Chapter 33
Orsen
“This cannot be allowed!” Jenkins shouted, red-faced and spitting with rage.
“I will not stand by while you hurt the dragons of this horde!” Rowan growled back, crossing her arms as she stared daggers into the older dragon.
The room was beyond tense, and I was just catching up with developments.
Still, aside from the fact she was our mate, I was willing to believe what Rowan said for two reasons: one, she stood to lose a hell of a lot if she was lying about this, infuriating the entire horde, and two, none of us could deny the strange consistency of her claims. After all, if Jenkins was doing this, it would make so much sense.
God, the female dragons had been struggling for years, and that wasn’t common.
“Rowan has a point, Jenkins,” Greylen shot back, glaring at the stick-up-his-ass healer. He stood between the old doctor and Rowan, playing bodyguard.
Our mate didn’t cower, though. She glared at Jenkins and gave him more than a piece of her mind.
“I’ve seen it for myself. I may just be ‘some human healer’ to you, but all it takes is a damn internet search to back up my claims. You’ll see for yourself that Queen Anne’s Lace is a contraceptive, you jerk. ”
Holding a thick book that I recognized as one of the many Rowan had brought with her, she flipped to the page in question, one that revealed the scientific name for the ingredient in the synthesized medication.
Then she produced another, flipping through the reference text, confirming the name belonged to what we commonly called Queen Anne’s Lace.
“There it is, Jenkins. Rowan has produced her evidence, showed us the research,” I agreed.
It was solid, laid out in black and white. Kiki’s journals were clear, and no one would refute the word of a healer such as her, except, of course, maybe Jenkins. “There’s no harm in trying it her way, either. You need to get on board.”
Jenkins scoffed. “Her way? How dare you? That human is rude, insolent, and has zero respect for my position!”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes, clenching my jaw, nonetheless. If the guy wanted to talk about being rude, he could start with a good, long look in the mirror. He’d been an asshole to Rowan since the moment she set foot in the den.
“On the contrary, you’ve not shown Rowan a shred of respect,” Nix pointed out, echoing my thoughts.
Jenkins bristled, flustering like he was an offended peacock. “She doesn’t deserve my respect! All she’s done is come into my horde and cause problems, upsetting my patients. You should have seen how unhappy Cyrus was!”
Bastian shot Rowan a look, his entire body going rigid as he balled his hands into fists.
“I was helping him! He said you won’t even allow him to wash the abscess on his leg! Are you insane? It’s horrendously infected!”
“You have no right to tell me how to do my job, human! I prescribed him a strong steroid. I know that is scary for the uneducated like you!” Jenkins was too angry to keep from stepping forward, and Greylen growled low, fury radiating off him like heat from a stove, literally scorching the air.
“Step back,” he snapped. At least Jenkins had the sense to listen, retreating enough that Greylen—along with the rest of us—relaxed a hair.
“You’ve undermined all my hard work, and why? Because you went all gooey-eyed over a piece of—”
“I suggest you watch your next words very carefully,” I snarled, ready to rip this fucker’s throat out for the suggestion.
He would have known better than anyone just how fiercely protective dragons were of their mates.
The fact that he was willing to insinuate something like that and anger the Alphas just proved how stupid he was.
Adding another layer of protection to our mate, I stepped up alongside Grey, narrowing my eyes at Jenkins as I jabbed a finger at him, not bothering to lower my voice. “She came to our horde on our invitation, and she’s managed to heal Rory, where you failed miserably!”
“Even if you don’t respect her as a healer,” Nix slid in, his tone only slightly calmer than the rest of ours, “you have no right to speak like that to the horde’s guest, let alone our mate.”
Jenkins cast a withering glance over us, and it was easy to clock how he’d noticed Bastian wasn’t speaking.
Cyrus and Jenkins were tight; it was no mystery that their relationship was what had taken us so long to get another healer into the horde to check on Rory.
Even now, Jenkins was working that angle, going up against Bastian and not-so-subtly ignoring the other Alphas in the room.
“You know how hard I’ve worked to keep this horde healthy, how hard I’ve worked to keep your father alive and well. Are you honestly going to stand there and let some woman lie about what I’ve done for this horde?”
I shot a look at Bastian as he ducked his head, not quick to stand up to the man. I was getting real fucking sick of Bastian’s unwillingness to find his spine.
“What the hell, man?” Nix took the lead again, and I internally thanked him for it. I didn’t have it in me to keep my words from devolving into blows.
Bastian glared back at Nix, sighing roughly as he turned to Jenkins. “Look, if there really is nothing to this claim, a few days without will prove just as much. And…”
Greylen knocked him with his shoulder. “And?”
“And if there is, then it won’t matter how hard you say you’ve worked for this horde, because Rowan will have proven that your medical care was actually doing harm.”
Nix looked satisfied as hell as Greylen scoffed, about as annoyed with Bastian as I was. But it was Jenkins whose jaw utterly fell. He looked at Bash like the guy had shot him. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stormed toward the door.
I glanced over at Rowan, who sagged into herself as Grey put a gentle hand on her back. She looked exhausted, but her eyes still burned with anger, flicking up from the floor to glare at Jenkins as he left.
Just before the asshole crossed the threshold, he turned back, gripping the doorframe hard, his nails digging into the wood. “You should never have come here. A human could never belong with dragons. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. You’ll learn the hard way that you need me.”
“No, they don’t,” Rowan snarled, pushing forward slightly. “I am going to stay here until there is a competent healer in residence, because the people of this horde deserve better than you.”
Jenkins stepped back, shocked at the ferocity of her words. “You’re nothing. You’ll learn.”
I almost reached the old doctor before he disappeared down the hallway. I cursed under my breath, wishing I’d been able to grab the guy by the throat and see what color he turned when I squeezed.
“I’m so sorry,” Rowan muttered after a moment of silence.
“I just felt like I had to say something. Those vitamins are responsible for the low birth rate, the nonexistent birth rate. I’m sure of it.
I just don’t know why he was so insistent that the women take them, or what else he could have done.
I’m… Ugh, this is not what I planned for the day. ”
I hated how exhausted she looked. As the mate of four dragons, she should have been utterly pampered. As much as it pleased me to see her fighting for the horde, I wanted to do everything in my power to reduce her stress.
Did she mean what she’d said about staying? We all knew that, realistically, finding another healer was going to be near impossible, so from her own words, that meant she was sticking around for a while.
The hope was so bright, it burned painfully in my chest.
“I can imagine,” Nix offered, walking up to Rowan and taking her hands. “That was… a lot. How about a movie and some popcorn to take your mind off it?”
Rowan laughed, rolling her eyes at him. “Really? Don’t you all have better things to do? And I need to get back to the cli—”
“I think you deserve a break.” I pushed the door open wider, sweeping my hand out into the hall. “And I promise there’ll be more sour candy.”
With another eyeroll and chuckle, Rowan sighed, shuffling over to the door. “My one weakness. I guess I’ll take you up on it.”
“Good.” Grey walked up behind her with Nix in tow. “It’ll be a clan movie night.”
A few minutes and a quick trip to my hidden stash of sour candy later, we were all piled into the movie room, letting Rowan decide which flick we’d be watching. I was only slightly surprised when she chose a superhero movie.
She was clearly torn over her decision to watch a movie with us. It was obvious from how her eyes flicked to the doorway regularly for the first half an hour. It was domestic and a step in the right direction for us, but no doubt daunting for her.
She sat in the corner of the large sectional, grabbing a blanket and pulling it over her lap. She tucked her legs under her body, keeping her distance from us. I hated that she wanted that, but I wasn’t going to complain. Not after everything this woman had done for us and our horde.
For the first chunk of the movie, we had to keep yelling at Nix to stop pointing out every easter egg that ever existed, but no one actually minded.
It felt nice to watch a movie together, something that oozed blissful normalcy that’d been missing for so long.
After all the tension from the disagreement with Jenkins, we needed to reaffirm our bond.
I couldn’t let Rowan run off and get lost in her own thoughts.
That had been one of Emmeline’s traits; she was an overthinker.
Rowan seemed to be the same, but maybe a bit less intense. She was more confident in herself.
We were all together, all laughing and munching on popcorn, and despite everything with Jenkins, I was pretty damn happy.
Losing myself in the movie was hard to do when she was sitting right there, watching with her brow furrowed, regularly taking bites of the sour candy she was so damn obsessed with.
It hit me that this was what our life could be. Six years ago, I had genuinely believed my life was over. Emmeline had left a cavern in my heart. Part of me still missed her, but a much larger part of me was freaking obsessed with Rowan.
About halfway through, we paused for a moment when we noticed Rowan had stopped offering her own comments on the movie, her light snoring rumbling around Greylen.
She’d leaned against him to get comfortable at the beginning, and now she was completely passed out on his chest. The three of us exchanged a smile.
Rowan was beautiful. Maybe it was because she was our mate, but I had never met anyone who could hold a candle to her in the looks or personality department.
She and Emmeline, despite being the same person, were like night and day. I had adored Emmeline, her innocence, her inherent desire to do good. Rowan, on the other hand, had taken that desire to do good and run with it. Her strength was admirable. I knew plenty of dragons far weaker than her.
With her hair thrown back and her face half concealed as it was pressed into Grey’s shoulder, I couldn’t help but admire her for a few moments.
We needed to make this work.
There were dark circles under her eyes, and my dragon paced in my chest, wanting to make it right. Rowan needed rest, and plenty of it.
Which wasn’t going to be easy, seeing as the horde was in such bad shape.
That was a hurdle for us to cross together, though.
“She must’ve been more tired than we thought.
” Nix cocked his head, grinning at her. A small part of me was surprised that she had agreed to watch a movie with us after everything that had happened, so the fact she was comfortable enough to fall asleep on one of us made me think there was hope for us yet.
“Nah, I was surprised she made it as far as she did.” I chuckled, thinking back to the other night. “She’s had several late evenings.”
“We need to help her more with the clinic,” Grey said.
I nodded. “And maybe get her a full-time assistant? Ma is doing everything she can, but she needs someone there every day.”
“Nina!” Nix suggested brightly, looking at our mate with a bright smile.
“That could work, they get along well. I’ll ask her tomorrow,” I told him, happy that I’d managed to think of this small thing to help her.
Grey narrowed his eyes at Nix and me, but we all turned back to the movie until it finished. We even watched the sequel, and Rowan was still sleeping. When the credits rolled on the second film, Nix got up from his seat, stretching, cracking his back loudly.
“Nope. I’m done. No more chairs. I’m going to bed. Have fun, Grey.”
In response, Grey threw a piece of popcorn at him as he left, but he didn’t make to get up.
I cocked a brow at Grey, smiling and the tiniest bit jealous, even though I’d had more of a taste of her than Greylen had. “You good, man? Need help carrying her to her room?”
He looked down at the delicate human passed out on his chest, reclining in one of the large movie seats with the leg rest up. Grey smoothed his fingers down her hair, a grin curling one side of his mouth.
“Nope. I’m great.”