“Come on, Beverly. You can frickin do this,” Lucy whispered under her breath as she watched the older woman tremble on one foot.

Lucy wanted to reach out and steady her, but she knew it would mean more to Bev if she did it on her own. With a little groan, Beverly gripped the rails on either side of her and shifted her weight, stepping fully on her other foot.

“Hell yes!” Lucy whooped and couldn’t stop herself from hopping up and down. “Bev, you did it!” She helped the woman ease back into the chair behind her. It was her first full step since she’d tripped and broken her leg two months before. Beverly stared up at Lucy; disbelief, joy, and fatigue all materializing on her face.

 “I can’t believe it, Lucy. I thought I might never- that I would be in the chair f-forever.” The woman’s voice broke as she finally gave words to the fear that had been plaguing her for weeks. She proudly wiggled her toes before reaching up and clasping Lucy’s hands.

It was moments like those that had Lucy coming to work every day. Not every patient was as lucky as Bev, but Lucy made sure they all worked just as hard, and healed as well as their bodies possibly could. She kneeled down and pulled Bev into a hearty hug.

 “Bev, that was the shit. Now let’s do it again.”

The two women grinned at one another, their joy filling the whole room.

 

Amos couldn’t tear his eyes away from this woman, Lucy’s radiant face. But he quickly straightened up as he realized he was leaning toward the television screen where they watched her.

“That’s her?” King Dalyer asked from beside Amos, his voice dripping with skepticism.

“What?” The Oracle looked up from the game he was playing on his cell phone. He squinted at the television screen on which he’d summoned up the feed of the woman at her work. “Oh. Yeah, that’s her.”

“But she’s so ordinary,” the King said.

King Dalyer wasn’t dumb. Actually he was searingly smart. But that was the dumbest thing Amos had ever heard someone say. Ordinary? The woman on the screen was hot as fuck.

“Shit!” A sad womp womp sound came from the Oracle’s phone and he jammed it back in his pocket. Seeming to remember that he was currently performing a duty for the most powerful being in the human or dragon realm, he turned back to the television screen.

“You think she’s ordinary?” The Oracle scratched his stubbly blonde beard. “I think she’s kinda cute.”

 Again, really dumb. Amos thought. Even in her loose scrubs, this woman was like walking viagra. Not that dragon shifters ever had to take viagra.

“Well,” the King said as he tossed his hands up in the air. “If that human is really my only option, I’ll just have to make do. How do we get to her?”

The Oracle stared dully at a space about a foot in front of him and swiped a finger over his temple a few times, like he was scrolling through information he didn’t need. Images flew past on the television screen.

“She lives… here,” he said and a dingy brownstone appeared on the screen.

“Brooklyn?”Amos guessed and both the King and the Oracle turned and looked at him in surprise, as if they’d forgotten he was even there. It was one of the things that made Amos such a good bodyguard, being able to disappear in a room.

“Yeah,” the Oracle responded. “Which makes it a lot easier to get her to the dragon realm, considering the portal is less than 5 miles away.”

He did the temple scroll again and brought up another image on the screen. Free tickets to an art show at a museum in Queens.

The King turned to the Oracle and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, asking what the tickets were for.

The Oracle shrugged. “She’s into art. And that museum is three blocks from the portal. I made sure she got the tickets this morning. She’s planning on going.” The Oracle’s eyes unfocused. “No, wait. She decided to go to the bar with her friend Courtney. No, wait, she’s back to going to the art show. No. Wait.”

The King tossed his hands up in frustration.

“Ok, she’s definitely going to the art show.” The Oracle leaned in to stage whisper. “Apparently Courtney hasn’t been the greatest friend lately.”

Amos rolled his eyes and focused back in on the King. The Oracle was too much for him. Useful, sure. But worth the trouble? Nah.

“Fine.” The King’s voice was sharp as he turned to Amos. “Just make sure she gets here as unscathed as possible. I need her here by the harvest moon.”

“Harvest moon?” Amos asked, the date seemed arbitrary to him.

“A dragon can only get a human pregnant on a harvest moon,” the Oracle clarified.

“Be careful with getting her here, Amos. I need her in perfect breeding condition,” said King Dalyer.

Amos’s eyes froze on the woman’s face as it all tumbled over him once again, like cold water down his back. He thought about exactly why they were plotting to snatch this woman out of her life. Shit, out of her entire realm. So that King Dalyer could mate with her.