Because that’s where he released her, with what she supposed a dragon might consider gentle consideration but that in actuality was a landing that caused her to go spinning back against the same wall where there was only a burned spot to show any proof that Dimitri Antonescu had ever once existed on this planet.
Too stunned to move, she lay slumped there, seeing only blackness.
“Meena!” she thought she heard someone yelling from far away.
But she felt too sick from her violent ride through the air-combined with the force with which she’d hit the wall-to respond.
Then Alaric was there, trying to pry first one, then another of her eyes open, checking her pupils, asking if she was all right.
“Go away,” she said. She wanted to throw up. Her head hurt. Her arm hurt. She just wanted to go home.
She didn’t have a home anymore.
“Meena, look at me.”
She looked at him. She could barely see him in the smoky darkness.
But his face looked tight with concern.
“I thought you had a dragon to kill,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “I guess I missed my opportunity. How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked, holding up two.
“Nine,” she said.
And then the worst happened. The tail returned. Meena sucked in her breath when she saw it, causing Alaric to turn and see it, too. It flashed dangerously red through the smoke, seemingly searching for something. Meena froze the minute she saw it, thinking, Oh, no. Not again.
It was nice that Lucien loved her so much.
But he really needed to work on his landings.
Alaric seemed to be thinking along the same lines, since he raised his sword, as if he was ready to chop Lucien’s tail off at the tip if it came too close…
Only this time, it turned out it wasn’t Meena whom Lucien was looking for. The tail found one of the supporting pillars that held up the choir loft. It wrapped around it…
…and pulled.
“Shit,” Alaric said, throwing his arms over Meena.
There wasn’t time to do anything else.
Maybe if St. George’s Cathedral hadn’t been quite as old as it was. Maybe if it hadn’t been so badly in need of renovation. Maybe if it hadn’t endured so many shocks from a thirty-ton dragon roaring and breathing fire in it for the past half hour.
Maybe then its structural integrity might have held up a little better.
In any case, taking out that single pillar caused a huge section of the choir loft to come falling down.
Not on them. Just all around them.
Enough to effectively seal them off from everything that was happening out in the nave and apse, entombing them in a sort of dragon-made cave of wood and plaster.
Which, Meena was certain, had been Lucien’s plan all along. He was tired of worrying about her getting hurt. Which was sweet, she supposed, in its way.
But she wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to be able to survive the way dragons expressed their affection.
“Oh, my God.” She coughed. There was a lot of dust.
And Alaric Wulf, on top of her, weighed a ton. As usual.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
He didn’t say anything at first. This was a little alarming.
“Alaric?”
The force of the cave-in had caused some plywood to shift, popping the wood off a previously boarded-up window, which now let in some dirty gray light from the street. In it, Meena could see that Alaric’s face, above her, was covered in ash and plaster dust. He looked…odd. She couldn’t figure out how.
“Alaric? Are you hurt?” she asked him.
“No,” he said in a slow, somewhat thoughtful way. “I do not think so.”
What was wrong with him? Why did he look that way?
Well, he was probably disappointed. He’d missed his big chance to kill Lucien, and now he’d probably never get another one. Thanks to her boyfriend’s affection for her, they were stuck there until someone dug them out. It was Alaric’s own fault for rushing over to see if she was all right. If he’d just stayed out in the apse…
“Meena,” he said, looking down at her. His eyes were still as bright blue as ever. But now, she thought, they looked…
“Am I still going to die?” he asked.
“What?” He was so heavy. Why did he have to be so big? And why was he acting so strangely?
“Am I still going to die?” he asked. “Now. Tonight.”
“Oh, Alaric,” she said with a sigh.
And then her heart gave a heave. He was still going to die.
Except…that wasn’t possible.
Lucien had thrown her in there to keep her safe. Alaric should have been safe, too. Everything should have been fine now.
But for some reason, Alaric was still going to die.
How could this be happening? It made no sense.
He must have read the truth in her horrified expression, since he said, “That’s what I thought. That’s why I’m going to do this now.”
Then he lowered his head and began kissing her.
While this development was alarming-it startled her almost more than anything else that had happened to her in the past few days, and that was saying quite a lot-it wasn’t nearly as alarming as the fact that Meena found that being kissed by Alaric Wulf was not unpleasurable.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
It had been a while since she’d been kissed by a man who actually had a heartbeat and blood pounding in his veins…two things Alaric Wulf had in abundance. She could feel both pulsing hard against her as he kissed her with slow deliberation…a kiss he seemed to be in no hurry to end, a kiss he seemed, if she wasn’t mistaken, to have given some thought to beforehand…a lot of thought to. Alaric Wulf was kissing her like this was the last kiss he was ever going to give anyone in his life.
And when she opened her eyes and looked down, wondering just what was coursing through his body and making her feel so warm, and saw the massive gouge in his right calf, from which blood was gushing at an alarming rate, she could see why he felt like kissing her might be the last thing he’d ever do before he died. A nail or something must have sliced him there while the choir loft was collapsing, and he’d gallantly rolled over on top of her. In order to save her life. Yet again.
Talk about having a hero complex.
Why was he always trying to do that? Didn’t he know it was only going to get him killed?
Meena swore, unceremoniously pushed him off her and onto the floor, then scrambled to stop the bleeding with her hands.
“Alaric,” she said, trying to stay calm. There was so much blood. “You’ve been cut. You’re bleeding.”
“I know,” he said. He didn’t sound like he particularly cared. He kept staring up at her face. He seemed perfectly happy.
He’d already lost a lot of blood. It was pooling on the floor beneath them. It covered her. And him.
“We have to stop the bleeding,” Meena said. “I think you nicked an artery or something.” She tried to think back to all the first-aid courses she’d taken in school. Why couldn’t she remember any of them now, when she needed them? “I think I need to make a tourniquet.”
“You told me I was going to die,” he said with a shrug. “You said it would be dark and that there would be fire. And now it’s happening. You were right.”
“No,” she said. Her heart seemed to be racing a mile a minute. Please, it seemed to thump out. Let me be wrong. Just this once. Back away from the precipice. “I was wrong. I need your belt or something.”
“No one takes Señor Sticky from me,” Alaric said, grasping his sword hilt.
“Oh, my God,” Meena said. “I don’t want your stupid sword. I-”
Then she remembered.
“My scarf,” she said. “The one I gave you. Are you still wearing it?”
He lifted his wrist and pulled back his sleeve. She was relieved to see that the red scarf she’d given him at the rectory was still there. “You mean this?” he asked. “But you gave it to me.”