The first thing Dexmon registered was sixty pounds of attitude sitting on his lungs.
He didn't know it yet, but he'd been dead to the world for seven days.
His eyelids were heavy. Consciousness returned in fragments. His throat felt like he'd swallowed sand and chased it with gravel. There was an I.V. in his left arm, and the tubing caught the low firelight when he shifted, a thin line tethering him to a stand he had no memory of agreeing to.
He blinked. Twice.
Gold eyes blinked back.
Onyx was curled on his chest, his small body a dense knot of black scales. The dragon's chin rested directly over Dex's heart, as if he'd been monitoring the beat of it, counting every thud to make sure it kept going.
Dex stared at him.
Onyx stared back. Then chirped once, soft and uncertain, the way he did when he was checking if something was real.
Something cracked open behind Dex's ribs that had nothing to do with injury.
