The Vigilante & The Dragon - Book 1 of the Guardians Saga [COMPLETED]

How To Save A Dragon Ch. 1.3

I'm not undoing the pants of any man, dragon, or alien, if their lives depended on it. If they're any injuries down there, he's gonna die.

Alex skipped down to his legs. His quads and calves were equally well-muscled, and she caught herself enjoying them. She snatched back her hand. After Morgan, she had sworn she was done with any relationship, any enjoyment. There was only justice left for her now.

But this isn't Morgan. Not even the same species as Morgan.

Gabe opened his eyes and looked up at her. She felt heat creep up her face. He didn't have a reptile or dragon's eyes. They were the deep, soulful brown of a large dog, like a Golden Retriever or lab.

He's gorgeous.

Alex decided not to delve into the psychology or rather, psychopathology, of her attraction to a non-human.

"I was checking if you were hurt anywhere. Are you?" She asked, embarrassed that she had chick-groped him. "I had to, really. Checking for injuries. Necessity. Really."

He shook his head. "Just cold," he whispered.

Alex pulled the covers of her bed out from under him and tucked them around him. "Sorry, but I don't own a heater. New Orleans winters are mild, at least for us humans. But I have a first aid book somewhere." Alex waved her arms, indicating the piles of books stacked against the walls. "Maybe it will say how to treat tranquilizers."

I could try my neuro-electric powers. They work on brains. Yeah, I fry brains. I better look in my books.

She ran her fingers down the spines of the books as she read the titles. Alex liked temp jobs at bookstores because of the employee discount. She had a section of books by New Orleans writers and smiled as she read the titles like Confederacy of Dunces. She skipped over the science fiction and fantasy novels. Alex gripped the two true crime books with reflexive anger.

I'll find those serial killers and rapists and push the limits of my neuro-electric powers to make sure they never hurt another human being.

She dropped the books on the floor and resumed her browsing: cozy mysteries, westerns, classics. No romance novels because Alex couldn't fathom another man touching her, not after Morgan.

Human man.

Her stomach twisted at the thought of Morgan, his invasion of her body, at just the mere whisper of sex. She looked down at her leather outfit. "Hang a second. I'm taking a two minute summer camp shower and changing." Alex grabbed her sweats and dashed into her bathroom. She stripped, jumped in the shower and scrubbed off the dirt of the alley, fighting her compulsion to scrub harder harder harder. She rinsed, dried, and pulled on the sweats.

Much better to be clothed in sturdy, ugly sweatshirt and pants than my pimp-hunting outfit.

Alex re-entered the room feeling armored against attraction of any sort. After more rummaging, she produced two books from the piles. "Regular first aid or veterinary?"

She sat in the bed next to Gabe and peered at him. "I'll start with veterinary, the chapter on reptiles."

There sure as hell isn't one on humanoid dragons.

"As reptiles are ectotherms," she read aloud to Gabe, even though his eyes were closed, "they are unable to produce their own body heat. When a reptile is sick or injured, it is important to keep it at the right temperature." Alex laid her hand against his face and it was cold. Alex resumed reading out loud, as if to a child at bedtime, "a heat lamp is ideal, although a hot rock can be substituted. Be sure not to overheat your pet." She paused in her reading and looked down at the sleeping, or unconscious, Gabe. "Not likely as I don't have either, not even an electric blanket." She resumed reading. "Palpate over the entire body to find any injuries or dry hide cracks,"

Alex considered that a moment.

Yep, already chick-groped the alien, dragon, American chameleon guy. Again, not delving into my psychopathology. Gotta help him before he dies.

Gabe moaned again. All the stores within easy distance were closed at this hour and the ever-open bars didn't sell heaters or electric blankets. Her landlord controlled the temperature in this dive.

He wouldn't raise the heat to save his own mother. Just like a human man. Maybe this humanoid, dragon American chameleon guy is better.

Alex paged through the regular first aid book.

"Hypothermia," she read aloud again to her unresponsive audience of one, "it is important to warm the victim slowly but consistently. If you are out in the field and unable to access emergency services, the rescuer should provide warmth to the victim by means of shared body heat. Bundling in a sleeping bag with the victim after removing clothing from both victim and rescuer ensures maximum skin contact and warmth."

Alex stopped and glowered at the cover of the book. "Who wrote this ? Playboy?"

Then her dark sense of humor at her predicament kicked in. "My mother warned me not to sleep with strange ectotherms."

With a sigh of resignation, Alex slid under the covers next to him. She laid her head on her regular pillow but clutched the extra absorbent pillow that she sobbed into close to her chest.

Didn't dragons kidnap and eat virgins?

She didn't have to worry about that. Morgan had ripped that away from her, along with a fair amount of blood, and a piece of her soul.

"You'll pardon my wearing sweats, as I hardly know you," she told the still sleeping Gabe.

In response to her body heat, if not her words, Gabe snuggled closer. Alex squeezed her 'sobbing pillow' harder and grimaced. He seemed content to lie next to her, head on her shoulder, so she relaxed a little. She peeked sideways at him. He looked perfectly peaceful, a relaxed dragon, one of the good-natured ones that helped the hero of the book.

"Endothermic me is warming ectothermic you, but misbehave and I'll toss you in the alley myself," she said.

Gabe's arm fell across her and he pulled closer. She flinched and was about to protest until she felt how cold he was.

"Okay, but no further. I don't kiss on a first date."

I don't even date, but what kind of person was I before I woke up from the darkness four months ago?

Here she was, in bed with a six foot, humanoid dragon guy.

Was I promiscuous or just insane? Am I still insane?

Once again, Alex tired of beating herself up. She could either sleep with the dragon guy or not, but if she didn't, he would die.

Not sleep with. Next to. Clothed. Both of us.

I'm such a sucker for a victim. But who will be the victim at the end of this night?

*****

A/N

Thanks to my readers who suggested edits and to the ones who loved it as is!

Rather_Be_A_Unicorn

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RonixReader13

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