Blood Brothers

I sucked in a breath and let it back out with a cough. I rolled over in my blankets and lifted an arm to cover my head, still tired and unwilling to get up just yet. Training could wait.

My eyes flew open when I realized that wasn't right. I sat up and looked around frantically, then dropped back down in shock as a familiar face invaded my vision and my space.

"Kasimir! Glad you could rejoin the land of the living!" The rumbling voice coming out of the six and a half foot man leaning over me was not something I thought I would ever hear again. The huge man grinned at me and slapped my shoulder heavily. "Oh come on, no greeting for your old buddy? And after I came to get you out of that horrible place too. Not that you really needed it. You were doing a pretty good job of getting yourself out until you went all blood crazed."

I managed to get past the shock and cut off the rambling. "Red! What are you doing here?!" Red was the owner of a night club Liesel had liked to visit when we went to the city. He and I weren't really friends, but he seemed to like me better than a good many others who tried to get on his good side.

Red grinned. "You've got yourself a good blood brother Kasimir. Better not lose him. He risked a good deal, not to mention having to deal with a language barrier and some pretty nasty discrimination, all to come to your rescue."

I blinked in confusion. "Blood brother?" Red straightened from towering over me and made a little room so I could see around his massive bulk. The air left my lungs in a gasp of surprised pleasure when Ciro slipped around Red and smiled at me. He got a little closer when I sat up and reached for him, then chuckled when I dragged him into a tight hug. He patted my back and grinned again when I released him. "I don't understand. I thought that you had-"

I cut off when I remembered Ciro couldn't understand me. Red began filling me in. "He says when the house collapsed, it broke through the floor and dropped him into a cave system. Not surprising really. There are caves all over the place around here. He followed the system until he found another surface access and had the good fortune to run into me while hunting you down. I couldn't very well let him storm a castle all by himself so I came along. Taking over castles is sort of my thing."

I bit my lip as I swung my legs off the cot and leaned back against the wall behind me. "So you know about..."

Red laughed, loudly and much harder than I thought was really deserved for my question. "I guess I should probably introduce myself, now that you're no longer human. The name's Hevreshek. But Red works just fine for me." He gestured around. "Pardon the cliche, but I wasn't expecting company."

He made some room and I looked around. It looked like we were in a cave. A campfire had been set up in the center and there was a big roasting spit over it, with a whole deer cooking. Besides the cot I was sitting on, there were two others. "Where are we?"

"Gold mine. Abandoned, unfortunately, but the scent of it is still pleasing to me so I like to spend most of my time here if I'm not in the city running things there." He grinned at me as he waited for me to put it all together. He laughed when I stuttered it out.

"A D-dragon?!"

"Now he's got it!"

Ciro rolled his eyes and said something to Red. Red chuckled and spoke back in perfect Italian. I blinked as they talked briefly, then shook my head. Of course the Dragon would be multilingual. He turned to dealing with the meat over the fire and Ciro sighed as he sat down next to me, leaning against the wall behind us.

I pushed that news away to deal with later. For right now, I needed to process that I was finally safe and away from those who wanted to hurt me. Ciro was alive. I was alive.