Chapter 28: Erick

 

 

 

Finally clothed, Caleb and I stormed into Riverrun General Hospital, where I'd dropped Rowan and Aiden just an hour ago.

Rowan had wanted to drive…but flying was faster.

I could still feel the limp weight of Aiden's body in my foreclaws as I carried him through the air, with Rowan clinging to my back. He felt dead, I thought, haunted by the memory.

"This way," Caleb said, taking a sharp right, towards a building that was marked Emergency Room.

Automatic glass doors slid open as we approached them, and they snicked smoothly shut behind us, sealing us from the faint wail of sirens in the distance.

Caleb ran up to the nurse's station and planted both hands on the counter. "Aiden Wheeler? He was admitted about an hour ago?"

I stood off a few paces behind him, counting silently in my head as I tried to breathe only through my nostrils.

The nurse behind the desk was a middle-aged woman with short, strawberry-blonde hair and a small, serene face. She pursed her lips in concentration as she typed something into her computer. Meanwhile, Caleb jiggled his foot, and I kept ignoring the way my throat was closing in on itself.

"He's still in the ICU and hasn't been cleared for visitors yet. You can wait for him in the waiting area if you'd like," the nurse finally explained gently.

Caleb and I walked off in the direction she pointed, eventually finding ourselves in an enormous room where a flatscreen T.V. played the news to an audience of empty chairs.

Only one of them was occupied. The person sitting in it was Rowan.

She leapt up with a gasp. "Finally! I've been waiting all alone—"

Caleb rushed forward and embraced her. The moment she was enclosed in his arms, Rowan broke down in sobs.

My gaze fell to the lumpy sack sitting under her chair. "So, that's why you guys went into the spa."

Rowan pulled away from Caleb, blinking wetly. "It was supposed to be quick. I'm so sorry, Erick."

I directed my gaze at the bank of windows. "I'm going to take a walk," I said.

Caleb and Rowan didn't say a word when I abruptly walked away.

He's alive, I assured myself. He has to be.

After a short while, I finally came to a wide, empty hallway, quiet enough for me to think in peace. The exterior wall to my left was composed entirely of glass windows. I stood there and watched the city. Behind the blinking, transparent image of my reflection, I could see the orange haze of the fire in the distance, peeking above the buildings like a very close sunset.

Dragon's fire.

It seemed impossible, yet Rowan had seen it happen herself.

Now, the question was how. How had Aiden breathed dragon's fire, when he wasn't even a dragon? Hell, he wasn't even a shifter.

It made no sense.

"Erick?"

I turned around. Rowan stood at the end of the hallway, as if in hesitation.

I placed my hands behind my back. "Yes?" I said.

She walked over to me. When she got close, I noticed a tiny smudge of soot on her left cheek. She stilled smelled faintly of smoke. My gaze fell to her hands, which held a folded piece of paper, torn out of a notebook.

"I thought I should tell you while we got a chance to be alone," she explained gently. "I found a spell to send you back to the Wood. This one will definitely work, and it falls within my skillset. Here."

My head buzzing with numbness, I accepted the spell from Rowan.

"Just let me know whenever you're ready," Rowan said.

Whenever I'm ready? I thought. I'd already promised Aiden I wouldn't leave him for the Wood anytime soon. But if he doesn't—

I jerked my head down, forcing my gaze to the spell that I clutched between shaking fingers. No, don't think about that, I told myself. Not just yet.

Saying nothing, I placed the spell in my pocket as Rowan walked away.

 

* * *

 

By the time I came back to the waiting area, Aiden was cleared to receive visitors. A young nurse came out to take all three of us to him. After leading us through a series of hallways, she showed us into a dark, private room where Aiden lay in a bed. His eyes were closed, and his nose and mouth were encased inside a mask of clear plastic. A tangle of thin wires connected him to a beeping machine that stood sentry at his bedside.

My heart stopped when I saw him. He didn't look like himself.

"His vitals are stable. He looks worse than he is. The doctor will be with you guys shortly," the nurse said before leaving us.

We were all silent until the door closed behind her.

"Well, he's alive," Caleb said.

"Thank god," Rowan echoed.

I was both afraid and overwhelmed by the temptation to touch him. Gingerly, I stroked my fingertips across the back of his hand.

"Aiden," I whispered. I placed a kiss on his smooth forehead.

"So Aiden breathed dragon's fire, huh?" Caleb said, sounding as amazed as I was a little over an hour ago, when I heard the news myself. "How is that even possible?"

Both he and Rowan were looking at me, the dragon, for an answer.

I could only shake my head. "I don't even know how that could be."

Caleb cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe he got some of your powers during one of your…"

"Our magic doesn't work like that," I said curtly, then hurriedly changed the subject. "How about Eliza?"

"I didn't see her leave the building. Did you?" Rowan said.

"No I didn't," I said.

"So she was still inside," Rowan murmured.

The three of us fell silent. Beside us, the machine wired to Aiden's body beeped three times.

Caleb cleared his throat. "We don't have to worry about that right now. The important thing is that Aiden's safe."

"That's right. We're here for Aiden," I agreed, trying to keep my composure.

"Erick, sit down," Rowan said, and she gestured me into a nearby chair.

I shook my head and offered the seat back to her. "Not yet," I told her.

I couldn't rest until I knew that Aiden would be okay.

We didn't have to wait very long for the doctor. He walked in during my third round of pacing, his energetic "Hello!" alerting us to his presence before the door even opened all the way. When he walked in, I was slightly disappointed to see he was much younger than I expected, perhaps even younger than Rowan, with a receding hairline and a slight paunch under his white coat.

"Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Virgil," he said, shaking all of our hands. "And which one of you is the patient's next of kin?"

"Me," I said, without hesitation. "I'm Aiden's…"

"Partner," Rowan chimed in. When she caught my eye, she winked.

"Right. Well, Aiden will be just fine. He's been sedated, and we treated him for smoke inhalation and…"

My attention drifted away as my mind replayed Dr. Virgil's first few words. Aiden will be just fine. As Rowan and Caleb were distracted by Dr. Virgil's explanation, I slipped my hand inside Aiden's. His fingers felt nearly lifeless, but his pulse was still there, beating faint and relentless.

"We've just been having some trouble with his blood labs," Dr. Virgil continued.

"What kind of trouble?" Rowan asked.

I was only paying half my attention to them. My focus was placed on Aiden's face. I skimmed the shape of his eyes, imagining their color underneath, praying for them to open.

"Well, everything came back fine, except he kept testing positive for progesterone. That's the pregnancy hormone," Dr. Virgil said, exposing his teeth in a wide grin. "The first time, we thought his specimen got mixed up with someone else's. So we drew a whole new sample and sent that to the lab, and guess what happened next? Same thing." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Hmm. Weird. Must be faulty lab equipment," Rowan said.

"Must be, right?" Dr. Virgil said. He paused to chuckle heartily to himself. "Because Aiden obviously can't be pregnant."

Rowan and Caleb laughed cautiously.

After a promise that Aiden should wake up within an hour or two, Dr. Virgil left, and all three of us started talking at the same time.

"Wait," Rowan said, holding out her hands. She pointed at me. "You first."

"Did the doctor just say that Aiden's blood tested positively for pregnancy?" I blurted out.

"Well, not exactly. Clearly, he's never heard of shifters, or pregnant male shifters," Rowan said. "But if both samples came back—"

"Of course he's pregnant," Caleb said.

Rowan stopped midsentence. Then, she sucked in a loud breath between her teeth and nodded. "Yeah. Assuming Aiden did the necessary thing to become pregnant. Um…Erick?"

My cheeks warmed when I felt their gazes falling on me.

"We've...we've done the necessary thing," I said. "Twice."

Rowan threw up her hands. "Okay, then. Caleb? What were you going to say?"

Caleb smirked. "That now we know how Aiden could breathe dragon's fire."