Dragon's Key--Complete

Chapter Thirteen

It was well into the night when I felt movement across the bed and then a touch on my shoulder shaking me awake.  I lifted my head to look groggily at my mother who was waking me and then she gestured across the bed toward Peter.

Peter was wiping more blood with glints of metal from Sofie's abdomen and then as he set aside the bloody dressings his hands rested over her skin again.  I could see the surface of the skin begin to glow, reflecting the light from the unicorn's hands.  As I watched, the blood seeping from the wound slowed and the skin started to knit together.

Peter apparently was confident he'd retrieved all the iron shavings from the wound and was carefully closing it.  I glanced toward the window against the far wall, almost surprised to see that it was covered in glass like a modern window instead of the wide open slot with shudders that it had been before.  It was a brief moment of surprise and then my attention shifted to measuring the light that was entering the room through the window.  It was still hours until dawn if I assessed the amount of darkness accurately.

“It is about two am,” my mother said in a hoarse voice from beside the bed and I looked up at her and smiled slightly in thanks.

“How's she doing?” I asked Peter as I turned back.

He nodded at me to acknowledge my question even as he continued to work.  After the wound had sealed and he'd cleaned the last of the blood off did Peter look up at me.

“She's healing quite well.  I think her metabolism is enough more dragon than human now that her recovery is more like the former than the latter,” Peter said with a nod toward Sofie's still unconscious form.

“In fact, I only give her a few more hours before she'll start to regain consciousness.  I was thinking a simple IV with fluids might help in that regard, considering her blood loss, and much less risky than a transfusion,” Peter continued as he pulled over the IV stand that had been in the corner.

Someone must have brought it in during the night.  I was surprised I had slept through it.  I was more tired than I thought, not even realizing I'd fallen asleep until my mother was shaking me awake.

I watched in interest as Peter readied the IV with water in a bag, I'd read enough to know that this was saline, but I'd never seen anything like this in use before.  This was human medicine invented long after my capture.

“Human medicine?” I observed in sudden surprise.  Just days ago I'd been telling Sofia how much more advanced the medical practices of the Hidden One's were.

“It's simple, but expedient, especially with some part of her still human,” Peter replied with a hint of amusement on his lips.

My gaze returned to Sofia as the IV started to do its work.  She was still pale and wan, but I could see a slight improvement already in her color.  She'd been deathly pale before.  I reached out to brush wisps of hair away from her face, ignoring the look I could feel my mother giving me as I did so.

“There'd better be a wedding after this, son,” she said quietly, giving me a stern look.  “You're being awfully familiar for an unmarried man.”

I turned my head to look at her.  I pondered what I should tell her.  The nightmare Sofia had woken me from was something that felt too private to share, but it explained much of the liberties I was taking.  Not to mention my own blood that had soaked into her hair just several hours earlier.

But those were just the physical things that had happened since we'd been together.  It didn't take into factor the other things that had affected our relationship.  I didn't know what had been important to her, but I knew what had been important to me.  The day she'd released me from the basement, the long ride on the motorcycle, the funeral, the times where she had put her trust in me – those were the times that stood out to me.