The Dragon Commander's Captive

I fell in love with my enemy on a Tuesday.

Not the gentle, gradual kind of love that blooms over shared laughter and

stolen glances. Not the safe kind that grows in peacetime between people who have the luxury of choosing each other.

This was the dangerous kind. The kind that starts with a man walking into your medical tent covered in blood that isn’t his own, and instead of fear, all you feel is the treacherous thought: He’s beautiful.

Stupid. Dangerous. The kind of thought that got prisoners killed.

But there it was.

* * *

Three months earlier, I’d watched Commander Helios Draven cut through my unit like we were made of paper.

Now he sat on my examination table, bleeding from a shoulder wound, waiting for me to stitch him back together.

The universe had a twisted sense of humour.

“You’re staring,” he said without opening his eyes.

I was. I’d been staring since the moment he walked in, moving with that predatory grace that made every other man in camp look clumsy by comparison.

“You’re bleeding on my clean table,” I replied, threading the needle. “I’m allowed to stare.”

“That’s not where you were looking.”

Heat crept up my neck, but I kept my voice level. “Your shoulder is a mess. Who stitched this last time?”

“Field medic. We were in a hurry.”

“Clearly.” I began cleaning the wound, and he didn’t even flinch. Most men would have at least tensed. “You know, most commanders don’t come to the prisoner’s tent for medical care.”

“Most prisoners don’t save enemy soldiers.”

I paused. “You’ve been watching me.”

“I’ve been commanding the eastern front. You happen to work in a tent I walk past daily.” He opened his eyes then, and I made the mistake of meeting them.

Green. Impossible, unnatural green that filled the entire socket — no white,

no clear boundary between iris and sclera. The mark of the Goblin Warrior bloodline, or so the stories went. Half-human, half-something else.

Unkillable.

Looking at him now, I believed it.

The enemy commander was bleeding on my table, and I was trying very hard not to notice how beautiful he was.

Stupid. Dangerous. The kind of thought that got prisoners killed.

But there it was anyway — surfacing through the exhaustion and fear like something inevitable. Like the way wounds festered if you didn’t clean them

properly. Like the way moths flew toward flame even when they knew better.

He hadn’t made a sound when the blade opened his shoulder. Hadn’t flinched when I’d cleaned the wound. Didn’t even seem to register pain as I pushed

the needle through his skin for the first stitch.

Most men would’ve at least tensed. Most men were human.

Helios Draven, Commander of the Rheskari Eastern Front, was something else entirely.

“You’re staring,” he said without opening his eyes.

Heat crept up my neck, but I kept my voice steady. “You’re right. I was looking at the terrible job whoever stitched this shoulder last time did.

Tell me you didn’t let a field medic work on you with a dull needle and thread meant for canvas.”

His eyes opened.

My hands didn’t falter on the suture. Three months as a prisoner of war had taught me to keep working no matter what. “You’re bleeding on my table. I’m

allowed to stare.”

“That’s not where you were looking.”

“You saved Carrick’s life last week,” he continued, his voice low and controlled. “He’d been ordered to execute you when you were first captured.

Did you know that?”

My hands didn’t falter on the stitch. “No.”

“He didn’t do it. Said you had kind eyes.” Helios tilted his head, studying me with an intensity that made breathing difficult. “Do you have kind eyes,

Ms. Wyncrest?”

He knew my name.

He’d learned my name.

“Because I should know the name of the woman who’s going to save my men.”

“Or the one you’re going to execute when I fail?”

“That too.”

At least he was honest.

“Leah,” I said. “Leah Wyncrest.”

“Wyncrest.” He repeated it slowly, tasting each syllable like wine. “The

physician’s daughter from Averyn’s southern garrison.”

My hands stilled on the needle. “You know who I am.”

“I know who you were.” His gaze held mine, unblinking, intense enough to feel like a physical touch. “You were the one who tried to save Captain

Merrick after we ambushed his supply convoy. You stayed with him even after your unit retreated. You were still trying to stop the bleeding when my men

found you.”

I remembered. The captain had been kind to me once, had recommended me for officer training before the war made everything complicated. I’d held pressure

on his wounds for twenty minutes while the battle raged around us.

He’d died anyway.

“I remember,” I said quietly.

“That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re not in the prisoner cages with the others.” Helios’s voice dropped lower. “That’s why you’re still alive.”

The weight of that settled between us — unspoken but understood. He could have killed me that day. Should have, probably, by military law. Instead,

he’d seen me trying to save a dying enemy and decided I was more useful breathing.

“I should thank you,” I said, finishing the last stitch.

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t save you out of mercy.” His hand came up — slowly, giving me time to pull back — and caught my wrist. Not hard. Not painful. But firm enough that I felt the strength beneath his control, the calluses from years

of sword work, the heat of his skin against mine.

My pulse jumped beneath his fingers.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

“I saved you because watching you work is the only thing in this war that

doesn’t make me feel like a monster.”

The confession hung between us like something fragile and dangerous.

I should have pulled away. Should have remembered he was the enemy, that his soldiers had killed my friends, that I was his prisoner and he was my captor

and nothing good could come from the way my heart was racing under his touch.

Instead, I looked at those impossible green eyes and said, “I don’t think you’re not a

monster.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you pulled me out of the depths of that battle instead of leaving me to die. I know you assigned me here instead of leaving prison cages to waste away. I know you just sat

through seventeen stitches without making a sound because you didn’t want to seem weak in front of me.”

His jaw tightened. “Careful, Leah Wyncrest. You’re starting to sound like you don’t hate me.”

“Should I hate you, Commander?”

“But you don’t.”

It wasn’t a question.

I pulled my wrist free — slowly, not because he was holding tight, but because some part of me didn’t want to break the contact — and stepped back.

“You’re done,” I added, gesturing to his neatly stitched shoulder. “Try not to tear these. I’m running low on thread.”

He stood, rolling his shoulder experimentally. The muscle moved smoothly under newly scarred skin. He should have winced. He didn’t.

“I’ll send more supplies,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He moved toward the tent entrance, then paused. The lantern light caught his profile — sharp jaw, strong nose, those impossible eyes shadowed but

still luminous in the dim light.

“Leah?”

“Yes?”

“Next time I’m bleeding, I want you to be the one who stitches me back

together.”

It wasn’t an order. It was something far more dangerous.

It was a choice.

“Why?” I asked.

He looked back at me over his shoulder, and for just a moment, the hardened commander disappeared. In his place was something younger, something almost

vulnerable.

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re the only person in this camp who looks at me like I’m still Human and not a monstrous weapon of war.”

“Very dramatic, Commander.”

He almost showed the ghost of a smile.

I indulged him further, “That depends,” I said carefully, “on whether you’re asking as my captor or my patient.”

“And if I’m asking as a man?”

The needle slipped. Just barely. Just enough that a bead of blood welled up where I’d pressed too hard.

He didn’t flinch.

“Then I’d say you’re asking the wrong person,” I managed. “I don’t make a habit of seeing my captors as men.”

“Liar.”

The word was soft, almost gentle. It hit harder than a shout.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been watching me too.” He said it like fact, not accusation. “Every time I walk past this tent. Every time I check the perimeter. Every time I

stand guard while you work. You think I don’t notice?”

I tied off the stitch with more force than necessary. “You’re paranoid.”

“I’m observant.” His hand came up — slowly, giving me time to pull back —

and caught my wrist. Not hard. Not threatening. Just... holding. “And I

observe that your pulse jumps every time I get close.”

It was jumping now. Racing, actually. His thumb rested directly over the

point where my heartbeat hammered against skin, and there was no hiding what

he did to me.

“That’s fear,” I said.

“Is it?”

I should have pulled away. Should have put distance between us, remembered that he was the enemy, that three months ago his army had slaughtered my

friends and dragged me here in chains.

Instead, I met those impossible green eyes and told the truth.

“No.”

The word hung between us like a confession.

His thumb moved — just once, a slow stroke across my pulse point that sent

heat straight through me.

“Dangerous answer, physician.”

“Dangerous question, commander.”

“I could have you executed for less.”

“But you won’t.”

“No.” His grip tightened just slightly. “I won’t.”

“Why not?”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: “Because watching you save lives in the middle of this bloodbath is the only thing that still makes me feel human. And if they kill you, I lose that. I lose the one person in this camp

who looks at me like I’m not a monster.”

The confession broke something open in my chest.

“You’re not a monster,” I said.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know what you do here. I know you could have killed me a hundred times and haven’t. I know you protect this tent from the soldiers who think mercy is weakness.” I pulled my wrist free — slowly, carefully, trying to ignore how cold it felt without his touch. “I know you’re more human than most of the men fighting this war.”

He stood. Even in the low lamplight, he was striking — all sharp angles and controlled power, black hair falling loose past his shoulders, those eyes that shouldn’t exist but did.

“Leah,” he said quietly.

“Commander?”

“That name. Use it when we’re alone.”

“Alone is dangerous.”

“Yes.” He moved toward the tent entrance, then paused. “But so is everything worth having.”

He left before I could respond. He was gone, leaving me alone in the medical tent with the smell of blood and smoke and the ghost of his touch still warm on my wrist.

I stood there in the blood-soaked tent, hand pressed to the wrist he’d held,

and tried to convince myself that the heat in my veins was just fever.

It wasn’t. I failed.

Because I knew — with the same bone-deep certainty I’d felt the first time I’d held a scalpel, the first time I’d saved a life, the first time I’d chosen to stay with a dying patient instead of running — that Helios Draven was going to change everything.

It was the beginning of something that would either save us or destroy us completely. I just didn’t know yet if he’d destroy me in the process.

I just didn’t know which yet.

Tent flap moved in the wind, and I went back to work.

And later that evening there were always more wounded.

There was always more blood.

And now, there was him.