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Rowan waved her down. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure the poker table really misses you. Could you go brush your hair or something? Have you been walking around Draconis looking like a troll the entire time I’ve been out?”

Annabelle relaxed. She laughed as she pinched her daughter’s cheek. “I can’t wait until you’re cleared so I can slap the disrespect out of your mouth, little girl.”

“Ow, Mami!” Rowan fought off the hand and tried to sit up before she landed with a hard thud back on the bed.

Alessandro gently removed the hand and glared at Annabelle, who shot him an impressed look. He turned back to Rowan. “Please let Aqua check up on you before you try to move around again.”

Rowan sighed and nodded. “Fine, but keep that psycho away from me.” She turned and stuck her tongue out at her mother, who flipped her off.

Axel pushed past her mom to kneel at the bedside, “I begged dad not to let her visit you, but you know he can’t say no to her.”

Rowan smiled, “I figured. How long was I out?”

“About a week. Now answer honestly, how much pain are you in?”

Rowan winced. “7 out of 10, mostly coming for my back. If I’ve been here for a week, that explains it.”

“And your eye?” Axel raised an eyebrow.

“When I move the good one, the one that isn’t there feels sore.”

“It’s going to take a while for the pain to fully recede,” Aqua stepped into the room, relief clear in her eyes, “It’s good to see you awake Princess Rowan, I would like to conduct a quick checkup if our visitors would kindly step outside.”

Alessandro wanted to stay beside the woman who still hadn’t let his hand go, but he saw the stubbornness trying to settle on the other elven women’s faces. If he went, maybe they wouldn’t fight the request.

“We’ll be right outside.”

With her awake, he had to fight back his base urge to stroke her cheek for reassurance. He wouldn’t play with her feelings when he knew they wouldn’t work from the start.

Rowan seemed to understand that restraint existed in him because she gave a firm nod and squeezed his hand once more before finally letting go.

XOXOXOXO

Rowan’s entire being was in pain. She hissed as Aqua’s finger tips grazed over the eyepatch to remove it.

“7 out of 10?” Aqua raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, it feels like I’m going to shatter if I take a wrong breath.” Rowan was willing the tension to leave her body. But any relaxation only added to the already insurmountable discomfort.

“Your older sister told us you don’t deal with pain in the aftermath of battle very well, so we came up with this.” Aqua motioned to the IV hooked up to her arm. “My pill in liquid form for you to administer with this button to help manage.”

“You’re a genius.” Rowan sighed as the pain eased.

She still couldn’t fully relax, but as Aqua went through her check-up, the pain just kept disappearing until she felt as if she were floating inches above her bed.

But that couldn’t be the case. Even with her muddled mind, she could tell the suppression necklace was a new design, and it almost completely cut off her access to magic.

She looked down at the simple golden chain.

It smelled like Chloe, or maybe her friend had been to the ward recently because her scent of sour and sweet candies was as potent as her mother’s and Axel’s.

Before she knew it, she was reaching for the clasp to allow more magic in so it could work to heal her as it always had in the past.

“No!” A whip of water pushed her hand away from the piece of jewelry.

Rowan furrowed her eyebrows and glared up at the dragon. “Hey, that’s cold!”

“Sorry, Princess.” Aqua looked panicked. Her wide blueberry hued eyes, flared nose and raised arms as if preparing for defense were Rowan’s aids for determining so, but the painkillers were killing her follow through actions and she relaxed against her pillows instead of questioning.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Aqua said after a few moments of silence. “I really am sorry.”

“It’s no biggie.” Rowan waved the concern away and, in doing so, caught sight of the scar on the backside of her hand.

She had very few scars, Lexine and Miasma had always made it a priority to hide the less than graceful nature of the youngest princess from the people of the Eastern Elven Kingdom, but when she’d left the kingdom in pursuit of her magical disaster practice, she hadn’t always reported her wounds to her doctors unless they became life threatening.

She half wondered how angry they had been to discover she’d accumulated half a dozen as they tended to her.

“How is the pain?” In Aqua’s hands was a small lacquer box she opened to show a collection of eyepatches of differing prints and shades.

Rowan could smell her mother all over the thoughtful gift and she couldn’t help but smile. “The medicine has taken care of most of it.”

She picked a cream-colored velvet one.

The dragon helped her slide it on. “At the rate you’re healing, you should be eligible for a prosthetic in a day or two if you’d like. Although you do look rather more mysterious with an eyepatch.” She handed her a mirror.

Horror struck Rowan. She’d never been so pale in her life. Large dark bags looked like bruises and her hair looked like it needed a serious wash and hours of detangling.

Alessandro had seen her in such a state. She groaned out loud.

“What’s wrong?”

“He saw me like this.” Rowan gently shooed the mirror away.

Aqua’s eyes softened. “He checks in on you every four hours on the dot.” She laid her hand down on Rowan’s scarred one. “A man who wants nothing to do with you wouldn’t do that.”

Rowan clenched the sheets that had pooled around her hips. With the back of her hand, she rubbed her one good eye as she felt them sting. “This shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”

Aqua looked as if she had slapped her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She whispered before she stormed out of the room.

Rowan was utterly flabbergasted.

Annabelle, Axel and Alessandro all piled back into the room, staring curiously after the woman.

“What did you do to the poor doctor Rowan?” Her mother was the first to ask.

Rowan shook her head, just as confused, “Can someone catch me up on the ongoings of the world while I have been taking my nap?”

“No.” Axel was firm. “Sorry, Ro, all of your doctors have advised against it.”

Rowan glared at her. “And since when have we actually adhered to what my doctors say?”

“Since you permanently lost an eye!” Axel planted her hands on her hips. “Since you went into a coma for an entire week!”

“It’s only an eye!”

Axel’s nostrils flared, and she opened her mouth to retort before Annabelle gave her a hard nudge in the ribs.

Axel glared at her mother, but shut her mouth and looked away.

That sealed it. Something was definitely up. It was one thing for Aqua, a stranger, to keep her mouth shut, but Axel rarely kept anything from her.

“What?” Rowan demanded.

Annabelle sighed. “Your father wants to be here when we tell you. Can you trust us and not do anything stupid before then?”

Rowan wanted to fight against the demand. However, her eye was getting heavy, and the room was going out of focus. “When I wake up again, I want to know every-“

It was too much. She couldn’t finish her threat. The room was too warm and her body too heavy.

Chapter 25

The next time Rowan awoke, instant nausea had her lurching off the bed. Her legs gave out and in mid fall, whatever she had been force-fed exploded from her mouth and her nostrils.

One glance up showed Alessandro hurrying towards her from the armchair her mother had occupied earlier, his laptop crashing onto the tiled floor.

Rowan tried to get out of her own pile of sickness before he could reach her, but another wave of vomit hit the floor so hard that it splashed back up to cover her face with its ferocity.

Horror filled her when she could breathe again.

“Don’t!” She squeaked when he got too close. “I just need a mop. I can clean it.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” He knelt down beside her. “Is it all out?”

Rowan hung her head and nodded.

“It’s the medicine.” Alessandro reassured patting her back, “And the fact that you haven’t been eating. It’s happened to me before if it makes you feel any better.”

Rowan glanced up at him. “It has?”

“Yes, and I didn’t just get myself. I got about half a city. I was in dragon form.”

Rowan’s mouth fell open. “What?”

He grinned at her. “And then I blamed it on Terra. We can’t have the world thinking the Dragon King has a weak stomach.”

Rowan giggled, “Who’s Terra?”

“My Earth General and adopted sister. Her mother and father took me in when I was just a wyrmling.”

She tried to imagine the powerhouse in the body of a child, but it was beyond her. She wanted to ask more questions of his youth to know him better, but that wasn’t her place.

Rowan sighed, “I thought I could look cooler next time I saw you, and now I’m sitting here. In a pile of my puke.”

“I think you’re playing the cool card up a bit by continuing to sit in it when you can grab my hand and allow me to bathe you.’

Heat surged through Rowan, followed shortly by another wave of nausea.

She snatched his hand and covered her mouth.

It was all the nudging he needed to grab her and phase them into a pristine white tiled restroom where she puked until all that came out was clear stomach acid.

The entire time, his hand rubbed her back in small circles and he held her hair out of the way.

When she was done, she sat in front of the door and watched through a heavy eyelid as he prepared her shower. She was so tired she wasn’t sure she could stay awake much longer, but in the meantime, she wanted to absorb what he was doing for her.

All while dressed in a cream pullover, a pair of black sweats and- she couldn’t believe she was witnessing it- slippers. She peeked out of the window and noticed the maroon sky bleeding into dark purple. Had he been preparing to stay the night at her bedside? In that chair?

Her heart lurched, and her stomach clenched.