A Dragon's Heart – Chapter 5
"I never did like that man." Shuichi Sakurano announced to the room when Natsume's grandfather left. The man was standing in the doorway to the waiting room holding a tray set to serve tea. The fact that he had waited until after the old man left to serve the tea was not lost on Natsume.
Reluctant to leave the sea dragon's side, Natsume took over the chair his grandfather had vacated and accepted the offered tea. Imai and Sakurano pulled in a few more chairs and followed suit while Youichi put his flowers in a water pitcher by the bed.
"That's because your intuition tells you he is an evil bastard with a god complex, and your intuition has never been wrong." Natsume said, sipping his tea.
He had always liked the blue dragon. Sakurano may not be very strong in a fight, but he had a quick and clever mind. Not only that, but he seemed to have multiple alices. Between his intuition and teleportation he seemed to manage to be anywhere and everywhere he was needed at exactly the right time, and the man's advice was always helpful in a tight pinch.
The truth was it was actually Sakurano and Tobita Yuu who ran 'Natsume's group'. The business and day to day parts anyways. When it came to political matters and dealing with his grandfather or uncle the only one who could handle them was Natsume.
Another benefit to Sakurano was that he was Subaru's mate. Strange to think that being gay was a benefit -not that Natsume had any problems with it-. Honestly, it just worked to his advantage.
Dr. Imai was a first rate dragon born doctor and an excellent healer. That made him priceless in any clan. Dragons may live longer lives than humans but they were just as susceptible to mundane diseases. Worse, without a healer who understood their special needs, a dragon could easily die from a perfectly treatable human ailment.
It was only the fact that he was gay that kept the black dragon on Natsume's side of the clan compound. If the man had not openly displayed his 'deviant tendencies' his grandfather would surely have snatched him up straight out of medical school and kept the doctor locked away exclusively for himself.
Apparently, in his grandfather's mind it was acceptable to bully, possibly even rape a weaker male while in the grip of dragon lust, but for two men to love one another was not. Don't ask Natsume to explain that logic because it was lost on him too.
That was kind of the theme for Natsume's select group. Whatever his grandfather didn't like he welcomed. Not surprisingly, he found quite a few treasures in his grandfather's cast offs. Obviously Imai's healing, but along with him came his inventor sister whose inventions they had been secretly selling under an equally secret company they had created.
Subaru's mate Sakurano was brilliant at handling day to day affairs with his people. He managed to keep them mostly out of trouble and under his grandfather's or uncle's radar. He saw to their health, finances, and schooling, whatever they needed. The blue was almost like a surrogate parent. If someone in Natsume's group had a problem, they usually went to Shuichi. Most times Natsume never even heard about it.
Tobita Yuu and his mate, Nonoko Osagawa were terribly weak green and blue dragons. Neither had any ambition for fighting and preferred scholastic studies. That meant they were useless in the current king's views. However, Yuu had been managing Natsume's financial portfolio since they were fifteen and it has since grown to an obscene size. It still couldn't rival the clan's holdings, but he could certainly take care of his own if they suddenly had to cut ties and run.
Nonoko was just starting university but she was showing a strong aptitude for chemistry and when she graduated she would head up their new pharmaceutical division.
Luka and Mochu were both draman and highly underestimated for it. Natsume could list off a dozen more examples but Shuichi interrupted his thoughts.
"Speaking of my intuition, what was that flare of energy about? I'm guessing it had nothing to do with your usual complaint." The blue asked with an amused sparkle in his eyes.
"According to Koko, he's taking a bit of a liking to this little fish." Subaru said blandly, with only the slightest trace of humor. "Oh, and my sister says she has completed the new surveillance systems and has a list of the things she'll need for her lab." He finished to Natsume.
"Ugh, fine, just tell her to give it to Sakarano." Natsume said then turned to the blue dragon, "Just try to get the best deal you can. And don't let her bankrupt our little enterprise again. Something tells me we are going to need that money." The woman was a financial black hole. A greedy, thieving, yet dastardly cunning black hole. The red spent several moments thinking of unflattering and unrepeatable thoughts towards the younger Imai.
The three adults quietly sipped their tea until Youichi interrupted the silence, reminding them he was there. "Dr. Imai, when is the sea dragon going to be better?"
Natsume didn't give the doctor a chance to answer. "He has a point Imai, she still looks terrible. How long will whatever was on those claws be in effect?"
The doctor raised one smooth black brow at him and chose to answer them together. "If I knew what that hunter drugged her with I might have been able to counteract it better. As it is, I've sent several blood samples to Nonoko and even she has yet to be able to identify it. My guess is that it is something they created specifically for dragons because normally we metabolize most human drugs too quickly."
With that little Youichi looked really upset so Natsume placed a supporting hand on his shoulder. "She'll be okay. It just may take a bit longer."
Sakurano, who knew that his mate got his charming people skills at the same place as his sister, gave a hard look at the black dragon for being so insensitive when talking to a child. Leaning forward, he picked up where Natsume left off. "That's right Youichi, when she wakes up we will be able to help her better than we can now."
Imai made a frustrated sound "If only I knew more about sea dragons I might be able to do something. I'm certain the king knows something about them but…"
"I'm not handing her over to him unless I'm certain there is no other choice." Natsume declared. He would never let her die, but she would have to be damn close to death before he would let her anywhere near that man. Natsume knew without a shred of doubt that once he let her go to him, he would never see her again.
They would find a way to help her. They had to.
After returning Youichi to his room, Natsume came back to the clinic and stayed there through dinner. Shuichi brought him something to eat, and he knew that he ate it, but he couldn't recall what it was. All of his attention was on the sea dragon.
The young red dragon sat there in the dimming light of the evening studying everything about her. A search of her clothes revealed very little about who she was. She had no bag or ID on her but that could have been lost in the fight.
The magic that allowed dragons' clothes to change with them did not extend to things they carried. Any bag she had would have had to been tied to her hands or feet and considering her state, especially her legs, those bags are most likely at the bottom of the sea by now.
Her pockets held a bit of new information. The loose change in them was American currency, suggesting that was where she had come from. Or at least that was where she was before she came to Japan. The English labels on her clothes seemed to agree.
Who knew that sea dragons swam such distances? Then again, with the speed that she swam, crossing an ocean would probably only take a day or so.
The part he studied most of course was her face. With all of the bruises and scrapes on her face, it was still impossible to determine what she looked like. The only unmarred part was the lower left side, along her jaw. He'd spent most of the night staring at that small section of jaw.
It was smooth and soft to the touch, still young and wrinkle free. At best, she would be in her late teens, maybe early twenties as a human. For a dragon, that could put her up to her early sixties, but the youthful, casual look of her clothes suggested younger than that.
The jaw swept up to one of a very cute pair of ears. The kind meant for a man to nip at during love play. These particular ears were adorned with small, blood red gemstones that matched his eye-color perfectly. Garnets, Hotaru called them. Birthstone of someone born in January.
The other end of that smooth jaw ended in a pair of full lips. Okay, this time he was guessing they were full because at the moment all but the far left side was split and swollen. But he would be willing to bet they were full and tasted fantastic.
With a frustrated growl, Natsume launched out of the chair he'd been sitting in to pace the room, trying to control his arousal for the umpteenth time that night. He really had to get a grip of his wandering mind. The constant shift between being turned on and calming himself down was getting bloody uncomfortable on his groin. Any more mind wandering, and he would be in serious pain.
When he was feeling a bit more in control, he scowled at her, also for the umpteenth time that night. He wanted yell at her and blame her for what was happening to him. To demand that she wake up so they can have a days-long sex marathon. The kind of sex that was both mindless and extremely gratifying and would let him exorcise the demon possessing him.
Dammit, he was sounding like a crazy person again! This wasn't her fault! All she was doing was lying there looking delicious in her battered state. The problem was him, and he hated knowing that he had so little control.
At sunset, the monotony of sit, get worked up, pace around like a lunatic, then sit again, had a break. For a few minutes during that brief magical time when day gives way to night, he felt a small surge of energy within her.
Excited, he yelled for Subaru to hurry. The doctor appeared just as the power was beginning to fade and the doctor instantly sent his energy into her trying to get what healing he could in.
Without knowing why he did it, Natsume also sent his energy into her as well, his spirit instinctively trying to mesh with hers. His energy caught on to something, but just as quickly, it started to fade.
"Hold her there Natsume! Before she slips away again!" the black dragon ordered. Normally, it rankled the red dragon in him to be ordered around by a weaker dragon, but at the moment he was inclined to obey.
Natsume fused more of his energy into her trying desperately to hold the bit of her he had. Even as he tried, he could feel her retreating. "Stay with me dammit!" he yelled at the top of his mind, but she still fell through his grip causing him to swear colorfully.
"At least I was able to heal up those gashes a bit." The young doctor said panting heavily. "I still can't figure out why it is so difficult to heal her. Whatever they gave her has quite the resistance to magic. Now let's at least take a look to see how her legs are doing. Some of the cuts were deep enough to warrant stitches." He suggested and the pair moved together to start removing the bandages on her legs.
Almost as one, they both gasped causing Sakurano who was standing in the door to ask what was wrong.
"Her skin has gone cold." Natsume stated "Is that normal?"
"No, there are occasionally cases of an infection causing the body temperature to drop instead of a fever, but she is showing no signs of infection." the doctor re-examined every cut and abrasion on his patient. "it's almost like she has hypothermia but she appears to be otherwise alright… perhaps it is something about her physiology… this is getting terribly frustrating… when your friend wakes up, I'm going to have to get as much information as I can about sea dragons from her."
Natsume who had been watching him the whole time had instinctively started to radiate heat from his body. Air dragons were very sensitive to cold and can die if they stayed too long in cold climates. Sea dragons might have something about them that makes them colder to survive deep waters, but he wasn't taking the chance. The other two dragons felt the room's temperature change and looked at him surprised.
While Natsume ignored them Aoi and Luka showed up. "Hello Natsume. We came to see how your new girlfriend was doing." She teased with a big grin which faltered when she felt the heat in the room. "What happened?" she asked, taking in the partially healed cuts on her legs and the still battered face.
"She's cold."
Luka's brows rose "She said she was cold?"
Giving the draman and irritated look he clarified. "No I mean she is really cold." He said, taking his sister's hand and brushing it against the mystery woman's arm causing her to gasp. He didn't repeat the motion with Luka because for some reason he still didn't like any man including Luka and Imai touching her. The doctor was a necessary evil but Luka was… well… in love with Aoi but Natsume still hated him touching her.
"She's cold!" Aoi said shocked causing her brother to roll his eyes at her ability to state the obvious. "Why is she so cold?"
"We don't know, but it might be because of her sea dragon nature."
"She still looks pretty bad. Are you sure she's okay?" Luka asked cautiously.
Imai who had been checking her vitals answered "Other than her temperature and her inability to wake up, she appears to be fine. In excellent health even."
"What about water?" Sakurano asked, causing them all to look at him puzzled. "She's a sea dragon. It would stand to reason she might do better in the water."
"In her current condition I'm not confident on taking her back to the ocean yet. However, if she hasn't shown improvement by morning we could try to immerse her in sterilized tub full of saline water."
The others agreed and began filing out with the exception of Natsume. His sister looked back him at expectantly.
"I'm going to stay for a bit longer. I'll be in later." He said quietly, trying to pretend he didn't notice and wasn't embarrassed by the knowing grins on the others.
Tbc
Author's Notes: Sorry if I confused anyone by reposting this chapter. I had misspelled Sakurano and it was really bothering me, so I had to fix it.
Blech. I hate working night shifts. I'm completely out of touch with everyone. When I'm awake, everyone else is sleeping. When I'm stumbling off to bed everyone is waking up and starting their day. Anyway, the chapter is done and I know not a heck of a lot happened in it, other than a bit more of background information, but the next one should interest you more. Mikan will actually be awake for that one. Poor Natsume, I'm going to push his frustrations to their limits.
Thank you so much to those of you who sent reviews! For Nobara who asked if we will see Tsubasa, Misaki, Nobara and Narumi, the answer is yes we will, but they aren't all dragons. And yes, you are correct about his grandfather.
For Rashel, I love dragons, and I really liked the idea of them being the main characters rather than the villain or the sidekick of the main character. It is quite fun writing about them.
To Wyntta, I guess I can see where the idea would sound weird, but I'm glad you decided to try it out.
And lastly to Chrisca123456789 (wow what a name that is to type), yes his grandfather has his reasons for being how he is, but they aren't exactly what you or I would call justified reasons. I'll discuss it more in the story, but I'll give you a bit of foreshadowing: This reality is much like our modern day reality. The only difference is that a lot of the so called folk tales are true and the creatures in them hide amongst humans. Up until the past century or so seeing one would mean different things depending on the country you were in. Some were hunted down by brave knights, others were feared and given sacrifices, and in others they were worshipped as gods. In modern times though, the few humans that know of their existence no longer fear or revere them.