Chapter 31
Rowan
“Hello, Rowan!” Celia greeted me warmly as she entered the clinic. “I think I’m a bit early. I’m sorry, am I disturbing your lunch?” She looked at the untouched plate of pasta on my desk.
It had been a busy morning, like all my mornings were now that I had most of a horde to heal.
“No, it’s okay.” I waved her concern away. The pasta had long since gone cold. “I’m honestly not that hungry. Did you bring the medications for me?”
This particular appointment was one I had been eagerly anticipating.
I was deadly curious about what the women were taking.
She had given me a few of her medications, but none of the ones that idiot, Jenkins, was prescribing for “fertility.” He was clearly pumping the horde full of any and every medication he could get his hands on.
“I did. Well… I brought the empty bottles of the ones I’ve already finished. I didn’t want to stop taking them just in case…” She trailed off.
“In case they were actually useful?”
She sat down delicately opposite me, a frown forming on her features. “It’s not that I don’t trust the doc, but his methods feel…” She struggled to find the right words. “They feel wrong.”
“Your intuition is a valuable tool; you should listen to it. As for what you’re currently taking… let’s just say, Jenkins and I have very different ethics when it comes to healing.” I held out my hand, and she dropped a few pill bottles into it.
“These are pretty strong,” I commented, turning them over in my hands. A few of the names were familiar, and several of the doses seemed rather high, but to understand better, I would need to look them up.
After all, I didn’t go to a fancy medical school.
Celia bobbed her head. “Doc said as much, but he said we had to be aggressive because the birth rate in our horde is so low.”
“Okay. And how long has he been giving the women in the horde these medications to help them conceive?”
“I’ve been taking them for at least two years. I don’t like that they make me feel queasy, but you know… I really want a family. My mate, Tanner, wants to be a father so badly. I hate that I can’t give that to him.”
“Don’t talk like that. We don’t know what’s causing your infertility. It may be temporary. You have never tried to conceive without the help of medication, correct?”
Celia shook her head. “No. It seemed impossible with how rare it was to have a birth. There have been two in the last twelve years. Rory, and then Finn seven years ago.”
The idea of there being so few births was baffling to me. Every horde I visited was full of babies and toddlers running around. Half the time, while I was healing, I would have a baby in my arms. I'd actually grown to rather like it.
“I know I’m new here, Celia, but do you trust me to make decisions based on what’s best for you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
“You’ve been so lovely. I’m willing to try anything.” She leaned forward, meeting my eyes with a confident smile.
“Even going completely off these medications?”
Her face was torn for a moment before she steeled herself, sitting up straighter and nodding. “You know what? They haven’t worked in two years. What’s the harm in trying something else?”
“My old mentor, Kiki, was a great healer. She must have helped thousands of dragons give birth over the years. Her method was to be as natural as possible: If there was any trouble conceiving, use herbal teas first. She believed that everything we needed was available from the land. Dragons are intrinsically closer to nature than humans, so nature provides everything you need.”
“I suppose that does make sense,” Celia agreed, chewing on her lip. “Even I’ve heard of Kiki.”
“If you ever want evidence of how good a healer she is—I’m alive because of her.” I stood and lifted my shirt, so she could see the dragon fire burn.
“Is that—?” she asked, her eyes going wide. “You should be dead.”
“I should be. But Kiki healed me. I think her method deserves at least a fair shot.”
Celia nodded adamantly. “I think so too!”
“My recommendation is that you stop using all medications for a while and let your body heal naturally. Don’t even concern yourself with conceiving for now. Let the stress on your body relax. You need time to heal.”
“Doc won’t be happy with that.”
“Doc can take a long walk off a short pier, for all I care. I’m not worried about what he wants. I’m concerned about your health and well-being. Clearly, I’m pretty indestructible,” I said, sitting down with a smile.
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” She beamed.
“Do you mind if I keep hold of these? I want to research them to see whether they could be impacting anything,” I said, holding the pill bottles.
“Sure. It’s not like I’m going to need them for the next week or two, is it? As much as I hate to admit it, I’ll be glad to be rid of them for a while. They make me so nauseous.”
I laughed. “Well, hopefully you’ll be nauseous soon for a whole other reason.”
Celia looked wistfully into the distance. “That would be lovely.”
We quickly said our goodbyes, and she made her way out of the clinic.
Thankfully, I didn’t have any more patients for a few hours, so I grabbed my medical textbooks and laid them out on my table.
Even though the internet was useful, the textbooks were a wealth of verified information I often relied on.
“You haven’t eaten your lunch,” a familiar voice commented from the doorway. Griffin stood there with two bottles of soda in hand.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Still, there’s no excuse for not taking care of yourself.”
I scrunched my nose. “The pasta has mushrooms in it.”
He threw his head back and laughed loudly. “Okay, that I can understand,” he chuckled, pulling out his phone and texting one-handed while balancing the two bottles of soda in his other hand.
“Who are you messaging?” I asked, praying he wasn’t messaging Ma, because she would be livid if she realized I’d taken a meal that I didn’t like. Not because of the waste, but because she was adamant that I needed to be well fed.
She seemed to be under the bizarre impression that I needed to be fattened up.
“Bastian. He’s in the kitchen. He can bring us some bagels. I know you love them because you grab them every morning. Well, every morning you’re not eating those weird oats.”
“Those weird oats are delicious,” I informed him, ignoring the fact he was texting the grumpy Alpha.
“They are a snack, at most. There’s no way that’s a balanced meal.”
“It is for humans.”
“Well, even humans need to eat. I know you seem to think that gummy bears stashed in your desk drawer constitute a meal, but they don’t. So, your grumpy mate can bring you a snack.”
“Bastian already hates me enough.”
Griffin shrugged. “He needs to get over himself.”
“Considering he’s your Alpha, you really like irritating him, don’t you?”
He nodded. “It’s practically a sport around here. Usually I would irritate Orsen, but he’s, you know, groveling at the moment. Speaking of, would you like to see my cabin? It’s one of the biggest ones. They’re renovating it themselves.”
“You’re really going to make this a competition?” I joked, laughing. “Aren’t you?”
“You would do the exact same.”
Fluttering my eyelashes, I pitched my voice up as I spoke. “But what if I asked my Alphas and told them I really wanted the big cabin for myself?”
Griff’s mouth fell open in shock. “You wouldn’t do that. You are literally the only person who could do that. You’re not that mean, Ro-Ro.”
“Do you remember the time you stole my last bag of gummy bears?”
“I will buy you an entire freight container of sour gummy bears. How does that sound?”
Beaming, I stood, shoving him toward the exit. “I accept. Now, let’s go get bagels before Bastian purposefully burns them.”