Rowan
For a few days, we got to enjoy our little bubble. Ma was busy showing her brother around, and me and my guys were far too busy doing… other things.
Usually naked things.
Orsen, unfortunately, was constantly busy, but when he did appear, we would have a few stolen moments together.
In bed. Or the laundry room.
Or round the back of the clinic… Not my proudest moment, but I missed him.
After I finally had the energy to get dressed and shower, which of course was just another excuse for my mates to enjoy me being naked, I realized that I’d been thoroughly hogging their time.
Being in bed with four Alpha dragons for hours had a way of making you forget everything beyond the moment.
Unfortunately, they were all needed outside the bedroom after everything that’d happened during the challenge.
Once I’d crawled out of bed, I made my way to the kitchen in desperate need of something to eat.
Ma and Allison were there when I arrived, and I was promptly taken care of by both of them.
“Those boys of yours need to take you on a date!” Ma said, shaking her head. She was covered in flour as she and Allison worked on loaves of bread. Little Baby Rowan was asleep in his bassinet next to me while I sipped on a steaming cup of mint tea.
I chuckled. “All in good time. There is a lot of work to do now they have to deal with absorbing Byron’s lands into North Oak.”
The four of them had been working nonstop.
Orsen had taken the lead, as he’d won the challenge, and their responsibilities as Alphas had nearly doubled.
Byron’s lands were small, but there were a lot of families in the horde who were now part of North Oak.
Over the last night or two, Orsen had ended up sleeping in a cabin a few hours away so he could get back to work in the morning on figuring out how to absorb Birch Creek into North Oak.
It was a big undertaking, and naturally, a few dragons were still loyal to Byron and needed rooting out.
On the occasions that he did manage to make it home, he passed out in my arms and was snoring before we could even say a sentence or two to each other.
“They work too much,” Ma grumbled, crossing her arms.
I shrugged, setting down my cup. “I agree, but it won’t be forever.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t go with him. You’re a healer. I’m sure there are people who need medical attention there?” Allison asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
“We’ve discussed it.” I grimaced, still uneasy about the dragons we were taking in. “He was fairly adamant that I was safest here, plus…” I trailed off, unable to find the right words.
Ma scoffed. “My boy insisted you stay here to keep an eye on me, didn’t he?”
I raised my hands in surrender. “You’re his mother. It’s his job to be worried, and in his defense, you were hit by dragon fire. That is pretty intense—I would know.”
“Well, I’m fine now, aren’t I?” Ma asked, raising a brow with no shortage of that classic Ma attitude.
“You are doing spectacularly, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know when you’re in pain.”
“Bah.” She waved me off, rolling her eyes. “I’m taking the pain reliever you gave me! If it gets much worse, I’ll ask for the stuff you gave Bastian, because that clearly works wonders.”
A snort escaped me as I tried to take another sip of my tea, making me choke a tiny bit.
Rolling my eyes, I gave up on the tea. “I’m never going to let him live that down.”
“Where is your mate?” Allison wondered, taking a peek at Rowan to make sure he was still asleep. “Usually, he’s stuck to your side like glue.”
Ma snickered. “He’s stuck like something.”
“Ma!” My brows shot to my hairline, but we all laughed.
“He’s out there with Orsen and the rest of them most of the day. We’ve still got Cyrus to deal with, too. I know they’ve been worried he’ll show up again.”
Baby Rowan began to stir as Allison stuck her hands in the dough, and she sighed. “I swear, his timing is impeccable.”
Smiling, I shooed her away from the bassinet. “I got him. Come here, chubby boy.”
Bouncing him in my arms, I soothed his crying, and he fell asleep in my arms after a few minutes. Ma gave me a look, though, and I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Don’t start.”
She lifted her hands, the picture of innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Your thoughts were loud enough. Trust me.” I smiled nonetheless, rocking Baby Rowan as I hummed.
“Healer Rowan!” a voice shouted as a dragon I recognized entered the kitchen. Craig. He was a middle-aged dragon who I’d been trying to convince to see me at the clinic. His eyes were wide, his hands nervously clutching a hat he’d taken off.
“Yes?”
Craig pointed out the door, obvious worry painted on his face. “Old lady Miller is hurt. She was out near the gathering fields! Come quickly.”
I glanced at Ma and handed her Baby Rowan. “Tell Nina to bring my kit.”
I knew she’d follow me out to the fields.
Soon after, I had the small bag I took everywhere with me as I hurried into action. Time was of the essence, so I ran straight out of the door, following Craig who was leading the way to the injured woman.
“Where?” I asked, not wanting to make him run all that way again.
“I’ll take you there,” he said, gesturing to his Jeep, the doors still open.
I nodded, sliding into the seat. “What happened?” I asked, closing the door. He was speeding off before I even had it fully closed.
Craig didn’t look away from the road. “I don’t know. One minute, she was fine gathering wildflowers, the next, she was on the ground, shaking.”
Mentally, I started running through everything that could be wrong.
An impromptu seizure was unlikely with no previous history of it, but it wasn’t unheard of.
Though it was potentially more likely that she’d touched something dangerous.
I’d upgraded my mobile kit to include poison remedies after the issue with Orsen and Grey, but it might not work for Ms. Miller if the plant wasn’t similar.
Heat stroke… malnutrition or low blood sugar…It could be any number of things.
Thankfully, we pulled up to the fields in no time, and I rushed out of the Jeep before Craig.
“Where is she?” I asked, looking around the clearing.
I turned behind me to look at Craig. I didn’t know what’d happened, and problems only got worse the longer you waited to address them.
Only, there was no one behind me.
An uneasy feeling washed over me. I was on my own, on the outskirts of our horde lands. The roar of an engine grabbed my attention, and I turned.
“What?” I couldn’t see the Jeep anymore, and my stomach tied into coiled knots as the sounds of birds and wind surrounded me.
There was no one around for miles—Craig had vanished, driven off into the trees or something.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I knew the way back to the den, so I could just walk back there, but it would take much longer than driving.
My gut churned, acid reaching up the back of my throat as my heart hammered against my ribs.
I had a sneaking suspicion that Craig had brought me out here for a very specific reason.
I couldn’t stay here. I needed to move, but the last thing I wanted to do was follow the path he would assume I would take.
Dammit. Think, Rowan. You need to get back to the den.
Blinding pain hit me as someone grabbed my scalp from behind, tugging firmly, nails digging into my scalp.
“You!” a man snarled.
My stomach dropped through the earth. I knew that voice, and the slow terror filling my blood shot into overdrive.
“C-Cyrus?”
I staggered away as he shoved me into the field of tall grass in front of me. I whipped around, turning to look at him. My jaw dropped, and I tried to understand what I was looking at.
Cyrus had always been a proud dragon, spine straight, even that day when he’d been in pain at my clinic. He looked so much like Bastian, dark hair mildly peppered with gray and white. That was not what I was seeing now.
The previous Alpha looked horridly disheveled, his eyes angry and wild, bloodshot and ringed red from exhaustion. There was a yellow-gray pallor to his skin, and Cyrus sneered, baring his teeth like a feral animal.
“You ruined everything!” he snarled. “Stupid fucking human, turning my own son against me!”
He surged forward, raking his hand through the air. I narrowly dove away, missing the blow by centimeters. I hit the ground and groaned; the air forced out of my lungs. Swinging my head around, I forced myself to stand as Cyrus rushed for me, driven by blind rage.
“You were supposed to be dead.” His low, raspy voice growled, the sound of too much saliva in his mouth. “But when you need something done…”
He stomped toward me, and I scrabbled out of the way as he reached for my shirt, screaming when I barely dodged another attack. No one was going to hear me out here, but I felt like I had to try, crying out as Cyrus spun around again, barreling toward me once more.
“You do it…” Cyrus rushed me, his fingers producing claws as he roared, “Yourself!”
Without thinking, I moved across the ground and crawled toward my bag, shoving my hand inside it and reaching for the single item I knew I had inside.
A few weeks ago, an idea had come to mind, and I remembered standing in the clinic after treating Ma’s wounds.
If it were me against a dragon, I had no hope of survival.
A human was no match for their speed and strength.
I was small and breakable. I needed to level the playing field if I was going to make it out alive.
Part of me thought it was wrong. But I also knew I needed a way to defend myself if I ended up in a situation with a dragon who wanted to hurt me.
Like the situation I was in at that moment.
There was no one around, no one to help me, and if I didn’t do something, Cyrus was going to kill me.
The syringe full of dark gray liquid was in my bag. I’d made it one evening when I was feeling particularly vulnerable. It had everything I needed to knock a dragon out.
More than that.
Truthfully, I had known it then, and I knew it now. What I’d made was… poison.
“No, no. You’re not getting away this time.” Cyrus flung himself toward me, not caring about the injury to his leg or anything else, for that matter. “This time, you die.”
Without giving it a second thought, I fisted the syringe and pulled it out of the bag.
Cyrus was on top of me a moment later, and I struggled to wriggle out from under him.
But he grabbed my shirt, hoisting me an inch or two off the ground.
His furious, unhinged stare found mine, hatred in his eyes like nothing I’d ever seen.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to walk around knowing I’d turned my knowledge of healing against someone.
But I couldn’t die. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let this old, wicked man kill me.
All Cyrus wanted was power, and he’d killed to get it.
He was evil, and there was nothing that would change his mind, change the venom that pulsed in his veins, desperate to rid me from this earth.
Rage replaced fear, determination replaced doubt, and I planted my foot on Cyrus’s hip while he hovered over me, giving myself leverage.
I put my thumb on the end of the syringe, glaring up at the face of evil, at the man who’d killed my mate’s father, who’d tried to kill me, who’d nearly killed Ma, and who treated his son like he was a puppet, the rest of the horde mere pawns beneath his rule.
I was done being the victim. No more.
Yanking my arm around Cyrus’s shoulder, I aimed right for his neck, feeling the needle pierce his skin, and then I pressed the plunger down like my life depended on it.