13
Ember
Dragons and Pudding
I woke in a strange room on a strangely comfortable bed that smelled delicious, rocking a killer headache. It pained me to say it wasn’t the first time in my life I’d woken up like this.
But I didn’t bounce back like I used to, so it took a good minute of grogginess to wade through my throbbing head and piece together how I’d gotten here.
It was all blurry.
The lights had gone out. I’d been driving. The gunshot. Hearing Tony’s voice again. Nausea churned in my stomach and white-hot pain seared through my body.
I was dying.
“Careful. We need to let it work.” That voice was definitely not my ex’s. It was masculine and comforting and made me shiver despite the heat surrounding me.
It was scorching hot in this room.
My teeth started to chatter as I forced my eyes open. “Kieran?” I choked out. “What? Why? ”
“You don’t remember?” He sighed, seeming almost grateful for some reason.
“Of course I remember,” I chittered. “The… The…”
The image of a flying beast towering over me. Scales of red and black. Golden claws. Massive wings.
My throat burned.
I swallowed past the dryness and whispered, “There was a dinosaur.”
Kieran huffed out a laugh.
“I know it sounds crazy. Shit,” I winced, grabbing my side. My skin screamed with pain.
Kieran came closer.
My vision swam as I held out a hand. “No. Stop. There was a prehistoric monster that came from the sky and… and…”
“Take a sip of water.” Kieran pressed a cup to my mouth and tipped it up.
I gulped so I wouldn’t drown.
As I drank, I got a good look at my surroundings. I was in a bedroom, lying on an oak four-post canopy bed.
To the left, open doors led to what looked like an office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stacked with leatherbound books. I’d have taken him for a mass-market paperback man, but then again, I hadn’t expected him to have silk sheets either.
At the back of the office, large windows lined with heavy burgundy drapes showed the view to the east. The mountains and landscape beyond were familiar.
This was my property, but I sure as hell wasn’t in my cabin .
Pain seared through me again, but the water helped to clear my head. “Where am I? How did I get here?”
“You’re in my home.” There was something sad about Kieran’s smile. “And it wasn’t a dinosaur that brought you.”
“The Bronco.” I gasped, remembering the tires. “There were spike strips on the road.”
“I told you it wasn’t safe.” Did he just growl? “But I got your Bronco too. I haven’t fixed the tires yet.”
“Thanks for the tow, I guess.” Confusion made my brow furrow.
I’d missed something. Was he there in town when I was? There weren’t any other vehicles on the road that I could remember.
I tried to focus, but it was so hot in here. I tugged at my shirt, realizing I wasn’t wearing my clothes. It was a large cotton men’s t-shirt instead. He’d undressed me. When?
My hand went to my side.
“They shot me,” I whispered.
Heat pulsed from the wound.
My breath was coming short and fast.
“I’ll never let them hurt you again.” His eyes seemed to flash with a golden ring, and there was a deadly promise in his tone.
Why did he care?
I was burning up.
Do I have a fever?
Heat blossomed across my fingers as I touched my forehead. “I have to leave.”
“No, you need to rest.” He was so sure of himself .
“I will. In my own bed. In my own house. On my own land.” My words were starting to slur and that made me panic again. This wasn’t safe.
I didn’t belong here anymore.
Tony—the bastard—was right.
I needed to go home.
I don’t know where home is.
Tears blurred my eyes as I swung my legs off the side of the bed. The pain was everywhere. It burned deep in my veins.
“Lie down, Ember. I’ll take care of you.” Another promise. Another lie.
“I’m fine,” I bit out.
The word fine echoed in my head.
“You’re half-drained and delusional,” he said.
I must’ve been losing it because I could’ve sworn he’d walked across the room, but he moved faster than my eyes could follow until he was kneeling by my side. “The venom is working its way through you.”
“Venom?” I swallowed hard, hoping I’d misheard him and that this was a fever dream. Because it sounded a lot like he’d poisoned me.
“Rest now. Everything will be okay.”
I wanted to believe him. My eyes were so heavy and the pain hurt so bad. It’d be easy to give in. To stop struggling. But I didn’t know him.
No matter how pretty his voice or the little promises he made, he was a stranger.
“I need to get out of here.” I pushed off the bed again.
“Stubborn woman,” he muttered, easing me back down. It was a gentle pressure, but it felt too strong to resist. I didn’t put up enough of a fight .
My vision swam as my head touched the soft pillow. Blood red and black shadow-like colors gathered around him on either side, stretching like wings from his back.
His face was twisted with worry, but there was a hardness in his jaw and strength in his hands that let me know I’d be okay.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, too tired to be mortified of the truth I said aloud.
“Sleep now. Everything will be better when you wake.” Kieran smiled again as he touched my forehead.
Blissful, cool darkness carried me away.
∞
I awoke somewhere new.
It was Harper’s little voice that pulled me from my weird dreams.
I’d been riding horses again, but it wasn’t Addie. It was some all-black horse with glowing red eyes and we were running through an open field and…
I forgot what it was about as the world came into focus.
“Can I have some pudding too?” Harper asked.
Willow hushed her. “That’s not for you.”
“It’s all right,” an old woman’s voice said. “There’s plenty in the kitchen.”
“If you’re sure…”
“She’s sure,” Harper said.
“No problem at all.”
Laughter and footsteps drifted away. I rolled my head to the side, still trying to fully wake up .
Soft light filtered through the screen of an open window. I lay on a cot in a row of cots covered with clean white sheets in a long room.
“She’s awake.” Riley’s face filled my field of vision. The bruise had faded, but there were dark circles under her eyes.
Still, seeing her was a relief. She was the only one of us with medical knowledge. I trusted her with my life. If Riley was here, I’d be okay.
“Do I look awful?” My voice cracked as I spoke. How long has it been since I used it?
I sat up, moving slowly as I tried to take inventory of my body. Riley guided the straw of a cup into my mouth.
Besides the soreness in my throat, I felt okay. Actually, better than okay. My back didn’t hurt like it normally did when I woke up in the morning.
“You look well-rested,” Riley said as I sipped the cool water.
“How long was I out?” I looked over to Willow, who stood at the other side of the bed. Her face twisted with worry as she swiped through her phone.
“It’s been three days.” Willow glanced up.
“Three days?” I coughed, trying to climb out of bed. There was so much we still had to do. But I needed to figure out if—
“Stop moving.” Riley pressed me back against the pillows. “I guess almost dying played on Mr. Tall-Dark-And-Handsome’s heartstrings. He stocked the pantry in the cabin and gave us free rein of his gardens.”
“He’s letting us use his Wi-Fi too,” Willow’s voice was strained as she put away her phone. “Em, it’s bad out there. They did it. Portland is under martial law and almost every other major city too. There was an eight-pointer in D.C. the other day. Washington is leveled. The White House just crumbled under the pressure.”
“We left right in time,” Riley sounded relieved, but I pretended not to see the conflict on her face. I hated that Drew had been right about one thing.
And I didn’t have the heart to tell them that we might have to leave here too. “Has Kieran asked for anything?”
If he did, I’d have to give it to him.
Riley shook her head. “We weren’t sure why he was being so nice until he told us you were here. Did he do anything to you?”
“He did not,” I growled, fed up with lying down. I crossed my legs underneath me and sat upright. “But those bastards in town set a trap for outsiders and I drove right into it like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Riley rushed to say—a little too quick to be believable.
I glanced at Willow. She leaned out the doorway, looking down the hall.
“Did you let Harper go with him?” I wasn’t trying to mom shame her, but my anxiety was ramping up. Until I knew what his angle was, I didn’t want to be in anyone’s debt.
Though technically I already was.
Damn it.
“She went with his cook. Agatha is a sweet lady.” Willow turned to smile at me, lowering her voice to add, “Don’t worry, no one here is going fast enough to cause any harm.”
I didn’t have time to ask what that meant .
Riley moved to the head of the cot, making room for a frail old woman in a matching pink tracksuit under a white lab coat to come to my side. Her outfit looked so out of place that I wondered if she put the coat on just for my benefit.
“Our patient is awake.” Her blue hair was rolled into tight little curls and glasses hung on a beaded chain above her braless chest. “Took you long enough.”
Riley narrowed her eyes as I choked on a laugh. No-nonsense old people were my favorite. I loved serving them at the bar. That was the best part about aging, something that some never achieved.
I couldn’t wait to skip over the line of not caring what anyone else thought. I was hoping it’d be after menopause when my body stopped trying to do all the things.
My breeding hormones had not helped me make the best decisions in my life, and I couldn’t wait to be done with them too.
“Does this hurt?” The frail woman was not very frail as she poked me in the side.
I stopped laughing to pull up the shirt they had me in—thin, hospital-like scrub material this time. Someone had seen me naked more than once. And I started to worry it was Kieran.
But I had other, more pressing concerns. “What happened to it?”
The ache in my side was gone and the skin was pink and new.
“It healed,” the woman said like I was stupid.
“That fast?” I poked my own side. I could’ve sworn that it’d been gushing blood just the other day .
“You’re lucky that Kieran got to you in time.” She stared into my eyes as if waiting for me to respond to whatever she wasn’t saying.
“You’re positive she was shot?” Riley looked over the woman’s shoulder. Confusion was written on her face and I’m sure it mirrored my own.
“Maybe it was just a graze, right, Ms. Catherine?” Willow smiled, giving me a little shake of her head.
“Could’ve been.” The old woman turned to shuffle out of the room. “You’ll have to ask Kieran. He was the one who did most of the healing.”
What? I glanced at Riley and Willow, but they were as lost as I was. “Where… um… is Kieran?”
“I’m sure he’s not far.” Catherine chuckled as she paused by the door. “He slept in that chair for the past two nights.”
Riley and Willow looked at the hardback chair in the corner by my cot. Their gushing ‘awws’ were not at all in line with what I was feeling.
“We need to get out of here.” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood.
Riley rushed to my side to help, but it wasn’t necessary. I felt strong. Steady on my feet. Healed.
And that terrified me for some reason.
“Mommy! Come see!” Harper’s squeaky shoes raced into the room.
Another old woman with a large bust and an apron stretched over it, who was breathless and red in the face, followed after Harper. “Goddess, she’s fast. I forgot how quickly little hatchlings move.”
“Sorry, Ms. Grace,” Harper said as she bounced over to her mother.
“What’s gotten into you?” Willow held Harper’s hand as the girl tugged her toward the hall .
“You guys won’t believe it.” She stopped, looking at all three of us with eyes wide as saucers. “This place is the best. They have real pudding and real dragons here.”