Chapter 35
Bastian
Time hovered in a strange hold that kept everything still for a moment. I watched from across the room, any notion I had that Rowan might be wrong completely obliterated as Jenkins’s face contorted into an expression I didn’t recognize.
The man had been a part of this horde for years, and I’d never once seen the undeniable fury on him that I did now.
For what I would realize was too long, I was frozen—just like the others—as Jenkins surged forward, his hands extended as he lunged for Rowan. The two collided, Jenkins taking her down to the floor with a heavy thud.
His hands were wrapped around her neck. “You bitch! You’ve ruined everything with your fucking herbs! You know nothing! If they won’t get rid of you, I will!”
I moved on instinct. My baser urges and our age-old connection propelled me forward as I rushed over and tore Jenkins off Rowan. She coughed, sputtering on the ground as I hauled him away, kicking and screaming, until I had him pinned against the wall.
“Don’t you ever touch my fucking mate, you hear me?” I slammed him against the wall once more, rattling the old bastard’s teeth and putting all my rage into him. “Do you?!”
Jenkins trembled in my hold, hardly able to meet my glare as he squeaked out, “Y-yes! L-let me go. Please.”
Compared to me, he was older and frail. I could snap that fucker’s body in half with my pinkie if I wanted to.
Refusing to let the fucker up right away, I sensed Nix at my side. He leaned toward Jenkins. “What do you mean, she ruined everything? Ruined what?”
Jenkins looked back and forth between us, his eyes wide as he shook.
I offered another firm meeting with the wall to get his tongue flapping again. “Speak up, now, or it’ll be your head through the damn wall.”
“Ah! All right, all right.” I relaxed my grip enough to get Jenkins to confess whatever he’d been doing. “I knew.”
The room dropped into silence again, and I glanced over my shoulder, exchanging looks with my clanmates. It was Rowan who stared on with eyes as wide as saucers, slowly rising from the floor to approach Jenkins.
“Knew?” Nix furrowed his brow, shooting a glance to Orsen, who shrugged. “Knew what?”
“The drugs.” Rowan walked over cautiously, stopping just behind me as I maintained my control over Jenkins. “You knew they were hurting the horde. Oh my God.”
Her hands went to her mouth, her eyes welling up as the realization hit us all. Jenkins wasn’t just incompetent or rooted to his fucking beliefs. He’d been doing this… on purpose.
“All those dragons. They’ve believed for years that you’ve been helping them! All this time… All this time, you’ve been making them sicker, making them infertile. They trusted you. How could you do this to them? To your own horde? Are you working for another horde?”
“I am no traitor! I had my reasons, human.” Jenkins glared at Rowan, as if he was disgusted. My jaw cracked as I clenched it, angling my knuckles into the fucker’s throat.
“And the money?” she growled. “Just another spoil?”
“Money?” Nix appeared next to Rowan, shaking his head. “Rowan, what do you mean?”
“The supplies he’s been ordering, there are far too many of them for even a horde five times this size.
I was too kind when I assumed he didn’t understand, but it looks like he’s been blowing through the funds like they’re nothing.
Oh, and the medications? I was only ever able to find half of what was on the reported order sheet. He was stealing from you.”
I growled at the pathetic dragon in front of me, the theft really adding insult to injury. “Because making our horde sick, causing their deaths, wasn’t enough?”
“No one ever died,” Jenkins countered, his voice a slimy stain on the air. “Not really. A few older dragons, who were already on their way out. But I corrected the symptoms before it got too serious.”
Rowan’s eyes flared again, and she gestured behind her at Rory. “And him? He’s a child!”
“The boy was never in any real danger. I told you. I know how to correct the… issue.” Jenkins sneered, curling into himself like a cobra who’d been caught with his tail in a trap, unable to escape, and all the more insidious because of it.
“I just needed you gone. I needed them to see I was the better doctor.”
Fury took me, and I slammed him back into the wall so hard, I heard his neck crack in complaint as his head hit the wall, and he staggered to the floor again.
The fucker didn’t deserve to stand.
“Oh, did you? Gone. That can mean a few things, huh? I think it’s your turn… to be gone.”
I had been loyal to him, but that had been a mistake. He had tried to kill my mate and harm my horde. Death was too good for him.
Reaching for his neck, I sank my partially shifted claws into his flesh, letting them get longer as my dragon roared, demanding I tear the fucker limb from limb.
My grip started to clench, but then Rowan’s hand was on my shoulder, and I froze.
“Don’t. Don’t kill him.”
“He attacked you, was responsible for—” My voice was thick with rage.
“I know. I understand, Bastian.” Rowan squeezed my arm, her eyes focused so intently on mine, my name still ringing in the air.
“But there has been too much death already. I’m a healer.
I’m supposed to make this horde better. As much as I hate this slimy, pathetic excuse for a dragon, I don’t want to live with a death on my conscience. ”
Her words hit like a physical blow. That was the last thing I wanted to do to her.
She needed to be protected, not hurt. Jenkins’s stare dropped to the floor.
After a moment, I stepped back, pulling my claws free of his neck, blood oozing out of the shallow cuts just enough to satisfy my dragon’s bloodlust.
“Why?” I snarled. “What reason could you have for making our horde sicker? Are you working for another horde?” Rowan had touched on that possibility, but I wanted to look him in the face and ask myself.
Jenkins face twisted in rage. “No! I would never betray North Oak like that!”
That made me raise a brow. Somehow, in his twisted mind, making the horde sicker wasn’t betraying them?
“You did betray us.”
The disgraced doctor shook his head adamantly. “No! Everything I did, I did to make this horde better, you need to understand—"
“You will leave this horde and never return. Word of how you’ve treated us will be spread to every corner of the globe. No horde or den will ever take you in again. You will be alone, cast out.” My words were low and controlled, with barely contained rage simmering beneath the surface.
Jenkins couldn’t have hidden his shock even if he wanted to. “No, no, no. You c-can’t do this! I need to live! I’ve been your father’s loyal physician for decades. Bastian, you can’t—”
“I think you’ll find I fucking can, especially considering it’s more than likely that you’ve made my father weak and kept him in pain for years.” I took a step back, pointing at the door as I felt the others stand behind me. “Get. Out.”
“B-Bastian, please. You-you don’t know your father, what he—”
“Now!” I roared, my voice shaking the walls.
In a flash, Jenkins was out the door, running with his tail between his legs, just like he should be. I waited until I couldn’t hear his footsteps in the hallway, then turned back to Rowan. She looked up at me, clearly unsure, and I swallowed hard, studying her face.
I recognized her so much, saw all the details of Emmeline etched into every curve and freckle.
But she was so different, older, eons wiser, and less afraid, less intimidated by the world around her.
Dragons weren’t some mythical thing she put on a pedestal anymore; they weren’t this creature to be revered and terrified of. She knew us, worked with us, healed us.
I’d been such a fucking idiot.
“Thank you,” she said. “I know that—”
“There is nothing for you to thank me for. You…” My chest tightened, all my old survival instincts trying to get me to run, but I couldn’t do that, not now. “… were right. I should have listened, should have believed you when you said you didn’t lie.”
Rowan’s eyes stretched wide, somehow even wider than they had been. “I… Oh. Well, yes, I was right, and you should have believed me.”
She was still shocked, but I couldn’t help but snort, amused and annoyed with myself. I dipped my head, sighing as I ran a hand through my hair.
The others had murmured their thanks to Rowan; even Rory and his parents had said how amazing she was.
And I’d felt stuck, just like always.
Then my gaze landed on her throat.
Red and rapidly bruising from where that fucker had laid his hands on her.
“Your throat,” I said, lurching forward and gently cupping her face to get a better look. The sight made me sick to my stomach.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Some painkillers and honey tea and I’ll be good as new in a few days.
” I’d allowed my feelings about Rowan to cloud my judgment all this time, when she was clearly doing what was best for the horde.
I was as bad as my father, who’d allowed Jenkins to treat the horde, even himself, for so long. What the fuck was wrong with me?
Dull rage simmered in my gut. I was annoyed with myself, furious I’d been so blind to what was going on. Because of my actions, the entire horde, not to mention my mate, had been put in jeopardy.
And for what? My pride? Lot of good that had done me.
The horde was still a mess, even if less so thanks to Rowan, but how the hell were we going to deal with all the resulting chaos? She’d already said she wasn’t staying, and replacing Jenkins would be—
“I’ll keep treating everyone.” Rowan’s voice and her hand on my arm rocked me from my thoughts. “Okay? I know how much they need me right now. I could never let them down. Especially after everything.”
Well, that solves one problem.
“Thank you, Rowan.” I held her gaze, nodding once. “It’s clear that we need your help—greatly.”
Surprise mingled with her smile, but she patted me on the arm and turned back to Rory, comforting him after the fallout of all this had taken place in his room. She seemed to easily flip into caregiver mode, and I—yet again—looked on from the background, unspeaking.
Yeah, it was obvious the horde needed her. I just hadn’t realized how much I needed her too.
Until that moment.