Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire

the room wasn’t a picnic. Yeah, not a red-and-white-checkered cloth in sight, just blurry blobs and a boatload of nausea as they shuffled across the hospital-grade floor.
    Not bothering to undress him, Sloan lifted Rikar’s sorry ass over the lip of the tub and set him down—leathers and all—into the ice bath.
    Fuuuuck, yeaaaaaah.
    “Good?”
    “More…” Sore all over, Rikar sank chin deep in the arctic chill. “More.”
    Something went click—a cell phone, maybe—as Sloan left the side of the tub, heavy footfalls bouncing around the quiet room. The freezer door opened with a suctioning hiss. Another round of plastic crinkled, telling him more ice was on its way. Thank Christ. He craved the cold, needed to get his core temperature down. If he lost consciousness before that happened, he would overheat—coma territory for a frost dragon.
    The first round of ice chips hit him just where Rikar wanted it, up around his shoulders and the back of his neck. Sloan packed him in well, pouring bag after bag of cubes into the cold water and on top of him.
    His eyes drifted closed. He burrowed in, nestled his too-warm cheek against the chips, listened to the fast click of fingers on a phone keypad as he drifted on a sick wave of Deepshitsville.
    Sloan’s baritone broke through, sounding clipped as someone answered the call, “Ven, where’s Daimler?” A pause. Another male’s voice on the line then, “Shit. We got problems down here. No…it’s Rikar…uh-huh…yeah, exactly. Just get through them and get your ass down here…yeah…quick as you can. We’re losing our boy.”
    Fighting the need for a puke bucket, Rikar cracked his eyelids. “New shipment?”
    “Yeah. The anti-venom’s buried ass-deep in boxes. Daimler’s out running errands, but Venom’s digging for it.”
    Poison. Yup, that explained his spectacular ass-plant.
    Anyone else would’ve gotten the chills as the toxin went to work on his central nervous system. But, oh no, not him. Color him lucky. He got the opposite effect, a well of heat that his frosty side couldn’t handle. And at the worse time…when their miracle man was out buying coffee at Starbucks or some shit.
    Figured, didn’t it? The second he needed the guy, he got good and ghost…poof gone, nowhere to be found. Although, that wasn’t exactly fair. As a Numbai—a member of a special species born into Dragonkind’s care—Daimler couldn’t be blamed for his absence. It was his job to keep the lair organized and well stocked, to caretake like you read about. The TLC routine had been bred into Daimler from birth, his sole purpose and pleasure to look after those he served.
    Still, Rikar wished the male’s special brand of I-got-you-covered hadn’t included leaving the lair tonight. Cuz, if the guy were here? The anti-venom would already be in his veins.
    “Hang in there, buddy…help’s coming.”
    The baritone sounded close, almost as though Sloan was kneeling right next to the tub. The gentle touch came next, against his temple before brushing over his hair, unsticking the strands from the side of his face.
    And wasn’t that a total turnaround? Was he really feeling that?
    Rikar tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids weighed five hundred pounds…each. His mouth wasn’t faring much better. He couldn’t get his tongue to work right.
    Another pass. Another soft stroke over the top of his head.
    Yeah, he felt that, but man, it didn’t compute. Sloan was the only one here, and the warrior was a standoffish SOB who rarely touched anyone. Bastian called him a “long-time loner,” so used to his own company and his computers he existed in a world of his own making. The fact that the male might care about them—about his fellow Nightfury brothers—had never entered Rikar’s mind.
    Swallowing past his dry throat, Rikar worked some saliva into his mouth. He had to tell Sloan…needed to—
    “Is the ice helping?”
    “No. Whatever the bastard hit me with is…fuck. I need. More. Ice,” he said, or at least, Rikar thought that was his voice, slurring all over the place as cold water sloshed and more of the chipped-and-chilly got packed around his head.
    The frosty side of him sighed, loving the arctic blast, but the relief didn’t last. The heat pushed it aside, shredding him from the inside out. As he rode the pain train, he concentrated on breathing: in, out…in, out. The oxygen infuse didn’t help. The pain was too intense, making his legs churn beneath the