21. Rowan
Rowan
Iwas starting to have a one-track mind.
Anytime I had a few seconds to myself, my mind would inevitably wander to the recent escapades I had gotten up to with Grey and Orsen. Sex had always been a hypothetical. I didn’t remember having it, and after the dragon fire, well, I had bigger concerns.
But now? It was constantly on my mind.
Did I want a repeat performance? Of course I did. But I wasn’t sure whether I was thinking with my brain or with what was between my legs. My downstairs brain, if you will.
Then again, my heart was also getting pretty attached to the Alphas.
As I rearranged my herb cabinet for possibly the twentieth time in a week, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would feel if I tried to leave.
I never stayed anywhere for long, leaving was an eventual reality... but would it be this time?
The sharp tightening of my chest was answer enough.
Where would I even go? I’d been on the road for so long, but the idea of moving away from the horde felt wrong in every sense of the word.
That didn’t mean it would be easy to stay, though.
I had agreed that, for the time being, I would help the horde until they found a good healer.
But what if they never found one? I knew three of my Alphas desperately wanted me to stay, along with the majority of the people here, but that still left the question of Bastian.
And he had been as welcoming as a vinegar-covered cactus.
He didn’t trust me. Sure, I had done nothing wrong. And honestly, neither had he, but we always seemed to butt heads. We had all been through something dreadfully traumatic, which had broken us all in different ways, but the distance between Bastian and me was vast.
Footsteps from behind alerted me to someone’s presence, and I turned to see the dragon in question standing in the doorway to my clinic.
Think of the dragon, and he shall appear.
“Bastian. What can I do for you?” I asked, doing my best to keep my tone level, even though my heart was in my throat at his abrupt, if timely, appearance.
When he didn’t answer, I looked at him more closely. His eyes were somewhat unfocused, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose as if in pain. Well, that was new.
“What’s wrong?” I worried, getting up and making my way over to him from where I had been kneeling in front of my herb cabinet.
“I just need something for a headache,” he said in a low, rumbling voice.
I stopped a few steps away from him as my breath hitched. Why did he have to smell so damn good? I shook myself, blinking away the desire to bask in that scent for a minute.
“Are you sure it’s just a headache?” I asked, running a skeptical eye over him. “I could examine you, make sure it’s nothing else.”
“No. I don’t want that,” he rushed out. “I just need something to help with the pain. I get them when I overwork myself. It’s unfortunately common.”
“Surely, that’s a sign you should stop working so much?” I offered as I walked back over to my herb cabinet, pulling out a familiar small satchel.
Bastian glowered at me as I turned around to face him. “I would think you’d be encouraging me to work more than anyone, considering you’ve let me know exactly how much you think I’ve failed this horde.”
I shrugged, heading over to another cabinet on the opposite side of the room and pulling out a teacup.
“You have failed this horde—in many ways. I’m not going to placate you.
” I shrugged. “But you’re not going to do anyone any good by working yourself to the bone.
I know renovating the old McCreevy cabin is exhausting, and then there are your regular duties.
If anyone knows about burnout, it’s me.”
“That’s just manual labor,” he said with a grunt.
I grabbed the electric kettle and filled it up, before turning it on to let it heat. “Manual labor is a lot, even for a dragon. You guys aren’t invincible.”
“Do you have something that can help me or not?” he growled.
Part of me wanted to torture him more, but I decided to relent. Just this once. He really didn’t look well.
“This stuff will help. It’s a mix of several herbs I dried and turned into a powder. Once this tea is brewed, I’ll pop some in, and you’ll be right as rain in a few hours.”
He glowered at the bag in my hands, even though it was going to help him. Skeptical was an understatement. There was also no “thank you.” My agreeing to help him actually seemed to piss him off more.
“I don’t need any tea. I can just take it as it is,” he said, taking a step forward and grabbing the pouch.
Tipping his head back, he poured the entire contents into his mouth before dry-swallowing it like a psychopath.
“Wait! What are you doing?!” I asked, lunging toward him, but he held the pouch out of my reach.
“I don’t need the tea,” he demanded. “It’s easy enough to swallow.”
“Maybe, but you just took a fuckton of that stuff. The correct dose for a headache is half a teaspoon. You just downed the bag!”
“Really?” Bastian asked, his stare shooting to the empty pouch.
As he spoke, his eyes glazed over, dilating until the pupils ate up nearly every bit of his blue irises. He sat down heavily in my chair, staring at the wall.
“Oh, Lord. Bastian, you okay?” I asked, heading toward him.
His eyes were glassy, and there was a near-vacant expression on his face. The herbs were known to have a psychedelic effect if abused, and I sighed. Now, I had a headache.
I snapped my fingers in front of Bastian’s face. He flinched, swatting haphazardly at me. This was not good. And there was no way I could leave him unattended now. He was high as a fucking kite.
“Nina?” I called out in the general direction of the reception area.
She poked her head around the door. “How can I—Oh shit, is he okay?” The smile dropped off her face when she saw the doped-up dragon at my desk.
“He will be,” I muttered, watching him with my hands on my hips. “The idiot grabbed the medication off me before I could dose it and took all of it, so now…”
“He’s zonked out?” Nina asked with a laugh, taking a few tentative steps forward. “Goddamn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bastian drunk. This is hilarious.”
I chuckled as she leaned down, looking Bastian in the eye. He didn’t even blink as she waved a hand in front of his face. “The lights are on, but no one is home.”
I nodded, dropping my head because this was going to be several hours of work. “Yup, he’s really out of it.”
“We could do anything to him. I bet you could take a pen to that pretty face, and he wouldn’t even flinch,” she said, turning her head to give me a conspiring smile.
“While that is a tempting prospect…”
It was a no. My moral compass wouldn’t allow me to take advantage of someone who was essentially my patient. It wasn’t like he’d done this knowingly, like getting black-out drunk. Were it any other situation, I would have happily doodled penises all over that smug bastard’s face.
“I have one in my desk!” Nina suggested, standing up straighter. “I can go get it.”
Pouting, I crossed my arms. “No. Unfortunately, that would be taking advantage.”
“So? If anyone has the right to take advantage, it’s you… You’re his fated mate, after all.”
“Well, he doesn’t think so.”
Nina shook her head, crossing her arms. “Well, the dumbass can only hide from fate for so long.”
That might have been the case, but now wasn’t the moment to ponder the question. Bastian needed a babysitter, and it wasn’t going to be me. I was way too busy.
“Will you go get one of the Alphas? Someone needs to escort him home. I’m not sure his legs are working.”
Nina cackled. “Of course! I’ll see who I can find.”
A few minutes later, Nina strolled in with Greylen, who hurried right over to Bastian and tried to lift his head by his chin. It just dropped back down while Bastian aimlessly swung his hands at Grey.
“Luckily, there was nothing in what he took that would harm him. He’s not going to feel any pain… but he’s not going to feel much of anything for a while.”
Rolling his eyes, Grey nodded. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”
“All I did was watch him to make sure he didn’t fall off the chair.” I laughed as Bastian floated off in his own little world.
Grey shrugged as he approached me. “Honestly, that’s a lot more than he deserves.”
“Well, Nina suggested we take a permanent marker to his face…”
Grey smirked. “I mean… I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I certainly would get a good laugh from it.”
I glowered playfully at Greylen. “He’s technically my patient. I have to behave myself.”
Grey scrunched his nose. “Well, that’s no fun.” He sighed, walking back over to Bastian and grabbing his hand. “Come on, big boy, up you go.”
Bastian stood, then swayed. Grey had to put an arm around him to stop him from toppling over. “Thank you for taking care of him. I’ll make sure he gets to bed safely. Ma will keep an eye on him.”
“Good.” I nodded, thinking about how long this would likely last. “I’ll check in on him later.”
Grey turned to leave, tugging Bastian with him, but the grumpy dragon turned to look at me with glassy eyes. “Pretty,” he muttered, his words slurred as he tried to focus on me.
Pretty? Was he talking about me?
I was pretty sure Bastian would rather jump off a cliff than give me a compliment. Then again, painkillers in such copious amounts did tend to make people a bit more generous with their praise.
“Aww, man, you think I’m pretty? Or is it our mate you’re talking about?”
Grey asked, shaking his head with a grin.
Bastian eyed me, or as much as he could. “Mate.”
He said that word so softly with a reverence that made my stomach turn. I looked away. “See you later, Bastian. Go get some rest.”