15

Sarah squeezed her eyes as pain laced through her skull in succession.

When does it end? She thought as she raised her hand to her head again.

A huge rough hand grabbed her hand and held it. Her eyes fluttered open immediately and she quickly hissed and squeezed them shut again when the lights in the room pierced her eyes, increasing the ache in her head. But for that brief moment when she had opened her eyes, she thought she saw a familiar face.

"Dad?" She asked unsure if she was still dreaming. Earlier she had dreamt she was in the clouds, held in what felt like claws. In her dazed state, she thought she saw what looked like black scales even though her vision had been too blurry to see. She had heard what sounded like a crash once, then twice. After a while, she blacked out and the next time she opened her eyes she was being wheeled into a hospital and something was shot up her arm to make her pass out again.

She wanted to open her eyes.

"Yes," Edgar replied. He placed his other hand on her head and found it hot. Turning slightly to the person behind him he said, "Turn off the lights."

The room went dark.

She fluttered her eyelids open and could only see outlines. But she knew Edgar's outline well enough, the muscular shoulders, the ever-changing hairstyles. It was the unfamiliar warmth of his fingers around her hand that made her heart sing. She started to sit up but he stopped her.

"Lay still," he said gently.

"My head hurts."

"More reasons why you shouldn't move."

"I'm thirsty." Her mouth felt like cardboard

"Oh." He left her for a few seconds to pour some water for her into a glass cup on the table nearby. He helped her sit up and assisted her as she took huge gulps of water. "Take it easy, you might choke," he warned.

"What happened?" she asked as soon as she was satisfied.

"I was hoping you could tell me. I got a call from the desk that you had been brought here. What happened?"

She tried to think even though her head hurt with just that little effort. "It was an excavated site. We were approaching a cave with a supposed dragon tomb…"

"You were what?" Edgar interrupted her, his voice spiking. "You told me you had classes today, Sarah."

"It's part of school, Dad. We were supposed to check out an excavation site that had just been cleared…we had gotten permission to do so…"

"Permission from who?!"

Sarah eyed him thoughtfully at the heated question. "Mrs. Klavan, my professor, had recently gotten permission to show us some recovered artefacts and…"

"Give me a second," Edgar said shortly and stood up. "Come with me," he said to the other occupant of the room.

As soon as they were out of earshot from Sarah he whirred around and bent to fiercely whisper. "What the fuck is she talking about? I told you not to grant that damn nosy professor permission!"

Aaron took a step back at the anger in Edgar's eyes but he drew himself up sharply. "I didn't."

"Then who did? What business does she have there to be so persistent?" Edgar hissed angrily. He had recently granted permission for the excavation of the cave but once he discovered there was a tomb there he had given orders for all workers to be dismissed so that his men could go in to make sure it wasn't a dragon tomb. As soon as they had confirmed to him that it was indeed a dragon tomb he had stopped all activities there so that his men could go in and clear off the existence of the dragon. Looks like the nosy professor had gotten there before his men could.

Aaron shrugged. "I definitely didn't. Unless the woman was acting on her own."

That was what he feared. What if she wasn't acting on her own? It wasn't out of the ordinary that humans should be curious about the Drakus but Edgar was a man walking on the edge, everyone was an enemy. Himself included.

Every day now he woke up with the fear that his past was catching up with him. He had done everything in his power to protect his only daughter but if his enemies extended their revenge to her, he would have no other choice but to exterminate them. After all, as sworn protector, he could do just that if the life of a dragon was threatened.

"I need to find this professor, I need to know who gave her permission to carry out this action. Stay with Sarah, I'll get some of the other boys to keep watch."

"Yes, sir."

But he had barely started to leave when a doctor showed up with a test result.

Edgar eyed her curiously. "Well, have you found out what happened to my daughter?"

"Apart from the hit she took, we found traces of poison in her bloodstream, sir, they are not harmful but they were lethal enough to put her out for a long time."

Edgar felt his stomach clench at the news. It kept getting worse.

"And did you find its source?"

"We took the liberty of looking through her things and found a sandwich and some muffins. The muffins were the source."

Grim faced Edgar thanked the doctor and turned to Aaron. "Find out where she got those muffins but call the other guys before you leave. I'll be going now but I'll be back as fast as I can."