When she was just a few feet from him, she extended her arm and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the back of his head, and he went limp, letting go of Lucy and dropping out of the sky like a boulder, dead before he hit the ground.
Kate spread her body flat, trying to provide enough surface area to slow her descent, but without a flight suit, she was doomed, and she knew it. She saw Kieran heading toward the ground, his body injured and returning to human form an instant after he landed. He was too weak to hold his form, and by the looks of him, the dragon that slapped her off Kieran’s back had attacked Kieran as well.
Another dark shadow swooped by her, and Kate braced herself for the dragon that had attacked to deliver a death blow. It didn’t matter; by dragon or by gravity, Kate was going to die. But the blow didn’t come, and when two strong arms went around her and plucked her out of the sky and onto the back of a soaring dragon, Kate was sure that she was dreaming and had already slammed into the ground. Her dying brain had to be playing tricks on her, but she opened her eyes anyway, surprised to find herself staring into Jason’s hazel eyes.
“Gotcha,” he said, smiling as he held her close. “I thought you were a goner.”
“Me too,” she said breathlessly.
There was a loud shriek and the clashing of leathery bodies together, and Eli swooped and rolled to get out of the way with his two passengers intact. Jason’s arms tightened around her, and they held on as the fighting raged around them, the sky filled with more dragons than Kate had ever seen in her life.
Eli landed quickly, letting Kate and Jason off his back and then going back into the air to fight.
“What is he doing?” Kate said, racing after Eli for a few steps before she gave up the chase. “I want to fight.”
“We’re needed here,” Jason said. He pointed into the trees. “The President is without protection, and I see Lucy and Kieran over there. I’ll take care of Pearce, you get Lucy.”
“Me?”
“Fate chose you to protect her. There has to be a reason for that, and I’m not going to doubt Fate now.”
Kate nodded, racing toward Lucy and Kieran. Lucy wasn’t at his side yet, but she was running as fast as her little legs could carry her, yelling out to Kieran, who was lying on the ground in a crumpled mass, unmoving.
Kate sped up, reaching Kieran at almost the same instant as Lucy did. Tears were streaming down Lucy’s face as she knelt beside him. She looked up at Kate, lips trembling as she tried to put into words how she was feeling.
“He saved me,” she said. “When Grant let me go, that other dragon tried to get to me and he got in the way. He saved my life.”
Kate nodded, completely unprepared to comfort Lucy in her grief as Kieran lay there, his breathing shallow and labored, obviously moments away from taking his last breath. Whatever had knocked Kate off Kieran’s back had flayed him open on one side. There was no amount of stitches that would save this man, and his body wasn’t even trying. Everyone knew that shifters turned back to human form right before they died. It was a way to protect the families from being discovered, and it ensured that the secret identity of a shifter died with them.
Kate’s eyes welled up with tears, and she reached out, trying to pull Lucy back away from Kieran. But Lucy pulled her shoulder out of Kate’s gentle grasp, and even though she was crying and completely hysterical over the teen as he lay dying, she continued to run her hands over him.
Kate’s attention was pulled away from Lucy for a moment as the battle raged on. In the dark night, she couldn’t see how many dragons there were, but she could tell by the sound of them battling it out that there were at least half a dozen on each side. There were more traitors in their midst than even Eli had realized.
Lucy gasped and let out a soft moan, and Kate turned, jumping up in an instant when she saw the wound on Lucy’s leg.
“Are you hurt?” Kate asked, surprised that she had missed such a large gash on the child’s leg.
Even in the relative darkness with only dim street lanterns lighting the night, she should have seen the wound; it was almost as big as Kieran’s.
Was Kieran still breathing? Kate wondered, reaching out to Kieran to check his pulse. Her eyes slid to his leg, and Kate gasped. His wound was already smaller, and his breathing seemed to be getting better.
“What’s going on?” she said, not realizing that she had said it out loud until she heard her voice.
“I’m fixing him,” Lucy said, trembling violently and breathing hard against the pain.
“Let me see your leg,” Kate said, not sure how to respond to what Lucy had said.
Surely the young girl was delirious. Kate looked at Lucy’s leg, but the massive gash was already almost healed, and Lucy was once again running her hands over Kieran and furrowing her brow as if she were in a state of deep concentration.
Kieran arched his back as Lucy passed her hands over his ribs, and there was an audible pop as his ribs slid back into place. Lucy cried out, twisting her midsection and taking deep breaths, trying to hold back the tears. Kate’s mouth dropped open when she realized that Kieran’s injuries were disappearing and reappearing on Lucy’s body before they healed completely.
Impossible, she thought, but she knew that she was seeing exactly what she thought she was seeing. Lucy was actually healing Kieran, taking his injuries and transferring them to her own body to heal. As each injury healed, she went after another until the worst of his wounds were healed.
He was breathing better now, and his eyes were starting to flutter as his battered body was able to respond to Lucy’s healing touch and Kieran regained consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked at Lucy, smiling when she came into focus and he saw who she was.
“I thought I was supposed to save you,” he said, laughing softly, then grimacing at a wound still unhealed.
“You did save me,” Lucy said, hugging him tightly and resting her cheek on his chest. “You saved me from being killed, and you almost died.”
“I did die,” he said. He sat up and looked around in a sort of daze, completely unbothered by the fight that continued between the dragons as one by one, the traitors fell to the ground in human form, their bodies shattering on impact. “At least, I felt like I died. How am I okay?”
“I healed you,” Lucy said. She grabbed his hand, running her own hand over it so that the cut across his knuckles appeared on her hand and disappeared from his when she removed her hand from atop his. “Like this. I took your pain and made it my own, then I healed.”