Dragon Warrior Read Online Free

corner. “Can you sit up, please?”
    Kestrel straightened obediently in bed, which annoyed him to no end. He gave the orders, didn’t follow them. Yet the mere thought of making her already demanding job more thankless than it already was made him cross. Not to mention he still felt like a heel after what had happened the night she healed him. Granted, he’d had no way of knowing the doc was an empath. Or the sedative she’d administered would be the equivalent of jacking him full of enough pheromones to send the entire mountain into a breeding frenzy. Even so, he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret the kiss.
    Even if he told her he didn’t remember it.
    As if in some practiced routine, she snapped on a pair of gloves and pulled the metal tray closer. The scent of antiseptic filled his nostrils, pungent and sharp. The bed shifted, sinking slightly to one end as she settled herself atop it. He watched her small hands clasp the sheet, pulling it back and down, collapsing the edge into meticulous and even folds as she went. When she neared his waist and then lower, he shifted awkwardly. He wore no robe, just a modest wrapper around his hips. And his nerves jumped everywhere she touched, his senses heightened and unduly sensitive around her. Even something as mundane as her sleeve brushing against his skin fired a tickle around his waist, settling lower in his groin.
    â€œI’m sorry if this hurts you.” With care the doc peeled back the wrapper surrounding his injury, undoubtedly taking some hair with it.
    He cringed. “Who said it hurts?”
    The doc’s full lips curled in a knowing smile. “You can’t really put anything past an empath,” she said, dabbing some sort of concoction onto the wound.
    â€œAh,” he said, trying to filter the dozens of questions her admission garnered down to one. “I thought you only tapped that well when you healed someone.”
    Blue and piercing, her eyes rose to his. Much too briefly, he lamented, before they focused on the tray behind her. “Yeah, well, I can’t always shut it off.” Her metal stool creaked as she shifted, holding a needlelike device over his leg. “Again, sorry.”
    Kestrel sizzled in a breath at the smarting sting. Ignoring it, he took in the sight of her. Her head bent low, her cobalt eyes set on his leg. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail at her nape. The dirty-blond color made him wonder if it would glisten if she paid half enough attention to give it a good washing. His gaze swept lower, noting her entire frame was thin and bony, as if she constantly forgot to eat. Both of her collarbones jutted away from her skin, and it floated in his mind more times than he liked how easily a horde soldier could crush them to dust with only one hand.
    The large framed glasses she sometimes wore would have made a supermodel look homely. But they couldn’t hide the beauty of her eyes. They were bright blue, deep and open like the sea and just as wild, raw and untamable. Yet the more he stared into them, the more he noticed a streak of gold twisted through them. Its hue split through the iris like a lightning bolt of color, rebelling at her dull and tedious existence in this place. After just a few days of living in sick bay, he understood that streak. Already felt it, too.
    Finished with his leg, the doctor shifted her intense focus to his abdomen. Kestrel glanced down at his ribs, at her fingers, carefully and precisely smoothing some sort of herbed unguent over his flesh. A shiver skated down his spine, leaving a calming heat in its wake. Her curative effect amazed him. No marks, no scar showed on his abdomen. His skin held a yellowish tint that he knew from experience would turn a symphony of blues and purples before fading. Yet he felt no discomfort, no twinge in his ribs, no ache.
    â€œI still don’t know how you do it,” he said in awe.
    She smiled.