Chapter 19 How Not to Take a Bee-ting
Jaxon
I have one second to think—in really slow motion—oh, shit. Then Flint is racing across the meadow, throwing himself between me and the giant mass of bees heading straight toward me.
I try to yell for him to stop, to duck, to get as far away from me and these fucking bees as he possibly can.
But the weird lassitude that’s been running through my veins since I touched the honeycomb makes all of that impossible.
It makes everything impossible except opening my mouth one excruciatingly slow millimeter at a time.
I’ve never felt anything like this and hope, if I actually manage to survive the next half an hour, never to feel anything like this again. But with the bees bearing down on me, survival seems like a long shot.
The thought terrifies me, not for myself but for Flint, who has literally thrown himself between me and the bees. Ridiculous dragon with more bravery than sense. Again, I try to tell him to stop, to save himself.
But I’m moving too slow to get the words out, and he’s too busy wrapping himself around me to listen anyway.
For one second, I’m filled with relief—not at being saved, but at feeling Flint’s firm body wrapped around my own. It feels like finding water in the middle of the biggest, driest, hottest desert in existence. Like a warm blanket in the middle of Alaska’s coldest nights. Like coming home.
And I realize—far too late—that I never told him. Not really.
I never told him that I would do anything for him.
I never told him that I would choose him a million times over.
I never told him that he’s the only one I’ve ever loved like this.
Not Grace. Not anyone. Just him.
It’s always been him.
Even if we aren’t mated, even if fate didn’t script us together—my soul chose his anyway.
And now I’m going to die without ever telling him he’s my one.
My always.
My never-again.
But at least he’s safe. At least— No!
No, no, no!
Everything inside me freezes as Flint’s hand brushes the honeycomb and he starts moving in slow motion, too.
Fuck! Please! No! The words race through my head as I try to move, try to shake him off so I can get between him and the bees. But I’m still moving way too slow, and all I can do is watch in horror as the bees start to sting him.
Somewhere in the middle of this nightmare, Flint must decide being a dragon might be able to save us—maybe their thicker skin or something—because he begins to shift.
I’ve seen him change into a dragon too many times to count, have done it myself dozens of times in the last few months.
But never have I ever seen anything like this.
The entire shift normally takes only a few seconds, from inception to completion. But whatever weird slo-mo thing has taken over us from the honey affects his shifting, too, and I watch in horror as one by one by terrifyingly slow one, scales begin popping up over Flint’s skin.
Stop! I try to shout to him. Wait! Don’t! But I still can’t get the words out. Still can’t do anything but stand here and watch as hundreds of bees swarm him and start stinging him all at the same time.
Horror fills me, and tears well in my eyes. Flint isn’t making a sound—he can’t—but the bees are gigantic. I can only imagine how much getting stung by one would hurt, let alone—
Oh shit.
For a moment, it feels like someone stabbed me straight through the arm with a knife.
The shock of it steals my breath. And then the fire comes.
It races through my body, leaving nothing unscathed—like someone poured gasoline straight into my veins and then lit me up.
I gasp for breath, try to pull some oxygen into my screaming lungs, but then there’s more stabbing pain followed by more fire followed by more pain and more fire.
Over and over again it happens, not just to me, but to Flint, who is getting attacked at ten times the rate I am—all while he’s caught mid-shift.
All of a sudden, Grace starts running toward us, shifting into stone on the fly.
She throws herself at Flint, at me, starts batting away at the bees with her rock hands.
I try to warn her, try to tell her to go away, to leave us, but then I realize the bees can’t get through the stone. She’s safe, at least for now.
Help Flint! I scream inside me as I try to push him toward her. Save Flint! Save Flint! Save Flint!
But she’s batting at the bees on both of us, yelling a little louder with each one she manages to get away from us. But then the bees start attacking everyone instead of just Flint and me, and it’s obvious that Grace is completely overwhelmed.
She runs back and forth between all of us, swatting bees away and trying to keep any of us from getting stung too much. But these bees are massive, and so are their stingers, and there’s so fucking many of them that there’s no such thing as not getting stung too much.
I can still barely move, but I can feel my face starting to swell at a normal rate, feel my hands and arms and legs start to do the same.
I don’t give a shit about the swelling—at least not on me.
But my heart fucking seizes in my chest as I watch massive welts break out across Flint’s face and neck.
As I watch his eyes and lips and cheeks swell up so big he’s nearly unrecognizable, while the welts on his arms and legs get redder and angrier with every second that passes.
Grace runs back to us, determined to knock the honeycomb out of my hands. It falls to the ground, but that’s not good enough. There’s still honey on my fingers and on Flint’s.
Worse, the bees must take the dropping of the honeycomb on the ground as some kind of huge insult, because a whole new wave of them comes racing toward us. At the same time, halfway across the meadow, my brother screams and falls to the ground.
Grace lets out a little half scream of her own and races toward him, desperate to rescue her mate.
I’m just as desperate to rescue the man I love, but there’s nothing I can do as his neck, his hands, his chest, his legs swell up so much that they start leaking pus everywhere.
Not Flint, I beg the universe as I try to reach for him. Please not Flint. He can’t die like this. Not for me. Not because of me.
But the universe isn’t listening, and there’s nothing I can do to make it listen, stuck as I am in this slow-motion nightmare.
My own pain is excruciating, flames sizzling along my skin and nerves, ripping through my veins. But it’s nothing compared to the agony I feel watching Flint suffer for the terrible sin of trying to save me.
Suddenly, the pain, the stings, the poison filling his bloodstream, must get to be too much.
Because he falls over and slams into the ground face-first. It’s the only thing he’s done since he touched that honeycomb that happens at normal speed and, somehow, it’s even harder to watch than the bee stings.
I try to reach for him, try to catch him, but I’m useless.
My body is completely out of my control, so I can do nothing but watch, horrified, as he hits the ground and doesn’t move again.
Not a twitch, not a pulse, nothing. He just lies, still and silent, on the ground, his whole body swollen to several times its normal size.
“Jaxon!” Grace yells as she comes racing back toward me.
But I hadn’t realized just how much of a shield Flint was being to me until he fell. Because with him gone, the bees have tripled up their efforts to sting me, especially all the newly exposed parts.
“Hold on!” Grace yells, but it’s too late.
Seconds before she reaches me, the pain and fire overwhelm me and I, too, fall. Not because the fire is too much, but because Flint is gone and I don’t want to be here without him.