“I…think so.” I stood slowly, bracing myself for pain. There was a dull ache in my side as I moved, but nothing sharp or stabby, which was a relief. Cautiously, I eased myself upright, craning my neck, curling and uncurling my talons, testing muscles. Except for the subtle but persistent ache in my side, everything seemed to be working fine. I took a breath and let it out slowly. “Looks like I’m all here. What happened?”

“You were shot,” Garret said quietly. “When we were running from St. George. We brought you here, and Wes managed to dig the slug out, but it was touch and go for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze flicked to my side, where the ache was coming from. “You nearly died, Ember,” he whispered. “We didn’t know how serious it was until we got here. You lost a lot of blood, and if the bullet had gone a few inches to the left…it would’ve struck your heart.”

“Oh,” I said, as the gravity of that statement sank in. “Really?”

He nodded, his face tightening. “That first night,” he said in a curiously choked voice, “I didn’t know if you were going to make it. You didn’t move the entire time, not to eat, or Shift, or anything. Riley said that…that you had gone into hibernation, that when the dragon body takes a lot of damage, it slows to almost nothing and falls into a near coma until it can heal itself. I had no reason to doubt him, but…you were so still. You’ve been out for three days, and I couldn’t even tell if you were breathing or not.”

“Hey.” I stepped toward him, slowly, knowing I was still in dragon form and not wanting to make him nervous. “It’s all right. Look.” I half opened my wings, casting a dark shadow over the walls and floor. “I’m okay,” I said, offering a smile. “I’m still here.”

He gazed at me with an expression that made my heart turn over, before his eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said, sounding almost angry now. I blinked and reared back in surprise as he turned on me. “Back at St. George. You shouldn’t have risked it. You don’t know what you’ve done, what the Order will do to your kind now. St. George won’t let this stand. Word of the break-in has probably reached London. Every chapterhouse in the region will be looking for you. You’ll never be safe.”

I lashed my tail, nearly knocking over a lamp on the dresser. “Guess next time I’ll just stand back and let you be shot to death.”