Page 12 of Fated to the Dragon King (Alpha Dragons’ Fated #4)

Hayley

Dragons?

“That’s impossible.”

I shut my eyes, too weak and in too much pain for fairy tales. Whatever it was I saw, I’m sure it arrived on the heels of the shock of being shot. Why Alaric sat there and lied to me, I have no idea. I should tell him to just leave. Divorce me and go.

“It’s not impossible,” Alaric said, his hand warm, strong, on mine. “We are indeed dragons. Dragon shifters to be quite accurate.”

I removed my hand from his and flapped it. “I don’t need this shit. Please go away.”

“You’re the first human to know of us in over a thousand years,” he went on, his voice soft, soothing. “In my land, we fly without worry that a human might see us.”

“And you breathe fire, too.”

“Yes. You saw that.”

I opened my eyes to find Alaric’s face – vulnerable. Almost scared. “We fly at night, only at night, when we’re among human kind. We must not be seen in our dragon bodies. Only in human form can we walk among you.”

“I can’t handle this.”

Nearly crying from the frustration of Alaric boldly lying to me, the fierce and savage pain, I thumbed the morphine drip. Within seconds, calm and peace drifted over me. The pain was there, but very far away. As though it hung out in a distant zip code.

It would be back, however.

I faced weeks of this agony and can have only enough morphine for a few days of peace.

“Go away, Alaric.”

Too weak to stay awake for long, I drifted on the chemical tides. Only when Alaric bent to kiss me did I startle awake.

“Willow will come in to see you later,” he murmured, his lips brushing my cheek. “Get your rest.”

I didn’t hear him leave.

***

I slept and woke, thumbed my drip, slept again, woke when a nurse came in to draw my blood, then slept again. I don’t recall dreaming, but a weird sense that I had dreamed – dreamed of dragons – swam in my subconscious. I fell asleep again, and when I woke I blinked. And stared.

At Willow.

Like Alaric, she bent to kiss my cheek. “You look so tired, dear.”

“I am.”

My last morphine intake was hours ago, but I wanted to stay sober enough to talk to her. My pain flared at every movement, so I remained stock still and looked at her as she sat back in the visitor’s chair.

“The truth, Willow.”

“Alaric didn’t lie, sweetie. We are dragon shifters.”

“Show me.”

“Here?” Willow laughed. “My dear, if I shifted now, I’d bring the ceiling pancaking down until this hospital is rubble.”

I recalled the sight of those eyes, the flames, far above me. Surely that was shock. I imagined it. “How can you be real?”

“We’ve been here since humans made stone tools and lived in caves,” she said. “We’ve stood by and watched your kind make war, nuclear weapons, and murder one another. We want no part of your world, honey. We have our own island, a place where humans never come. And never will find.”

“But you work here.”

Willow sighed. “Only because we must. If we had enough resources, your people could obliterate yourselves, and it’s nothing to us.”

I licked my dry lips. My tongue felt as thick as a size twelve cowboy boot. “Can I have a drink of water?”

“Of course.”

Willow cradled my head in the crook of her arm, holding the glass with the straw to my lips. The water tasted like sweet nectar.

“Thanks.”

I shut my eyes as Willow opened her purse and rummaged through it. “I’m sorry I’m so weak.”

“Nonsense, dear. You almost died. I brought you something, now where the devil did I put it.”

Expecting a get well card, I felt some surprise when Willow bent over me again. I opened my eyes. “What?”

“This is a gift, dear,” she said, uncorking an old fashioned glass vial. “A gift from Lanokota herself.”

This is really too much. Gods and goddesses don’t exist. “Thank her for me.”

“Now, now, never spurn the offering from the divine,” Willow said, her tone a warning. “She approves of you, Hayley. Drink this.”

As if I had a choice. Willow held the vial’s mouth to my lips and spilled the vile tasting liquid past my tongue. I swallowed in self-defense, unable to stop her. Like a strong whiskey, it heated my mouth, my throat, and entered my stomach like molten lava.

“Agh,” I gasped. “It’s terrible.”

“Drink more water, dear.”

I desperately sucked water through the straw, soothing my tongue and throat. I felt the fires cool and dropped my head back to my pillow, exhausted. “What was that?”

“Never you mind.” Willow put the cork back in the bottle, and the bottle vanished into her purse. “Sleep now, dear. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Rising, Willow kissed me again, and departed. By the time the door swung shut on its pneumatic hinges, I was sound asleep.

***

I slept.

If a nurse came into my room to draw blood, or inspect my vitals, I had no knowledge of it. I never woke up to thumb my morphine drip. If my pain troubled me, that, too, went unnoticed.

I slept.

***

Gradually, like a diver coming up from deep water, I discovered life returning to me. I heard voices, hushed, as though the owners feared waking me up. Comfortable, relaxed, I drifted on a luxurious cloud, content to lay in my comfortable bed and drift some more.

“I’ve had colleagues who have experienced miraculous recoveries,” one voice said, “but I’ve never experienced that myself.”

“Is that what this is? A miracle?”

That voice belonged to Alaric. What was he doing on my cloud? Dammit, I told him to go away. I want nothing to do with dragons or shifters or miracles. Nestling into my bed, I breathed deeply, trying to return to my sweet oblivion where there was no pain, no morphine, and no dragons.

“She’s awake.”

Hellfire and damnation. Cranky, wishing they’d both leave me alone, I opened my eyes a fraction.

The doctor, looming over me with an expression of concern, lifted my right eyelid.

He rudely flashed a bright light into my eye, then did the same to the other eye.

Alaric, the cad, watched me over the doctor’s shoulder.

“She appears to have nearly recovered,” the rude one commented. “Her vitals are great, her wound has closed with only a red scar.” He hummed under his breath while looking down at me. “Though I don’t like it much, she can be released at any time.”

“I am here, you know,” I snapped crossly. “You can talk to me.”

“Can you sit up, Hayley?”

Annoyed, I huffed and sat up.

I widened my eyes in shock. Running my hands down over my ribs, I found them intact, and no drain sutured into the gunshot wound.

I swore it was there just an hour ago. Like the annoying drain, my pain had vanished along with my IV lines, the heart monitor, and the catheter inserted into my bladder.

“What the ever loving hell ?”

“It appears you’ve healed yourself by sleeping,” the doctor said dryly. “You’ve slept for the last forty-eight hours straight. Nothing we did could wake you up.”

“But –”

I stared past him at Alaric, who smirked.

“Since you didn’t need the monitors and such, we removed them,” the doctor went on. “How’s the pain?”

“What pain?”

With a heavy sigh, the doctor straightened. “If this shit keeps happening, I’m out of a job. I’ll sign her release papers.”

As he departed the room, I lifted the gown and my arm to examine my wound. Like he’d said, all that remained was a surgical scar, red and slightly swollen. I stared up at Alaric in part astonishment and part horror.

“What’s happened to me?”

“Lanokota’s gift,” he replied easily, sitting in the visitor’s chair. “She’s healed you.”

“How?”

“Don’t you remember drinking from the vial Willow brought?”

“Well, yeah.”

“There you go.”

“But. That’s impossible.”

Alaric sighed heavily, scowling. “Still refusing to believe dragons exist? Lanokota is our goddess. She exists, or do you doubt her, too?”

“Oh, shit.” I lay back on the bed. “I really am in trouble.”

“You sure are. People who mix in with dragons usually don’t survive.”

I gaped. “Usually?”

“Okay, they don’t. In truth, they cease to exist. Ashes float on the wind, you know. The tech to reform a body from ash hasn’t been created yet.” Alaric smirked again. “If it ever will.”

I covered my face with my hands. “You’re scaring me.”

“No, I’m not. You’re done being frightened of your own shadow, Hayley. You’re better than that. You’re tougher than that. Lanokota approves of you. In all our history, she’s approved of exactly zero humans to walk among us much less wed one of us. Aren’t you pleased about that?”

“Yeah, right,” I replied, my voice muffled. “Pleased that I’m married to a dragon and his goddess likes me. I’m sooo flattered.”

“Knock it off,” Alaric snapped. “Get dressed. I brought you fresh clothes. Come on, up you go.”

Still finding it difficult to believe that I lay at death’s door a mere three days ago, and now walked, talked, and moved as though nothing at all happened, I slid out of the bed.

Alaric untied the johnny’s strings and dropped it at my feet.

With a flick of his fingers, he tossed my hair over my shoulder and kissed the back of my neck.

A delicious shiver caressed my flesh as his lips traveled downward over my shoulder blade. “Alaric –”

“I know, I know,” he murmured, his strong hands gliding erotically over my naked hips. “Anyone can walk in right now. I just can’t get enough of you.”

Though I didn’t need the assistance, he helped me dress in a simple t-shirt and jeans, then knelt at my feet to tie my sneakers for me. I flushed, my face heating, as I stared down at his head. Tentative, I reached out and ran my fingers lightly through his hair.

Alaric glanced up with a mischievous grin. “Are you taking a liking to me, wife?”

“Not at all, husband. You need a haircut.”

Straightening, Alaric stood me on my feet, then bent to kiss me. “You like me,” he whispered.

“No –”

I got that much out before his tongue slipped into my mouth and his fingers crept into my hair, tangling into their lengths, holding my head at the precise angle –

Heat spread through my loins, my body responding to his touch, his masculine scent, his magnetic presence.

Pressing my hips against his, craving him, needing him to bend me over the bed and take me then and there, I kissed him with a fervent desire.

I slid my hands up his broad back, scratching lightly with my nails, feeling his muscles tighten under my palms.

“Oh, crap. So sorry.”

Alaric ceased our kiss, but didn’t release me as he glanced over his shoulder. I looked past him, stifling a giggle as the nurse with the clipboard stood in the doorway. She paced further in, eyeing us with good humor.

“Your discharge papers,” she said, holding a pen out to me. “Just sign here, please.”

Forced to release me, Alaric chuckled, stepping aside to allow me to scribble my name where the nurse indicated.

“You’re free to go.”

“Thank you.”

Alaric took my hand while we followed her from the room. Until that moment, I didn’t realize how late the hour was, and the hospital at its slowest pace. Without speaking, we strode down the nearly empty corridor to the elevators.

Hunger grumbled in my stomach loud enough for Alaric to quirk his brow at me. “You haven’t eaten for a while. And you’re too thin.”

“Do you mind if we stop someplace? I have an intense craving for a big, juicy burger.”

“One juicy burger coming up.”

He drove us to an all night diner with few cars in the parking lot and fewer diners inside. We sat down at a table near the front windows and watched the sluggish traffic through it. While we waited for our waitress, I pondered the ways of asking the question most on my mind.

Just ask it. Okay.

“I want to see you again,” I murmured. “In your – other body. May I?”