To Tame a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,60

Scourge of the Sands, once the most feared dragon in the region, barely had the stomach to cause pain to this little human.

Falthyris turned away from her, held his hand out, and unleashed his fire. When he ceased the jet of flames, the spearhead was glowing dull red. He turned back to Elliya.

She had a stick in her mouth, clamped between her teeth. Her eyes flicked briefly toward the glowing piece of stone before returning to his. She gave him a single nod and lay down, grimacing as she angled her leg so the wounds on her calf were facing him.

Taking the spearhead between forefinger and thumb, Falthyris braced his free hand around her wounds, pinning her leg in place, drew in a deep breath, and lowered the stone to the first of the bloody tears.

The sound of her flesh sizzling beneath the stone was drowned out by her agonized cry, which was barely muffled by the stick in her mouth. Her whole body tensed, and she jerked her leg, but Falthyris held it down firmly. His own body was tense, and he felt flares of her pain through the bond. The scent of her burning skin soured the air. Over his long life, he’d experienced that smell so often—before, it had been the scent of victory. Of superiority. Now it made his stomach churn.

He longed to stop, to give her time to recover, but they did not have that luxury. He moved on to the next wound and repeated the process. She tried to silence her cries, to breathe through the pain, but it was too much for his mate to contain completely. Her every pained sound left a new scar upon his heart.

Tears were leaking from her eyes and her breath was ragged by the time he finished sealing all the wounds on her calf. When he finished with her arm a short while later, she was shivering, her body coated in a sheen of sweat.

Falthyris’s heartfire was roiling, low but intense, and his heart was racing. He was certain his tail had dug out a wide patch of the sand behind him as he’d worked, result of its ceaseless back and forth motion. He tossed the spearhead aside; it was already forgotten before it hit the sand with a dull thump.

Releasing a growl, he swept loose strands of pale, clinging hair out of his face with one hand and plucked up the little clay jar with the other. He didn’t bother fumbling with the rawhide tie securing the leather lid—he sliced it off with a claw and opened the container.

The pungent odor that spewed from the jar was strong enough to make him pull his head back and wince at the sting in his nose. It obliterated the scents of blood and scorched flesh. He knew by the smell that the jar’s contents were made from some sort of plant, but he could not identify which.

Falthyris shook his head sharply and looked at Elliya, lifting the jar. “You are certain you want this on you, human?”

She turned her watery eyes toward him and nodded. The stick was still in her mouth, but her jaw was slack, and her skin was somehow even paler.

He reached forward and carefully removed the stick, tossing it away. He returned his fingers to her face, caressing her cheek and brushing the corners of her lips. “We are nearly through, Elliya. A little more, and you may rest.”

She turned her face, pressed her forehead into his palm, and closed her eyes. “Do it.”

Falthyris withdrew his hand from her face, dipped a finger into the jar, and removed it with a clump of thick green paste on his fingertip. Using both hands, he divided the clump and smeared it over one of her raw, tender wounds as gently as he could. She hissed, flinching from his touch. When he moved to the next, she pressed her lips together and didn’t make a sound, didn’t move other than to curl her fingers into the blanket.

Clenching his jaw, he worked as quickly and carefully as he could, feeling the constant twinges of pain through their mating bond despite her silence.

After the last of the wounds and scratches were covered, and he’d cleaned all the blood and dirt from her skin, Falthyris lay down beside her and drew her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. Her shivering body felt chilled against his. Extending and raising a wing, he lay it over her like a