Page 54 of Knotted By the Triad

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“Daemin?”

I was still straddling his waist, one hand pressed against his face where he'd held it before his eyes closed. His fingers had slipped away from my wrist and fallen to the ground beside him, and no matter how many times I called his name, he didn't move.

I patted his cheek, gently at first and then harder when he didn't respond. Nothing. Fear squeezed my chest as I leaned closer, watching for any sign that he could hear me.

“No. No, no, no. You do not get to drag me through the sky, nearly kill both of us crashing into the ground, and then decide you're done participating. Wake up.”

My voice cracked on the last two words. I climbed off him and immediately regretted it when pain shot through my ribs. Apparently, being wrapped in a dragon's arms while he used his back to break our fall had saved me from serious injury, but it hadn't made crashing into the ground pleasant.

But I couldn’t complain about my little pain when Daemin was this hurt. He lay naked on his back. Dirt streaked his skin, and deep scrapes covered parts of his body from the crash. None of those injuries frightened me as much as the wound beneath his ribs.

The blue shard was still buried in his side, and thin lines of unnatural light had spread beneath his skin around it. I moved closer, but before I could touch him, something inside me surged forward with enough force to steal my breath.

MINE. Help him.

The presence I'd been feeling since earlier was suddenly impossible to ignore. My dragon pressed against me, frantic in a way I hadn't felt before, and one thought filled my mind with absolute certainty.

Can’t let him die.

“I know,” I whispered, placing my hand against Daemin's chest. “He saved Allie and me. There’s no way I’m letting him die.”

His skin was cold beneath my palm, far colder than it should have been. And he was sweating. I sighed when his chest rose and fell beneath my hand. He was alive. For the moment, that was all that mattered.

But my dragon wasn't satisfied with that. It wanted me to help him, to heal him, to hold him. She pushed against me, filling me with a sense of possessiveness. And she kept repeating one word: Mine.

“I get it,” I whispered. “You’ve claimed Kai. And now you’ve claimed Daemin. No wonder the old Zuri had gone crazy over these guys. You were probably pushing her to believe they were truly hers.”

But in the book, they hadn’t been. So why had Daemin risked his life to protect me? And why did I suddenly have an inner dragon that wouldn’t stop screaming for me to save what was mine? This made no sense to me. But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I had to focus on Daemin.

Help him. Help our mate.

I froze with my palm against his chest. “Mate? As in the Australian word for friend, buddy, pal?”

She answered with another wave of certainty so powerful I didn't need words.

“Okay, okay,” I hissed. “I’m going to help him. But not because you called him my mate. But because it’s the right thing to do.”

The pressure inside me eased slightly, although I could still feel her hovering close beneath my skin. I turned my attention back to Daemin's wound. Blood coated the skin around the shard, but the blue lines worried me more.

They had spread since we'd been in the forest. The light pulsed faintly beneath his skin, almost in rhythm with his heartbeat. I needed to get this thing out of him right now. I sat back on my heels and looked around for the first time since we'd crashed.

We were at an estate. Stone walls surrounded the property. Though it was night and I couldn’t see much, I could tell the property was big. Most importantly, it seemed vacant. I needed to get Daemin inside and see if there were any supplies that could help me save him.

I looked back the way we'd come. Allie had no idea where I was. Even if her dragon tried to lead her to me, it would take her forever to find me, since she couldn’t shift properly. And even if she managed to find Kai or Zian quickly, none of them knew where Daemin had taken me.

Eventually they might figure it out, but I had no idea how long it would take. Which meant Daemin only had me right now. I stared back down at him.

“How am I going to get your big behind in the house?”

His eyes remained closed. My gaze dropped toward the shard again. The blue lines had spread another fraction farther beneath his skin.

“Okay.” I rubbed my palms against my thighs and forced myself to think. “Allie is getting help. You're still breathing. There's a house right there, and there has to be something useful inside it. I can work with that.”

My dragon urged me again, quieter this time but no less determined.

Save mate.