Page 49 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

Her hands have started shaking, so I drop the joke. I reach to pull her into my arms and catch a fistful of air. She’s off the bed and across my room, naked and quick, gone into the bathroom on bare feet.

I count her footsteps to the sink.

Then she screams.

I groan and climb out of bed to go handle it. She found the mirror.

She’s standing at the sink with both hands over her mouth when I get there, looking at a horror movie that’s actually a wedding. I don’t start with words. I pull towels and washcloths down and set them on the counter, and I lean into the shower and turn the water on hot.

When the steam rises, I peel one of her hands away from her mouth and pull her into the shower with me. She comes without a fight. I turn her back against me under the spray and wrap both arms around her.

“It’s okay, Zuri baby,” I say into her wet hair. “You didn’t hurt me.”

She turns her head up to look at me. Her shaking eases off under the water. It takes time, and I hold her through every bit of it. I’d stand here until the mountain runs out of hot water, and knowing Malachi’s plumbing, that’s never.

“I swear you didn’t,” I tell her. “What you did was a blessing. Ask any dragon in this valley what that mark is worth.”

She turns to face me. “I couldn’t control it. I... I...”

I chuckle and wet one of the washcloths. I start cleaning the dried blood from her face, her lips first, then her chin.

I keep the washcloth moving. “That’s right, baby. Let me.”

She closes her eyes and leans back into my hands, and I move her another step under the spray. The water drenches her hair.

I slide my fingers into it and work them through her curls so the water gets all the way in. She used to keep this pinned away from the whole world. Now my hands are in it, and she hasn’t stopped me.

She opens her eyes and finds mine through the steam.

“You’re in good hands, baby,” I tell her. “I’m here. I’m gonna take care of you.”

I saw it when the cloth came away, and I’ve been waiting for her to catch up. There’s clean brown skin where the bruise sat yesterday, and no swelling left anywhere under it.

She goes still under my hands. Then she puts her palm to her cheek, the sore one, and presses. She pushes harder. Nothing hurts her.

She looks up at me again, and this time there’s no panic in her eyes. There’s a question.

I reach up and stroke her cheek while the water runs down her face. “All gone,” I tell her. “The mate bond makes you heal faster. You’ll get sick less, too.”

“Ahhh. Yes. This is what everyone was going on about.” She presses at her cheek again, still hunting for an ache that isn’t there. “But this fast?”

I answer by turning around and showing her my back.

Her fingertips move across my skin, searching, and her scent goes soft with wonder behind me. “The bullet wounds. It’s all gone.”

“Yes.” I turn back to face her. “Human bullets don’t work on me.”

“But...” Her hands press flat against me, and she searches my face for the rest of her own question.

I cup her cheek and tilt her face up until her eyes meet mine.

“But you’ve been sick since I met you,” she says.

I’m the dragon who knows everything in this valley. Being the thing that’s wrong in it is new.

“Yes,” I tell her. “And that’s abnormal. I’m having a reaction to Delilah’s magic.”

“Ohhh,” she says.