flair of pain despite his careful touch.
“Like the earth gem?” he remarked without taking his eyes off his hands as they probed the gunshot wound.
“Yes—ow!” The dragon-man had slightly dug his pinkie finger into the wound.
“Sorry.” He sighed. “It’s as I feared. The bullet is still lodged within your muscle, though luckily it missed any major arteries. I don’t suppose you have a handkerchief or something that I can use to temporarily bind your wound until I can get you looked at by a proper healer?”
She shook her head. In her haste to reach the energy shield, she had been forced to leave her backpack with all the extras she had packed behind in the car. They were now literally left with only the clothes on their back.
Id, passports, money, all of it—lost…
Undeterred, her rescuer proceeded to rip off a piece of her jeans starting just below the knee of her injured leg as easily as though the denim were made of tissue paper.
“And the little one? What’s his name?” the dragon-man asked as he carefully wrapped the piece of denim tightly around her calf.
“Matthew,” Amber replied through gritted teeth. Apparently, her initial shock had worn off enough for her to feel every inch of the bullet wound. “But most everyone calls him Matty.”
The dragon-man’s attention shifted to her son. “Hello, Matty,” he greeted with a gentle smile. “My name is Raphek.”
At the mention of his own name, Matty turned his head slightly and peeked up at the dragon-man for a couple of seconds before bashfully hiding his face in her shirt again. “Hello,” Matty replied, so softly that Amber almost didn’t hear him.
“You have no idea how nice it is to meet you, Raphek,” Amber said sincerely.
After tying off her new makeshift bandage, Raphek sat down, cross-legged next to her. “I have never seen two humans attacked in such a manner outside of one of your movies,” he said grimly.
Amber stiffened. Right. Time for the interrogation.
“While I can’t be a hundred percent sure of the identities of those men chasing after us,” Amber said slowly, “I can’t think of anyone else except Matty’s father or grandfather who would send those kinds of thugs after us. For all I know, Garrett—Matty’s father—was among them, but I wasn’t about to stop and look at them once I had gotten out of my car.”
“Were they trying to kill you?” His voice positively dripped with disgust.
“Me? Undoubtably.”
“Why?”
Amber could barely get the words out around the huge knot of despair that had suddenly formed in her throat. “Because he wants to take Matty away from me. Because he would rather kill me than have what would likely be a nasty custody battle ‘stain his reputation and ruin his chances to become a senator or even president’ someday.”
She wasn’t sure dragons even knew what custody battles were or even divorce, but a quick glance at Raphek’s face showed her that he understood enough.
“To take a child away from his mother is beyond despicable,” Raphek growled. “You said a word—sanc-something-or-other—when you bled upon the ground and pleaded for my help. I didn’t understand it.”
Amber’s heart sank. “Sanctuary. Is that not the right word? Or—” She paused. No, she couldn’t afford not to tell him at least some of the truth. “I heard rumors of the Draknos helping human women stay safe from their abusive spouses. Matty’s father’s family is powerful. Both politically and financially. After Garrett became verbally abusive and then physically violent with me, I tried to leave him, but he threatened to ruin my parents’ business if I didn’t go back to him. For any other man, that would have been just bluster, but not for that family. They’re an old, dynastic family that made their fortune in oil. Garrett’s father, Henry, is especially well-connected. Then after Matty was born…”
She trailed off and pressed her lips together tightly to stave off the sob that wanted to burst from deep within her. Dammit! She wouldn’t cry! Not here. Not in front of this dragon-man that she didn’t even know.
“You are asking for asylum,” Raphek said slowly, the look in his eyes undecipherable as he scrutinized her own.
“Yes. Asylum,” Amber agreed, a desperate note in her tone no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
Asylum didn’t quite fit her situation, but it was close enough to what they needed from Elysia South that she didn’t dare correct him.
Amber squared her shoulders and then looked him dead in his uncanny eyes. “Elysia South is the one