23. Rowan
Rowan
“Rowan, you need to get to the clinic.” Nix grimaced, looking at his phone.
We were having a movie night, trying not to stress about the others after I’d woken up and found them gone.
Initially, I had been organizing and reorganizing the clinic’s cabinets, but when Nix had found me taking out the bottles and jars from the same cupboard for the eighth time, he’d put his foot down and insisted we needed a break.
Stopping had been doable, but resting or clearing my mind hadn’t been.
I had no idea how he expected me to keep calm when the others and Griffin were out there in the woods, trying to keep Byron’s men from kidnapping Allison. Still, we curled up on the sofa and put on a movie that neither of us truly watched, snuggled up with each other.
Until now. His lips were in a tight line, his entire body tense.
“What’s happening?” I asked, jerking upright and clambering over him to check his phone.
“It looks like Orsen is injured. They’re taking him to the clinic,” Nix admitted, his brows pinched together.
I rolled off the couch and was out the door so fast, Nix was scrambling to keep up with me, which was saying something. But panic made me quick, my mind spinning over and over again as I pictured Nix when they’d brought him to me, his shoulder furious and red, the skin blistered.
Another one. Another of my mates is hurt.
We arrived at the clinic at the same moment as Bastian and Griffin carried Orsen toward me, his weight settled between them. He clutched his stomach, sweat clinging to his brow, and I could make out the red oozing from between his fingers.
“Oh God…” I froze for a moment. Orsen was hurt, and it wasn’t a light graze. There was enough blood for it to be some serious damage.
My chest tightened, and at the same time my heart rate skyrocketed, making my head spin and my throat go dry.
I was used to emergencies—I was a healer after all, but this was different. This was someone I loved.
After a second, I had to physically shake myself out of the shock. “What happened?”
They hurried up to the door, and Nix beelined over there, pushing it wide open. I was right behind them as they brought Orsen inside, Grey bringing up the rear.
“Oh shit,” Nina murmured, having clearly heard the news and rushing over.
She had probably been informed by one of the other dragons.
She began clearing the bowls of herbs that I had left out, stepping out of the way so we could bring Orsen in, his eyelids fluttering as he went in and out of consciousness.
“He was stabbed.” Bastian gritted his teeth as he and Griff laid Orsen on the first available gurney. I was at his side in a flash, slapping on gloves and grabbing a pair of shears to cut his shirt off. “The fuckers had blades on them.”
I shot him a look as I got Orsen’s shirt open, then eyed the slice in my mate’s side, which was at least two inches long.
“Stabbed?” I asked. “Why the hell would they have knives?”
“Don’t know, but yeah.” Bastian jerked his chin behind me. “Grey got hit as well. They’re both out of it. I think there’s something on the blades.”
“What?!” I turned from Bastian to eye Grey, who wobbled, his hand clutching his shoulder. “Shit, get him in a chair!”
I pointed at the one in the corner, expecting Griffin to jump into action, then quickly noticed his queasy pallor. Nina was there, though, getting Greylen in a chair before he took a nosedive.
I grabbed a bandage, I pressed it hard to Orsen’s side, working to staunch the bleeding, and I called out, “Griff? What is it?”
“Don’t ask me how I know”—his gaze lifted from Grey—“but I’m pretty sure it’s the same stuff they used on me.”
I stilled. Griffin had been badly injured by a poisoned blade when he’d been attacked several years ago. If this was the same stuff, I needed to move quickly.
“Why do you think that?”
Griff shrugged, a hollow look in his eyes. “There was something about the way they were acting after they were hit. I can’t put my finger on it.”
I nodded, thinking. If the blades had been covered in something toxic, time was of the essence because the longer it went untreated in their systems, the more damage it caused.
“Nina, grab the herb wash,” I instructed, carefully unwrapping Orsen’s wound, trading out one soaked bandage for another.
“It’s not that bad,” Orsen muttered, his voice as thin as air.
“I would believe you if it wasn’t for the fact you’re slurring your words,” I growled, the bottle of herbal decontaminant hitting my hand as I held it out toward Nina. “I need sutures for this. And activated charcoal for Orsen.”
“On it.” Nina was off in a flash as I made sure the wound wasn’t bleeding anymore, turning to Bastian. “Put pressure on this.”
He took over for me, leaning his weight on the wound, which made Orsen hiss loudly.
“I’m sorry, but the fact it’s hurting is a good thing,” I reassured him.
Orsen gave me a confused look. “That’s a good thing?” he slurred, and under any other circumstance, his dopey confusion would have been adorable.
“What happened?” I asked, looking between the dragons who were still standing and Grey. I walked over to him, assessing the slice on his arm. It wasn’t deep at all, the bleeding had stopped on its own, but he was off. His head lolling, pupils dilated.
“Byron’s men split up. They definitely had inside knowledge as to where Allison’s cabin would be. I have to imagine Cyrus told them,” Bastian sneered, shaking his head. “They were at her door when we arrived. We didn’t see Orsen or Griffin at first, but I guess—”
“Our old enemy Jenkins was there, with a dose of sedative for Allison, no less.” Griffin smirked, cocking his head as a sarcastic laugh left him.
I stared wide, using a water flush to clean out Grey’s shoulder. “Jenkins? Oh God, he wanted to use a sedative on her? That would likely—”
“Kill her. Yeah, we put that together when the idiot stabbed himself with his own needle and wound-up dead.”
My hands faltered just as Nina came back with a cart full of supplies. “Jenkins is… dead?”
Griffin nodded. “Very. Foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog, then it was lights out. That’s when we heard the commotion and ran. We found Bastian and Grey with the enforcers and took them out, but not before Orsen got stabbed after saving my life.”
I took the herbal concentrate from Nina and flushed it through Grey’s wound, making sure to saturate it so that the treatment would enter his bloodstream. Grey groaned but bobbed his head, and I went back to Orsen.
“You saved the guy you almost beat to death a short while ago. How does that feel?” But Orsen didn’t answer, his eyes fully closed now. I shot a glance at his chest. His breathing was too slow, too shallow. “Orsen?”
I rubbed my knuckles over his sternum, but he wasn’t responding. “Orsen!”
Nina and I moved in a flash, flushing his wound with the herbal concoction, then forcing him to drink down the activated charcoal. I hurried through stitching up his wound, ensuring I got the muscle and skin, then we rinsed it with more of the specialized antitoxin, waiting for it to work.
Unfortunately, there was only so much I could do.
Then there was waiting.
So much waiting.
Watching Orsen suffer, writhing in agony as the poison worked its way through his body, was easily one of the hardest things I had ever experienced. I had done everything in my power to help him, all I could do was wait.
Waiting was the worst part. At least when I was actively healing someone, I could do something. Sitting around and just observing—it made me feel powerless.
I sat at his bedside, intently watching him, looking for any sign of discomfort other than the occasional tossing and turning.
Even after an attack that brutal, Orsen was still handsome.
Gently, I ran my hands over his face, memorizing the sharp line of his jaw.
I desperately wanted for him to open those eyes and look at me.
Every hour I sat there at his bedside, Ma on the other side of me, something chipped away at me.
It was raw, exposed. Every wall I had ever built was obliterated, and now I was vulnerable.
The room was always full of dragons. Ma never left his side.
Nina filtered in and out, taking care of other patients.
Griffin popped his head in regularly—I got the impression he would have stayed, but he needed to ensure the horde was okay because the Alphas were all distracted.
Plus, I knew for a fact that seeing anyone suffering from the poison was a sore spot for Griff.
He pretended he was fine after what had happened to him all those years ago, but I knew it still bothered him deep down.
One of my mates was always in the room with us, usually standing behind me, giving silent support.
I had forced Grey to sit in an armchair.
His shoulder was hurt but healing nicely.
The blade had hardly touched him, so the poison had easily cleared from his system.
Orsen, on the other hand, was subjected to a much larger dose.
“Sit,” I had growled, jabbing a finger at the armchair.
“I don’t need—”
“Sit,” I repeated.
“My legs work perfectly fine.”
“For me?” I asked softly.
All fight slipped from his face at my gentle request. He sighed, heading over to the armchair and sinking into it.
Dragons recovered fast, so Orsen should have been healed already, were it not for the poison. Still, even considering that his body started to work its magic. I would regularly lift the bandages, inspecting my work for any sign of infection. I also rinsed the wound with herb water to prevent that.
“I can do that,” Nina offered softly as I prepared to rinse it again.
“He’s my mate. I’ll do it,” I replied in a detached tone. I would have felt bad about being so cold, except I simply didn’t have it in me to be warm and personable. Not when I was nothing but hollow and exposed.
My vision was starting to blur from exhaustion, but I refused to sleep.