Treasured by the Dragon

Ch 14: Words

"Cephias!"

I pull myself across the stone and kneel near his wounded shoulder, which looks just as gnarled as it did as a dragon. My fingers hover over his skin, desperate to help but afraid to touch.

"Tali..."

"Thank the gods you're awake." The air escapes me with the fervency of my prayer.

I want to hold him, to feel his breath on my skin, the steady rise and fall of his chest against my arms. He's never looked so fragile.

It felt like an impossibility. He's a dragon, he can't get hurt. Even knowing another dragonith clan had slaughtered his people, in my mind I always envisioned that terrible moment in their history as the massacre of humans beneath a dragon's might.

It simply didn't occur to me he could get hurt as a creature as grand and powerful as a dragon. Yet now, I fear the slightest touch might crack the fragile structure holding him together.

"Taliyah..."

"Yes, I'm right here."

His searching eyes are clouded with the blood dripping from a jagged wound on his forehead. My heart drops and I surrender my fears to my desperate need to comfort him.

I take his hand into both of mine.

"I'm here."

"Are...Are you all right?"

Gurgling gasps break up his words, and I try not to look down at the slash across his side that sputters with each word.

"You shouldn't talk. I should get help—"

"Are you..."

"Yes, I'm all right. A bit bruised and swollen, but perfectly fine. You, on the other hand..."

"Am I so terrible?"

His head turns a fraction of an inch towards me, and his glazed eyes search my face. I take a deep breath and squeeze his hand harder.

"I won't lie. You aren't in great shape, and you are losing a lot of blood. I need to go get help."

I start to rise, but the hand I had been holding clasps on to me instead and pulls me back to his side.

"No," he wheezes. "Am I, are we, so terrible that you can't trust us to care for you? When I say the woods are dangerous and I don't want you to die, you still don't believe me?"

His eyes may be as red as the blood painting his skin and darkened by the bruising bubbling up beneath it, but in that moment, there isn't any sign of physical pain. Instead, the absolute anguish shivering within his gaze is heart breaking fear.

I take a deep breath and squeeze his hand.

"Cephias, I know I have not been the most honest in my actions." I keep my words even, trying to rein in the dread swelling within my chest. "But know my words are true. I do believe you. I'm just stubborn and hot-headed and sometimes a pain in the ass."

A corner of his mouth quirks up into a half smile. However, the chuckle that accompanies it aggravates his wounded body and his beautiful grin disappears.

"I'm also determined, and when I believe something is important, I do it. It's what got me up on your altar."

I take a breath, calming the tremble in my voice.

"I want what is best for both of our people and I can't help us by staying in this castle. I was trying to follow behind the caravan and then join you at a point where you'd have to take me along. That way, I could help you find allies on the road."