The Dragon King's Dying Blood

Sable POV

My radio goes off at 2:47 AM and I already have my belt clipped before the address finishes. Male down behind 5th Meridian street.

Jonah takes the wheel and I don't bother bracing anymore because he treats every call like a personal race and treats speed limits like suggestions from people who don't know better.

"I'm aiming for a new record. We can get there in ten minutes," he beams, hitting the accelerator.

""Seven if you stop pretending you know how to merge." I take a sip of my coffee. "You do know we have to be alive to be able to save anyone right?"

He grins at me and takes the next turn hard enough to send my coffee sliding across the dash. I catch it without looking because this is our fourth call tonight and I stopped being surprised by his driving somewhere around the second one.

We have had three different calls tonight and I haven't lost one yet. Fixed a dislocated shoulder at a bar, got to a diabetic crash in a motel lobby before he went into shock and pulled out a battery from a little kid who thought they were sweets.

I got all three stable before we even reached the hospital.

"You're showing off," Jonah had chuckled without looking at me. "At this rate dispatch is going to start requesting you by name."

"That's if you keep me alive long enough to do my job." I shot back.

The block is dead as the storefronts are locked. The alley beside the restaurant is the only opening on the street and I can already see the shape before we pull up.

"I'll take point," I say and I'm out of the vehicle before Jonah kills the engine.

I know what a typical alley smells like but what I smell right now is different. The smell is so thick, I unconsciously start breathing through my mouth.

He comes into view as I get closer and I snap my gloves on.

He doesn't look like he belongs here which makes me panic a bit. Rich people don't just drop in alleys. But when they do, it's never simple.

I roll him over, check for breathing, a pulse but get nothing.

My fingers find his neck and almost immediately, my hand jerks back on its own. Whatever temperature this man is running, it isn't compatible with being alive.

I press again because that's what I do. I don't pull away from people who need help even when my body tells me to, still there's no pulse.

"Jonah, I need the kit," I call back without taking my eyes off the man. "No pulse, temp is way off, I'm starting compressions."

I position my hands on his chest, lock my elbows and push. The first compression feels normal but the second one doesn't.

On the third push, my palms crack open with heat. Not from him but from me as it rips up through my arms and hits my chest before I can pull away. His body arcs off the ground at the same time.

My arms are still locked in compression position when I blink and there's nobody under them.

I fall back on my hands, as my eyes follow his spine which is bending at an angle that should snap it. His mouth opens but no sound comes out.

Then his eyes open.

His eyes are gold with black slits down the centre and when they lock onto my face every thought in my head goes silent. That's all it takes for this man to erase four years of training with one look.

I blink and he's standing over me. There's no human explanation whatsoever to what just happened.

"Who are you?" His hand comes up and I flinch but he doesn't touch me. His fingers stop an inch from my face and I feel heat roll off them in a wave. He pulls back like he caught himself doing something he shouldn't. Then he turns and walks toward the back of the alley.

"Hey." I scramble up. "Hey, you can't just... you were dead. You had no pulse, you can't..."

He doesn't stop. By the time I reach the back of the alley he doesn't exist anymore.

"Where's the patient?" Jonah comes up behind me with the kit.

"He's gone." I say absentmindedly

"Gone where?"

"If I knew that, I'd be chasing him instead of standing here wouldn't I?" I snapped.

He looks at the empty lot then back at me. "You said no pulse."

"Yep," I sighed. "This night keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"...And now he's gone."

"Jonah."

"I'm just making sure I'm hearing this right. You found a dead man and he got up and left?"

"Maybe it's a prank." I whisper to myself trying to stop myself from thinking too hard.

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds.

"What happened to your hands?" He asks and that's when I look down to see that my gloves are off and I don't remember pulling them. Both palms are deep red, pulsing with heat I can feel radiating outward.

"I don't know."

"Sable."

"Jonah please!" I sighed. "Just shut up, I need to think."

The rest of the shift drags. Jonah takes point on the next two calls and I let him because every time I touch a patient they flinch at the heat. I shove my hands in my jacket between calls and feel the lining get warm.

By the time we clock out my pockets are hot to the touch. I drive home with the windows down and my hands on my lap because the steering wheel was starting to stick.

The heat doesn't stop. Not during the drive home, not in the shower, not lying in bed with my hands flat on the sheets watching them pulse.

Every time I close my eyes, I see gold.

Somewhere around midnight, I stop trying to sleep and get up for water. The kitchen faucet is running before I notice the window above the sink is open.

"This can't be happening," I whisper as I go check it out. The lock is broken and I've been meaning to fix it for three months so there's no way this is happening.

As soon as I turn the water off and turn to head back, I hear a voice that sends chills down my back.

"We need to talk about what you did to me."