Page 27 of Group Studies
A crack echoed through the night. Suddenly, the pressure eased. A rush of pins and needles assaulted my fingers. I let out a roar of pain and relief. My hands swelled as blood and magic rushed into them. They solidified into dragon claws matching my crystal hide. The pain stopped.
I looked down at the dark clasps resting where they’d fallen on the ground. Ashe shook, his skin too pale against the dark of night. He gasped as if he’d run a marathon. I thought I could see burns on his hands, but the moon floated above us only a quarter full – too dark to see details.
He’d broken the clasps. My dragon jaw dropped. I didn’t even know that was possible. I pulled my hands to my scaly chest, reassuring myself they were there, before gazing at the mage who saved me.
“One fucking thing at a time,” Ashe growled, catching his breath.
I flicked my tail and sat back on my haunches to keep from pulling him in for a big dragon hug.
Slicing his hand through the air again, the glittery line of his dimensional pocket opened. He pulled out a bottle of water and downed it. A flask came out next, and he took a long swig. My dragon nose sniffed, and I snorted at the harsh smell of smoke and liquor.
“I’ve got two sips left before my scotch is out,” Ashe said. “This fucking needed a sip.”
I didn’t argue with him. I couldn’t as a dragon, even if I wanted to.
After giving himself a minute to catch his breath, he brought his hands to his stomach—a knife of dark silver magic condensed between his palms. A small forest green glowing potion bottle appeared out of his dimensional pocket. He sprinkled the magical blade with the liquid and the blade absorbed the glow. I turned, showing him the spot Damon had already harvested from.
“You’ve not a fuck’n clue where these ended up?” Ashe asked softly as he brushed the missing patch.
I shook my dragon head. A deep sadness tried to squeeze my heart, but I wouldn’t let it. The past was the past, I needed to keep looking forward.
Ashe seemed to fight with himself for another moment before he quickly cut out two more of my scales. Compared to the pain of my hands, this didn’t even register. But I still hissed, feeling like a part of me was suddenly missing.
Once he finished, he put my scales in his pocket and pulled out a blanket and some medical supplies. I watched him, curious why and how he had all this stuff. I didn’t know, as I didn’t have a dimensional pocket, but I would think the MA would take everything a student owned before throwing them in here. But, maybe if Ashe had been a doctor before this, they’d let him keep his medical supplies.
I nodded a few times. The pieces fit with what I’d learned about him in the last few days. He killed someone running drugs. That’s all he told me about why he was here, so he easily could’ve been in the medical field.
My dragon lips couldn’t form real words, so my questions would have to wait, and my new theory was left unconfirmed.
Once he finished, we sat and listened to the wind of the Alaskan tundra. How my dragon’s screams hadn’t drawn attention to us, I didn’t know.
Eventually, I started shrinking. My scales pinched as they compressed and a deep ache took over my consciousness. With a snap, the pressure suddenly stopped, and my human breaths came out in jagged pain-filled wheezes. My stomach, where he’d cut out the scales, throbbed and burned. When I pressed my hand to the flat expanse of skin, it slid into something thick and sticky. Blood. But it didn’t feel warm. I sucked in a breath and looked down. My hands weren’t covered in blood, they were still black, and completely numb.
“I need a Band Aid,” I said stupidly.
Ashe’s little light ball flared to life, and he pulled my hand away from my stomach. Although I tried to grip him, my fingers didn’t even twitch.
“One fucking thing at a time,” Ashe said again.
He helped me lie down on the blanket. I tried to support myself with my hands, but they just flopped around.
Tears ran down my face. I was still losing my hands.
Kneeling next to me, Ashe folded my wrists across my bleeding stomach and warm magic curled into my palms. Thousands of pins and needles poked every part of my hands at the same time before they started burning. A scream tried to rip out of my throat and I bit it off, focusing on Ashe.
His face wasn’t the right color. Pale and green, he leaned over me with eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Weight melted off his cheeks in front of my eyes and his hair turned from its dark brown to gray. I started to hyperventilate. Out of magic, Ashe pushed his very life force into my hands to save them.
The burning suddenly lessened. My hands flushed purple instead of the dead black. With the pain diminished, a different burning emerged from the aftermath. Waves of lust and heat caused by his magic crashed into my core. I arched on the blanket and moaned, biting my lower lip.
Ashe stopped healing me, his gray eyes cloudy with age. “Fuck, Kitten, what hurts?” He croaked, his voice dryer than Abe’s.
I did this to him. “Let me help.”
Before he could answer, I reached up and put my hands on either side of his temples. The barrier holding back my magic vanished, and power flooded into him. I tensed, waiting for the clasps to burn, but they were no longer a problem.
I rocked my hips. Sex and need became my world. The face between my hands gained color and weight as my magic reversed the damage and refilled his magic reserves. I squeezed my thighs together. His gray eyes sparkled with my rainbows.
“A, stop.” Ashe’s large hands gripped my biceps. “Fuck, Aphrodite, stop now,” he ground out.