Dragon Blood (Completed)

In Loves Arms Again

One of the guards helped him out of the water, then he set to work on healing Zane's wounds. Zane stood motionless, unable to take his focus off of Paige. She seemed so small and fragile lying there; quite the opposite of the girl he'd met thus far.

How could she have been so strong hours ago, and now after one encounter with the enemy, she was falling to pieces? His heart sank as he realized she was not going to be up to the task of helping to defeat Balaan. Mentally, he chastised her weakness. He needed her to be stronger than this.

Dean approached her slowly, calling her name, speaking only in the other language that Zane desperately wanted to understand. Dean put his little hand on her cheek. She flinched away from the initial contact, though after a moment, she blinked and focused on him. Her eyes darted around the stone walls, taking in the guards and Zane before she turned her attention back to Dean. She rose up on her knees so she was eye level with him and spoke seriously for a moment, then Paige pulled him into a tight hug.

She stood, turning her focus to Zane. "Are you okay?"

"Despite your best efforts to drown me, I'm still alive." He was still angry with her and didn't want to let her off the hook, so his tone was cutting.

"Blazes, Zane, I'm sorry." There was so much remorse in her voice that his anger started to waver slightly.

"Why didn't you tell anyone you are dual-natured?" Zane asked, wanting to change the subject and push the image of her weakness aside.

She opened her mouth, but closed it a second later. She looked away, wrapping her arms securely around her waist.

"Paige?"

"It didn't matter anymore."

"By all that burns, Paige, you are the rarest dragon in a thousand years. Of course it matters."

"Being some stupid pretty dragon shouldn't matter. What should matter is how I treat the people and if I'm a good queen. Why the hell should anyone care just because I look good when I'm at my most dangerous? What if I'm a total tyrant? Will everyone love their precious dual-natured dragon then?"

"But you are not a tyrant." He was thrown by her sudden shift from fragile to strong, leaving him scrambling for a rebuttal. "I haven't known you that long, but I can see you are not evil." He couldn't understand why she didn't see this as a good thing.

With her glamour stripped, her eyes bore the familiar slits of dragon eyes. Her eyes were fascinating, the way her dual-nature shifted in color, switching from blue to yellow. Her face was no longer swollen, her injuries were healed. She looked healthy, with a slight flush to her cheeks.

"You don't know the first thing about me or what I'm capable of." There was a hardness in her eyes that challenged him to negate her.

"Look, I don't know what happed down there, or why you freaked out like that, but you can't honestly tell me that you are some awful, unfeeling person."

"I almost killed you down there!" she shouted, stepping toward him. It was an obvious challenge, but her eyes held none of the aggression of her body movement. They revealed only pain.

"I know." Zane reached for her shoulder. Oddly, the look in her shifting eyes made him want to comfort her instead of continuing the stupid argument. Being around her was like flying through a storm with heavy up and downdrafts. He had no idea how to predict what she would say or do next.

She jerked away from his touch. "You're such a moron," she snapped. "Look at you standing there, mesmerized by my eyes. You don't even care that I was so out of it a minute ago, that it almost cost you your life. Blazes, Zane, what does it matter that I'm a stupid dual-natured if no one sees me? No one will care about me. All they're going to want is to get close to me for my power, or what they think they can get out of me so they can use me in some way to their advantage. So don't stand there trying to tell me this is a good thing when even you are doing the very same thing."