Chapter 9

Cut myself shaving, and all I have are Hello Kitty Band-Aids. My balls look silly.

-E-card

Nikolai

My brother gave me a smirk as I walked into the kitchen the next morning.

“You missed our sparring session,” he murmured around a sip of coffee.

I grunted.

“Sure did,” I agreed, walking around the kitchen island to the coffee pot, and the coffee cups above it.

I pulled out one that said, ‘I’m a bear without coffee’ and filled it up to the brim with hot, refreshing, life altering coffee.

“You look almost…happy,” he surveyed.

I shrugged, even though I was that. Happy.

I was so happy I could barely breathe without letting out an excited chuckle.

I was acting like a fifteen-year-old girl, but I’d been waiting for last night for long, long months.

“So you wanna make that up now, or later?” he asked me.

I looked at my watch.

“Now. I have some work I need to do later this afternoon,” I explained, leaning my hips against the counter in much the same position as Keifer had taken up.

He nodded, sipping his own coffee.

“So, why are you here so fast?” I asked. “Wasn’t the purpose of this to have some time away from here because it wasn’t safe?”

He sighed and placed his coffee cup on the ground.

“I tried, I really did. But I couldn’t stay away. My mind was screaming at me that it wasn’t safe for you or me, for us, not to be together. So I got the shit I needed figured out with the archives, then got back,” he explained.

“What about Mom and Skylar. Farrow?” I asked.

I guess I should’ve thought more about this last night, but I’d been preoccupied.

Now, though, it wasn’t lost on me that they weren’t here.

“I left them in Alaska at the new reserve,” Keifer answered.

My brows rose in response.

“With who?” I asked.

He grinned.

“The boys.”

I laughed.

Derek, Ford, Alaric, Jean Luc, Ian and Dorian were the ‘boys’ he was speaking of.

They were a rough bunch of dragon riders that had formed a tight knit group with Keifer and I.

We were now what you would call a ‘motorcycle club’ in the real world. But in our dragon rider world, they were my brothers.

The men that I would trust with my back…and my mate.

Speaking of my mate, I sensed her before she actually showed in the open doorway.

I turned to stare at the entranceway and smiled when I first caught sight of her.

“What’s with that look on your face…?” Keifer asked. “Oh.”

I watched as Brooklyn, in only one of my t-shirts, walked around the counter and walked straight into my arms, hitting me and making me nearly spill my coffee.

She buried her face into my arm and sighed.

“Good morning,” I rumbled.

“Mornin’,” she murmured.

“You want some coffee?” I asked.

She shook her head instead of answering.

A sound from the doorway had me turning to see Blythe, in much the same state as Brooklyn was in, walking in like she had lead weights tied around her feet.

She walked straight to Keifer and buried her face into his chest.

I shared a look with my brother, one of commiseration and happiness, all jumbled into one.

“So what are you ladies up to today?” I asked.

“I’m taking Brooklyn down to the hospital and introducing her to the staff,” Blythe answered.

“Honey, we don’t have any staff at the hospital yet. Who’re you going to introduce her to?” Keifer asked, sounding confused.

Blythe blushed, burying her face into his chest again without answering.

“You’re going to see Angus,” Keifer guessed.

Ahh, that made sense.

Angus used to be my father’s bonded dragon and had lost a wing trying to protect my father from dying.

He hadn’t been able to do it, and Angus had been a bitter dragon ever since.

Or, at least, he had been until Blythe had come into the picture.

Blythe was carrying a king inside her womb, and the moment she got close enough to Angus, the baby and Angus had bonded.

It’d been a surprise to us all.

That never happened, not even with Keifer.

Angus was a cantankerous old bastard, and the only person that’d been able to get through his thick shell was Blythe.

But I wasn’t so sure that she needed to introduce Brooklyn to Angus just yet.

“Blythe,” I started.

Brooklyn pinched my side.

“Ouch!” I shied away from her touch. “What was that for?” I asked as I rubbed my side to relieve the burn.

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” she said. “And I want to go meet him. She said he was lonely.”

I tightened my mouth.

“He’s not lonely. He’s a jacka…” Brooklyn covered my mouth.

“Shhh,” she hissed. “Blythe said he could hear really well, and I don’t want him to hear you and eat your face.”

I snorted, sticking my tongue out to lick her hand.

She squealed.

“Ewww,” she said, rubbing her hand down the shirt that was covering her thighs.

I grinned.

“I’ve got to do a little work this morning, and it’ll probably take me into the afternoon if I’m lucky. If I’m not, it’ll be this evening. If not into the night. It’s a new account, though, and I need to do the first part myself before I pass it off to my team,” I said.

Her brows furrowed.

“You have a team?” she asked in confusion.

I grinned.

“Yeah, I do.”

Keifer snorted.

“I think what she’s getting at, bro, is she doesn’t know what exactly you do,” Keifer supplied helpfully.

I frowned.

“I know you own a computer business that does stuff with computers,” she admitted.

I nodded.

“I own a computer business,” I told her.

Keifer and Blythe both snorted this time.

I sighed.

“He owns Dragon Techware,” Keifer supplied.

Brooklyn gasped and turned around, her mouth opened wide.

“But that’s the biggest software company in the world!” she cried.

I grimaced.

“And the government is trying to sue you!” she continued.

“The government is trying to sue you?” Blythe and Keifer asked in unison.

I brought my fists up to my eyes and rubbed as if that’d help with the tiredness.

It didn’t.

“I’m not being sued by the government. They’re pissed because I refused to do business with them,” I explained.

“You refused the government? You can’t do that!” Keifer said. “You’ll bring attention to us.”

I turned a glare onto my brother.

“When have I ever…and I do mean ever…brought anything to our doorstep?” I asked.

“When we were working with Dad when we were teenagers, you hacked into the school’s computers and changed everyone’s grades that you hated to fifties and below; the school came to the shop to question you,” Keifer said.

I shook my head. “They came to question me because I was on the computer team and thought I might be able to help them solve it. They weren’t here because of me, per se.”

Brooklyn and Blythe giggled, causing me to give each of them a wink in turn.

“You were just mad because I changed your grades, too,” I said.

Keifer glared.

“Fine,” I sighed and took a sip of my now lukewarm coffee. “They wanted me to limit who I sold my software to. They were upset that everyone had access to the kind of programs that they had to pay a small fortune for, and they were politely requesting that I stop selling. And when I refused to do that, they offered to buy me out, which I declined. Now they’re trying to sue me over some bullshit excuse that won’t hold up in court. My lawyers don’t even think I’ll need to show up in court for it.”

Keifer pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Since when did all of this shit start?” he asked with a barely contained amount of control.

“A couple of months,” I said.

I wasn’t going to lie to Keifer.

It wasn’t my fault that he was exceptionally unobservant.

It was just my luck that my brother fell in love and stopped shoving his nose into my business every chance he got.

“Let’s go spar,” Keifer said. “I find that I need to let off a little aggression.”

Blythe and Brooklyn took that as their cue to go get ready, and Keifer and I headed to the training room that was nearer to his side of the estate, rather than mine.

“So you didn’t tell her that you develop weapons, I noticed,” Keifer said.

I grimaced.

“She had a lot to take in with the whole mating thing. I find that most people are intimidated by all of my businesses, so I try to not throw it all out there at once if I can help it,” I explained.

Keifer nodded as he held the door to the gym open for me.

The gym had the familiar blue mats ranging from one side of the place to the other except for on one side where all of the weight equipment was located.

“Sooo…” Keifer said. “Now that we’re alone. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

I walked over to the bench that sat along one wall and dropped down onto it, picking up the tape and lining my hands and knuckles with it.

Couldn’t break any knuckles, or skin anything today.

I had too much shit to do to deal with any of that.

Not that it would last for long…but, just in case, I took precautions.

Keifer didn’t bother.

I looked over at the door to the gym one more time before I turned back to Keifer.

“They found us too easily. The moment I got out of our territory, it was another fifteen miles into the heart of Dallas before they caught up with us. And it wasn’t because they were waiting. They were actively searching for us,” I said. “One, how did they find us so fast? Two, how did they know when to look? Three, if they were somehow tracking us, or waiting for us, how did they conceal themselves?”

Keifer gestured for me to stand, and we started to spar, not actually going all out yet, but just warming up.

This was something I’d missed since he’d been gone.

I used him to keep my skills up, seeing as he was just as deadly as I was.

We both had a different set of skills, and each of us mastered different fighting styles.

Then each of us would fight the other, and we’d learn new skills to adapt to either type.

I’d become lax since he’d left, and I could see it mostly in the way my breathing was faster, and my heart rate was skyrocketing.

“Getting slow,” Keifer taunted.

“I’ll show you slow, old man,” I said, ducking and feinting to the left.

He reacted, dropping his shoulder, and I took advantage by throwing a punch to his face.

“Fuck!” Keifer growled as blood poured from his nose.

He didn’t react other than that. He was easily keeping up with me even though he bled like a stuck pig.

We were going at each other hard, and I was going blow for blow with him when I suddenly dropped to the ground as agony burned up my leg.

I was held there for long moments as I tried to get my wits about myself, and I knew instantly that something had happened to Brooklyn.

“Motherfucker,” I wheezed.

Keifer offered me a hand up, and I hastily stood while yanking up my pant leg.

There, at the base of my ankle, were two twin marks, where what looked like two sets of fangs pierced the bony part of my ankle.

Mother.

Fucker.

“We gotta go,” I said hurriedly, hobbling as I ran/limped out of the gym.

“What happened?” Keifer asked.

“I think Brooklyn was bitten by a snake,” I uttered hurriedly.

Keifer blanched.

That was one of the drawbacks of having land. With land came snakes. And with snakes came the potential of getting bitten.

I ran through the pain, making it down to the pond even as I listened to Keifer hanging back because he was trying to make Skylar understand what was happening over the phone.

I made it down to the pond in time to see Blythe running towards us.

She froze when she saw me, then turned around and started running back toward the pond where I could see Angus crouching down next to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn was crying, dark streaks ran down her cheeks from where her mascara was running with her tears.

“It hurts,” she said.

“What happened?” I asked as I made it to her side. “You’ll be okay. I know it hurts right now, but the healing will start to take place…”

A dragon’s magic will help heal the body, but it only repairs. If there’s something that destroys the body’s cells before the repairing can begin, then there’s more at work there than a dragon’s magic can handle, Angus said.

Keifer nodded.

“That’s what Skylar said, too. We’ll have to take her to the hospital,” Keifer agreed.

“Shit,” I said. “What could get worse?”

You know that saying that says ‘it can always get worse?’ It’s something that nobody should say aloud. Why? Because if you do, then there’s a possibility that it can, indeed, get worse.

“I think that the snake was being controlled…” Blythe said. “By something similar to a dragon rider.”

“Controlled by what?” Keifer asked.

Then realization dawned on me.

The Purists couldn’t find us…couldn’t pierce through the veil to get to us.

But animals could.

I’d made sure of that with my own two hands.

I felt sick to my stomach at having put my mate and family in jeopardy.

“They’re working with fucking dragon riders?” I asked in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Keifer rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“How do you know it was a dragon rider?” Keifer asked Blythe.

“Well, it had to be something, because that was no ordinary snake,” Blythe said. “Slithered right past me from clear across the field. Angus clocked it before it even started moving, and stepped in the way. The snake moved fast around Angus before he could even react, heading straight toward Brooklyn like it was a homing missile angling for one person, and one person only. Brooklyn.”

“What happened to the snake?” Keifer asked as I slowly scooped Brooklyn up into my arms.

“Angus ate it,” Brooklyn smiled for the first time since I’d arrived two minutes ago.

I leaned down and kissed her head, turning around to see Perdita land not but five feet from us all.

Let’s go, she said, offering her tail to me.

I nodded and walked towards her, climbing up her tail like one would a hill.

She helped us up to her back and we rose at the same time Declan, Keifer’s dragon, landed beside him.

He and Blythe rose almost as fast as Perdita and I did.

“Wait!” I said, halting our forward movement. “If the Purists really had something to do with this, we can’t just go flying in there without a plan. They’re going to be ready for us the moment we cross over the border. We need to put up a veil,” I said to Perdita.

Perdita shook slightly, vibrating with pent up energy as what I said penetrated her rage fueled brain.

You’re right, she agreed.

I could no longer see Keifer anymore. He had the ability to cloak himself.

My power wasn’t such as his.

I could ‘cloak’ to an extent, yes, but it was nothing like Declan and Keifer could do.

Perdita, however, had learned to adapt, and she could make anyone see what she wanted them to see.

Which was why, in the next moment, she made it seem like we were nothing more than a bird flying through the air.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The ride to the hospital was quick and efficient.

At one point, we passed over the border where the land seemed to ‘disappear’ and I thought I saw movement below, but I couldn’t be quite sure.

We went to the furthest hospital in hopes that if the Purists did bring forces to the hospitals, then they’d check the closer ones first.

Perdita landed at the helipad, and I had to thank my lucky stars that we were able to land there since a helicopter followed right behind us.

I waved to Keifer as I went in, and he flashed only briefly to me before he disappeared once again, set to recon the building in hope that no enemies followed us, as well as to prevent any from coming in if he could.

I walked straight into the ER and moved up to the first person I saw, which happened to be a security guard.

“Sir,” I said.

The man turned, surprised at me just showing up. Then blinked at me as I held a getting-more-incoherent-by-the-second Brooklyn in my arms.

“Yes?” he asked, moving out of his little office.

“My wife was bitten by a rattlesnake,” I offered without preamble.

He blanched.

“Come with me,” he said, directing me to a big brown door.

Brooklyn didn’t protest being my wife.

What she did protest, however, was me trying to place her on the gurney.

“When was she bitten?” a doctor asked after the security guard led him into the room.

“About half an hour ago,” I admitted.

Although I knew it wouldn’t look like it was only a half hour.

The wound was already healed.

What wasn’t healed, however, was the poison slowly seeping through her veins.

“I’m not seeing an entry wound,” the doctor said in bafflement.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, fabricating a wound on her leg like the one I’d seen earlier, and the doctor hissed once my illusion hit his mind.

“Ahh, I see it now,” said the doctor, then turned to me. “What kind of snake was it?”

I opened my mouth to tell him, but Brooklyn beat me to it. “A six foot long Diamondback Rattlesnake.”

The doctor blanched, but, nonetheless, relayed the information.

“Nancy, we need anti-venom!” he called to a nurse.

I leaned down until my forehead was touching Brooklyn’s.

“I’m sorry,” I said roughly.

She picked her hand up and let it rest on my face.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”

How true that statement was.

I didn’t do anything.

Mostly because I hadn’t known that I’d need to prepare for that kind of threat.

Now, though, I would prepare.

They wouldn’t slip past me that way again.

“Alright, Mr…” a woman at the front of the room said.

I turned. “Vassago.”

“If you’ll come with me to fill out this paperwork,” I held up my hand to stop the woman.

“I’m not leaving her right now. You can ask me in an hour or so, then I’ll give you whatever you want,” I said, trying not to sound rude, but coming off that way anyway.

The woman smiled congenially. “That will be fine.”

“Anti-venom is expensive as hell,” Brooklyn said. “And I don’t have insurance.”

I snorted. “I got you insurance a day after you came to stay with me. And, as for the money the anti-venom will cost, that’s not an issue. I’ll have that money before you can even spell billionaire.”

She looked at me with wide eyes.

“I suppose we never really got to talk about that part of our relationship, did we?” she asked, holding her arm out as the nurse put an IV into her wrist.

I shook my head.

“No. Not yet. But it doesn’t matter, what’s mine is yours,” I offered.

She grimaced.

“You know, I have a degree. And I passed my boards. And I want a job,” she said stubbornly.

I suppressed a smile as I watched the nurse that the doctor had yelled at earlier hook up multiple IV lines…more than I’d ever seen run into a person before.

The nurse followed that up with a bag of filmy looking liquid in a clear bag and hung that up connected to the first large bag.

“It’s called a piggyback,” Brooklyn said, seeing where my attention had gone.

I looked down at her.

“What?” I asked.

“That smaller bag will run first until it’s completely empty because it’s higher than the big bag. Once the smaller bag is finished, then the bigger bag will resume,” she informed me.

“Ahh,” I said, even though I technically didn’t see.

I was too busy watching as the filmy liquid dripped into her veins.

One tiny drip at a time.

“How long will it take to know if there’s been any damage?” I asked the doctor.

He shook his head. “Days. Hours. I don’t know. It shouldn’t be too long, though. Diamondback Rattlesnakes are very rare, but since you got her into the hospital within two hours, I don’t expect any complications.”

“What kind of possible complications are there?” I asked, watching as Brooklyn’s eyes slipped closed.

“Common symptoms include swelling, severe pain, tingling, weakness, anxiety, nausea and vomiting, hemorrhaging, perspiration and eventually, heart failure,” he said. “But, like I said, it’s very likely that nothing will come of the bite.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’d you give her?” I asked.

“A sleeping medication to calm her down and relax her. We don’t need her heart pumping anymore because she’s anxious. We need her calm and relaxed to give the anti-venom the chance to work,” he explained patiently. “This would be a good time to go get her paperwork taken care of. We’ll need to know of any allergies. Whether there’s a possibility she could be pregnant. And old medical records. Anything you can think of would be helpful and useful information.”

Shit.

Pregnant.

No, she couldn’t be pregnant.

She was on the shot.

She’d mentioned that...hadn’t she? Or had I made that up? Only thought she’d said that.

There was no way she could be pregnant.

But that didn’t alleviate my fears.

I knew nothing about her medical records before I met her.

Literally, I knew nothing.

Not whether she broke her arm, nor if she ever had the chicken pox.

“Alright,” I said. “I need to make a call, though, first.”

He nodded. “The registration clerk is the first door on your right once you reach the end of the hallway.”

I nodded and leaned down, giving Brooklyn a soft kiss on the lips before I exited the room, stopping right outside the door to call Blythe.

“Hello?” Blythe asked urgently.

“Hey. They got the anti-venom started. But they’re asking medical history, and I don’t know anything about it.”

“She had surgery when she was eighteen for a broken arm. She has pins in her left tibia,” Blythe said instantly. “She’s not on any medications, and she’s allergic to Vicodin.”

“Alright, thank you,” I said and hung up.

I caught the first nurse I could find and told her that Brooklyn was allergic to Vicodin before I went down to registration and filled out paperwork.

I was in the middle of the fourth form when the whole hospital exploded in a flurry of activity as a ‘Charlie Brown’ was called over the loud speaker above my head.

“What’s that mean?” I asked the registration clerk.

“That there’s a combative patient,” she answered instantly. “Nothing to worry about.”

My brows rose.

Something told me not to let this go, some hidden instinct.

Something’s going on, I relayed to Perdita.

There’s nothing going out here, Nikolai. How’s Brooklyn? she asked, her smooth voice calming some of my fears.

I finished up the last form in my hasty scrawl and walked out the door, immediately spotting where the commotion was coming from.

I was just in time to see Brooklyn’s prone body disappear around a corner with an orderly in green scrubs pushing her away.

I hurried towards her, wanting to know where they were taking her, and was held up by the combative patient.

I managed to push past, but only in time to see the orderly cross into a bank of elevators at the end of the hallway and the doors close behind him. No Brooklyn in sight.

What the fuck?