Page 4 of The Dragon’s Emberlinked Mate (Dragon Flight Academy #3)

Emmen

Hours ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick out Rhythe from a crowd of people.

I knew that my friend’s new mate had a twin, but I had never met him.

But honestly, picking him out of a crowd wouldn’t have been easy either.

I’d met so many people in my lifetime, and unless they played an active role in my life, they didn’t take up permanence in my working memory. There was no reason for them to.

Being that we had such a large age difference between us, Rhythe and I didn’t exactly run in the same circles. And his father and I had the kind of relationship where we could easily go decades between seeing each other and not think anything of it.

Yet in one moment, he became the focus of my entire world. I could now find him anywhere. He was mine and I was his. Even in his bruised and battered state, I could see him… truly see him.

How everything changed in that flicker of an instant.

Mate, he had said, and when he did, it was as if the last puzzle piece of my heart came together. Everything clicked into place. He was mine. My mate. The dragon made just for me. I wasn’t sure how he knew or when he found out. That was something I wanted to learn, though.

I wanted to learn everything about him. What was his favorite food? Did he like pets? Was he a homebody or did he like to travel? A million questions flashed in my mind, but then they were pushed out of the way to make room for the dread and fear that was now filling me.

Everything went in slow motion as I watched him slip from this world. His eyes fluttered closed, his body went completely limp. The machines that he was hooked to echoed the long beep of a flatline.

Everyone around him stilled as he slipped from this world.

It was too soon. He was too young. Weren’t those machines supposed to be keeping him alive while his beast helped him heal? Wasn’t that the entire point of being here?

It all happened at once, like I was a person watching from a distance instead of being frozen in my spot.

The people around us began moving with a flurry of activity, and others rushed in with yet more equipment. Someone tried to get me to move out of the way. I wasn’t even sure who it was, but I roared and they gave up. My beast wanted to be by his side, holding his hand, helping him wake up.

But he wasn’t sleeping and me getting in the way wasn’t going to help. It took all the strength I had not to let my dragon take over. He was demanding I fix this. If only I could.

His twin, who had been holding his hand, let out a sob as they pushed him back to make way for a cart holding some medical machine. He nearly collapsed onto the floor, his mate catching him and hugging him close.

More doctors and nurses that came into the room pushed us all out of the way, this time my beast under enough control that I went with his parents, Eryx and Katrina, as they were pushed against the wall.

We watched helplessly as they tried to bring him back.

Eryx and Katrina held onto each other, and it only magnified the situation at hand, that it was my mate, the one I was meant to comfort, who was lying in that bed breathless.

“His bones aren’t healing fast enough to keep from collapsing on his heart. His heart isn’t strong enough to beat. We need the paddles.” Electric shock. They were going to electrocute him on purpose. I understood the basic whys of the procedure, but knowing it was my mate it was happening to…

Different people spoke, but it all blurred together for me. The sound of the bolt of power being shot into him, louder than the most powerful weapons of war. At least to me.

I waited for the beeping to come back, for them to say he was safe. It didn’t come. It wasn’t working.

We were losing him.

Rhythe’s broken body jerked off the bed for the third time.

“Still nothing,” the nurse, or maybe a doctor, it was all blended together, called out. And did it matter? The result was the same. This wasn’t working.

Rhythe’s mother let out a wail, and she held onto her husband tightly. He too was sobbing, something I’d never witnessed in all my years knowing him. This was every parent’s worst nightmare.

I refused to give up. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t. Fate wasn’t this cruel. The man I had dreamed of for my entire life was now in front of me, slipping through my fingers. I never even got to see his eyes. This couldn’t be the end.

My dragon roared, this time not a low growl meant to ward off a do-gooder. No, this was a full-on roar. The walls shook.

My gift, the thing I kept closely guarded, sizzled on my fingertips.

“Clear!” Another try with the paddles. The human tools weren’t powerful enough to revive a dragon.

“It’s not working,” the nurse said, her voice hiccuping. Losing a dragon, especially a young one, was hard. We were long-lived. It took a lot to take us out.

“We’re gonna have to call it—” The person holding the paddles wasn’t going to finish that sentence. None of them were.

“No,” I barked and pushed at the doctor.

“Emmen, no, you can’t—” Eryx was the only one here who might have a guess at what I was doing, and even at that, I doubted it. I’d been good at keeping it hidden.

“Everybody back up!” I shouted. The lights flickered as electricity shot through my veins. It had been years since I had used this part of me, but it came to me easily.

Lord Malric and I had long since decided that no one needed to know that it existed.

Eryx had been around then, which was the only reason he might know.

So much for keeping it secret. Here I was, exposing it all for the world to see.

I refused to feel bad about it. If there was so much as a glimmer of hope that it would work, any and all exposure was worth it.

This was my mate, and I was not letting him go. Not without a fight.

I placed my palms over his chest and let my gift loose, trusting that my dragon would know what it would take to bring him back. There was no time to read up on the science of this procedure. It was trust my beast or give up. Giving up was not an option.

I fell away and let my dragon take over. Second-guessing him would only put my mate at risk. My beast needed 100% of the control. Rhythe’s body jerked off the bed when the lighting from my fingertips sizzled into his body. When he laid flat again, I checked the monitors.

A slow, steady beep beep echoed in my ears.

“His pulse is coming back,” someone in scrubs said, relief filling the air at those few words.

I knew better than to think my mate was completely out of the woods.

But hope was present, and I held onto it with both hands.

Keeping my eyes glued on the monitor, I watched the steady beat of his heart, afraid it might disappear if I looked away.

A lot of power had gone into his broken body, doing it again wasn’t an option.

After a long moment, Rhythe drew in a gulping breath. He reached for me. Electricity still sizzled in my palm, but I grasped him anyway. I had control of my gift, so I didn’t let the lightning fly. Once upon a time, that wouldn’t have been the case.

“I’m here, mate,” I said.

“Stay,” he mouthed more than said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

His eyes fluttered closed again, and I was afraid that I’d lost him once more. But the steady beat of his heart echoed in the room.

“Let’s get the X-ray machine going. I want to make sure his rib cage is healing, but as long as his heart is beating steadily, he has a chance.”

Chance. No promise of being out of the woods. He had a chance.

“What the fuck was that?” Pip sobbed.

“A fucking miracle,” Katrina said, her eyes glued to my hands. “A fucking miracle.”