Page 112 of Dragon Me Through Space

Zeke hovered over the water with his wings out and when he saw me, he dove down and grabbed my outreaching hands, pulling me up out of the water and into his arms.

“Hello, Giant,” I whispered as he squeezed me almost painfully tight against his body.

He didn’t speak, his body shook, and I could tell he was upset.

“I’m okay,” I advised as I wrapped my arms around his neck and patted his upper back. “I’m not hurt … much. I don’t think.”

That seemed to snap him out of it as he leaned back to look down at me. “Where are you injured?”

“My leg,” I admitted.

The announcer was saying something while people scrambled about, but I couldn’t make anything out.

“Zeke,” I whispered as my head grew hot and my ears rang, “I’m going to pass out.”

“Xoe, stay with me,” he ordered with a growl as he flew somewhere. “Don’t fall asleep. Xoe!”

“Medic!” Wayne yelled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Scout, put your guns away! They have to treat Xoe,” Gage ordered, his tone full of exasperation.

“We know you’re worried, so are we, but they really just want to help your master,” Wayne said softly, like he was coaxing a scared child. “Please, let them work on her leg.”

My leg? The one that the lusca had bitten?

Scout gave an angry beep, but I could hear the sound of their body shifting.

“W-W-We’ll begin working on her leg now,” a man stuttered as he neared me.

“Y-Your Highness, could you please step back?” another unfamiliar male voice asked.

“No,” Zeke growled and I felt his hand tighten around mine.

My eyes refused to open no matter how hard I tried.

At least until pain surged from below my right knee all the way up my body, causing me to jerk upright and scream, my eyes fully open.

Zeke growled, Scout still in her drone form with guns out hovered over my head, and Wayne’s eyes glowed.

The two unfamiliar men by my leg stilled, their eyes wide in terror.

I looked down and my brain took several moments to comprehend what I was looking at. What I wasn’t seeing.

There was nothing from my knee down on my right leg. It was … missing.

“M-My leg,” I gasped and tears built in my eyes.

Preston set a hand on my cheek, turning my face until I looked at him. “It’s going to be alright. They’re going to give you a prosthetic. You’ll be able to run around and stress us out to your heart’s content in no time.”

I had an IV in my hand and lay in a white room that looked like a medical room. Wayne and Gage stood at the end of my bed while Zeke sat in a chair beside me, his hand gripping mine. They all looked furious and sad at the same time.

“We need to sedate her if it hurts this much from a single touch,” one of the healers said.

Zeke growled again.

“At …” I swallowed hard around my dry throat. “At least make sure it looks cool,” I said as I lay back down, trying to lighten the mood despite the situation.