CHAPTER 21

“Dawn?”

“Yes?” she replied, jarring herself from the memory and directing her attention back to the council.

“Are you ready for your judgment?” Thomas asked, apparently for the second time.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Do you have anything you would like to say to the council before we adjourn to deliberate in our chambers?”

“No. I think I’ve said all I can,” she replied politely.

“Very well. Please remain in the courtroom until the verdict is returned. Any witnesses are free to leave if they choose to do so.”

Dawn noted that the room was silent. No one attempted to leave. She sat in her chair, staring at the floor as she waited for them to reveal her fate. She was frightened and longed for Liam. If he were here, this would all be okay. Her mind wandered again, thinking to him back in the hospital. She had known something was wrong even before it happened.

“Liam? Liam? What is happening?” she had called out.

He had been talking to her only moments earlier, and now he seemed non-responsive. It was like the day she had encountered Harlan and realized his mind was not working quite like it should. Why did everything seem to always come back to that day? Pushing her call button repeatedly in a panic, she had soon been swarmed with nurses.

“Not me! Him. Check on Liam. Something is happening.”

“He’s just sleeping,” one of them said.

“No. He is not just sleeping. Something happened.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me questions and just check on him. Something has happened.”

The nurses had taken her at her word and quickly began taking his vitals while another called the doctor. Soon, he was being wheeled down the hall for some sort of scan. Dawn wondered if she would find herself having one, as well. The last time she had healed someone with brain trauma, she had absorbed it. It would be their luck to be lying side by side for months longer, recovering from matching brain surgeries. Assuming they got that far with life.

Fortunately, it had only been a bit of swelling that had caused his loss of consciousness and they were able to get it under control without any serious complications or lasting damage. It was nothing that had affected Dawn at all in the long run. She was merely exhausted and had some injuries of her own to tend to, but nothing life threatening or even serious.

Still, Liam would be in the hospital for months before he was even able to come home. He had multiple surgeries and procedures ahead of him. There were no expected long-term difficulties, but it would be quite a while before he was back to one hundred percent. As for Dawn, she was out of the hospital within the week. She had continued to visit him there until they had brought formal charges against her and forbidden her to see him.

The depth of the hospital beneath the council building, along with the thickness of the walls that surrounded it, prevented her from communicating with him. They wouldn’t even allow her father or uncle to go down and check on him for her, though Aaron at least kept them up to date on Liam’s recovery. It had not been his choice to keep her from him, but a directive from the council that he could not overrule.

Being without him had been torture, especially considering that she wasn’t even allowed to remain in the home they shared together. She had been forced back into her old bedroom at her parents’ house, where she had nothing but time to think about how all of this was ruining their lives together.

At least she had not been banned from the office. As soon as she was able, she had gone back to make sure the work was still being completed in their absence. Her uncle had called off the workers in the days following the attack, not knowing what might happen with either of their conditions. She had called them back in to finish the job and had gotten most of it done prior to the formal charges and being put on house arrest at her parents’.

Now, the fate of the business, her life with Liam, and her freedom all depended on the outcome of some ridiculous trial where she had to defend her actions against someone who had only evil intentions. Everything she had done, she had done to protect Liam and herself. How she had chosen to do so should have never been called into question. Frustrated, she continued to stare at the floor, waiting.

After what felt like years, the group of men returned to the council floor and took their seats. Thomas cleared his throat and sat down to speak once again.

“Dawn McCord, can you please stand?”

Dawn stood. She felt weary, unstable. At any moment, she found it likely she would just pass out on the floor. She struggled to focus and stay alert as they announced her fate. Thomas looked like he was far away, much farther away than he could actually be. It was as if she was looking at him through some sort of looking glass from a very long distance away.

“It is the opinion of this court that you have used a forbidden substance in combat. For that crime, we find you guilty.”

Whispers spread like wildfire through the room, causing Thomas to ask for silence before he continued.

“Due to the mitigating circumstances of this crime, the fact that you were acting in self-defense and in the defense of Liam Donnelly, we have decided that no purpose is served by sentencing you to jail time. Instead, we have determined that you will be exiled from the village with no right to return.”

Gasps could be heard from everyone, followed by angry complaints of unfairness. Thomas once again cautioned them to be quiet.

“Have you any final requests before you are released to make arrangements for your departure? You will have twenty-four hours to vacate village lands.”

Dawn’s voice was barely audible as she spoke. “I would like to see Liam before I go, to say goodbye.”

“Request denied,” Thomas replied, not making eye contact.

Dawn knew he did not want to deliver the verdict, nor did he want to deny her request, which he had known she would make. He was only the messenger. Tears fell down her face as she nodded in understanding.

Two dragon guards approached her to escort her out. They would stay with her while she prepared to leave and then see that she did so within the time frame allowed. They stood before her, hands folded, but were quickly sent away by Owen and Connor McCord.

“Let her be. We will take care of making sure she does as she has been asked,” they said angrily.

The guards looked toward Aaron, who nodded his approval. Dawn could feel how pained he was by all of this. The dragon council was separate from him. They were his checks and balances to make sure he didn’t try to wield more power than he should, as his predecessor had done.

Dawn continued to cry and shake as Aaron and Owen led her from the council chambers. They were halfway down the hall when her knees buckled beneath her and she stumbled. Her father picked her up and carried her. She could feel the mixture of his own pain and anger that filled his mind. It was the same as her mother, who was struggling not to cry as her Aunt Barb tried to comfort her. Owen suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned around, charging back into the council chambers.

“No! This is not right, and I will not stand for it!” he announced to members of the council as they began to leave their places at the large table in front of the room.

“Owen? What are you doing?” Connor whispered heatedly, his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Owen jerked his shoulder free and continued walking toward the council. He didn’t stop until he had reached the table. Several of the dragon guards began making their way toward him, but Aaron waved a hand for them to stand aside. He lay Dawn on the table in front of them, where she curled up like a child and continued to weep.

“Many of you have watched my daughter and Aaron’s daughter grow up here in the village. From the time my daughter was old enough to speak, from the moment she met Liam Donnelly, she has told everyone who would listen to her that she loved him and would marry him one day. I’ll be damned if I let anyone take that away from her now that she is so close to doing so!”

“Mr. McCord, I’m afraid that the sentence has been passed,” one of the elder council members replied.

“Then you need to fucking unpass it!” he growled at him.

“We won’t have that sort of language in here, Mr. McCord. As a member of the dragon guard, you are held to a higher standard than that.”

“Fuck your standards, or lack of them. No court with any sense of decency would do this to my daughter. And, in case you have forgotten, you aren’t just doing this to her. You are also breaking the hearts of her mother, myself, and Liam Donnelly, who lays downstairs in traction even now. It is the only reason he isn’t up here to speak out against this himself. I can guarantee that.”

“I don’t know what you expect us to do,” the man replied.

“I expect you to use some common sense. Dawn did what any one of us would have done in her situation. She used whatever means necessary to save the man she loves. Many of you have no idea what it feels like to have someone you love jerked away from you suddenly, but I do. I know that pain, and I carried it with me for years. It’s complete and total devastation, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

“Mr. McCord,” the man began, but her father cut him off.

“Don’t you ‘Mr. McCord’ me, John. You know my first name. We play racquetball together on our days off. You have been to my house, and I’ve been to yours. We’re not strangers. We’re friends, and this is my daughter you are killing. You’d have done better just to put her to death straight away because you have devastated her in a way that will surely be her end.”

“Please remove Mr. McCord from the council chambers, along with his daughter,” the elder councilman who had objected earlier said.

Owen remained where he stood, unmoving.

“Owen, come on. Let’s get you out of here so you can calm down,” one of his fellow guards told him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Owen took a deep breath and picked up Dawn from the table. She smiled up at him, placing her hand on the side of this face to calm him.

“Put me down, Dad. I can walk out of here on my own. Don’t make things worse for you or Mom.”

“Okay,” he said, still glaring at the men who stood motionless at the table behind her.

Dawn could see Liam’s mother sitting nearby. Walking over to her, she pulled the engagement ring from her finger and put it into her hand. Looking up at her with tear filled eyes, she told her goodbye.

“Thank you for letting me wear such a beautiful ring for a while. It meant the world to me. Tell Liam that I am sorry I couldn’t say goodbye.”

“No!” came a voice from behind them.

Dawn whirled around to find herself face to face with Aaron Donnelly. He took the ring from his wife and put it back on Dawn’s finger before leading her back to the table where the council members were still poised. For a moment, there was silence throughout the room, and then he began to speak.