingly long wait.

Mary passed through, as did Bonnie.

I barely registered their presence, even when Bonnie tried to insist I go and bathe myself instead of sitting vigil outside the operating room.

I didn’t reply, and Gate led her away.

When the door opened, I was on my feet in a flash and had to stop myself from taking Phillip by the shoulders and demanding what had taken so long.

There were dark circles around his eyes, and his color was considerably more gray than it had been prior to starting in on her.

“It will take a little time,” he announced. “I believe the emergency has passed. The bleeding has stopped.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, as did those around me.

“However,” he continued, “there was a great deal of damage done to her right side. Crushed ribs, punctured lung, and the arm and leg both broken in several places. I’ll not be able to set the limbs until the damage to her side heals, as she needs to breathe without drowning in blood. It could take a day, maybe two. Until then, she’ll need constant attention—should she start to aspirate blood, I’ll need to know immediately.”

He looked at me, his eyes sharp and knowing. “I would feel much better about this if she were in a hospital.”

“What happens if you take her to one, and they wonder how her internal injuries are healing so quickly?” I asked, thinking fast. “Wouldn’t that raise a red flag?”

“Yes,” he admitted with a frown. “It would. Once I used dragon’s blood, there was little hope of her being treated by outsiders.”

I could nearly taste the relief on my tongue, as though it were a real thing. There was no explaining my need to keep her near. I only knew I had to. She couldn’t be left to the rest of the world, where anything might happen to her. She was too fragile, delicate, in need of protection.

“I can set up a schedule for anyone who’d like to volunteer their services,” Martina offered.

Phillip nodded. “Good. Once the lung has healed, I’ll be able to set the limbs. She’ll need to be unconscious throughout all of this—the pain would be too much for her to stand, otherwise.”

Mary approached. “We have the drugs for that, don’t we?”

“We do. It’s a good thing you insist on being so well prepared,” he replied with a tight, tired smile. “I’ll transport her to the nearest available room, and we’ll set her up there.”

He disappeared again, this time with Mary at his heels.

I was back to feeling helpless, with nothing to do but wait for things to unfold as they would.

Not a position I enjoyed being in.

Ainsley was frowning when she turned to voice the question which had been bouncing around my brain for hours. “What would make a beautiful girl like that think suicide was the only answer?”

Martina shook her head, as troubled as the rest of us. “I don’t know—but whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad.”

We stepped back when both doors opened, and Phillip wheeled a gurney through the doorway and down the hall.

The girl was under a sheet, her eyes closed, looking for all the world as though she were already dead. Only the sight of a pulse beating under the fine, soft skin of her throat assured me that she was only asleep, which was the best condition for her to be under at that time.

“I’ll take the first shift,” I offered, watching as they moved down the hall.

“I don’t think so,” Gate muttered, standing by my side. “You’re a mess. Bloody, dirty. Why not wash up and get a little rest? They’ll only be settling her in for the time being.”

I glared at him, but not for long. I wasn’t angry. I was helpless.

And he understood that as I searched silently for answers and he squeezed my shoulder in response. “I know. But you’re no good to her half-dead. Take care of yourself. You can always have the next shift.”

I had no option but to agree.