Dragon Oracle Urban Fantasy Boxed Set (Dragon Oracle Complete Series: Books 1 - 9)

by Jada Fisher

  It was like the rotted dragon had beaten me. Plenty of people had hurt my body, had scarred me, taken from me. But no one had ever stopped my mind.

  Except him.

  I wasn’t…whole anymore. Or at least it didn’t feel like it. Sometimes I imagined that, as I healed, old parts of me would be unlocked—like levels in a video game—and I would get back to normal.

  That was silly, of course. Even with my damaged, broken brain, I knew that there was never going to be a normal to go back to.

  2

  A Long, Long Road

  “Alright, try the third row now.”

  I blinked, hard, then opened my left eye. After a few beats, my vision cleared, and I tried to identify the large, black letters printed on the poster Mickey was holding up on the other side of the room.

  “E… D… L… Is… Is that an F?”

  “Very good, Davie. That’s a whole row below last week. Do you want to try the next one down?”

  Somehow, the doctor said that without being patronizing, and I slowly nodded. I’d long since learned that I couldn’t jerk my head one way or the other.

  “Z… Um, I… Uh, I think that’s a…” I licked my lips. I could see what it was, the double bumps of it, but my mind refused to find the word. “The insect.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You know? Um, it’s yellow. Buzzes.” That anger that was so familiar snapped up inside of me, whip-sharp and biting, but I shoved it away. I had this. I had it. Flowers. Spring. Honey?

  “Bees!” I cried, my tone rising, but I didn’t even care. “B! It’s the letter B.”

  “Very good. Keep going, please.”

  “Right. Z, B, um, T…O…E?”

  “You did it!” Mickey said, beaming so bright I was almost tempted to cover my eyes as a joke. “That’s fantastic. All that in just a week?”

  “It’s the exercises combined with giving the steroids more time to reduce the swelling. Although it’s been a long while since the initial injury, so many little nerves and muscles were still inflamed from the trauma. As they continue to heal, as long as we stay vigilant with things, you should see a return to something close to your normal vision.”

  Ugh, that was a relief. The spinning, churning, blurriness that came and went as it pleased wasn’t exactly a good time for me. Not even remotely.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, Davie, I’d like to test your pupil’s reactivity.”

  “Okay.”

  I forced myself to relax and let the doctor approach me, pulling out a tool and carefully shining a light in first one eye, then the other. We went through a now-familiar exercise of me closing one eye and then the other, nothing too exciting, but it had apparently once caused me to go into a seizure. And then another time to punch her outright. I didn’t remember either of those, but considering how drugged up I was for so long, perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing.

  “Improvement there as well, but I still want you wearing your eyepatch on your good eye for at least an hour several times a day. We’re still looking at other ways to relieve your headaches, but it could set you back several days or even weeks if you slack on it.”

  “I know,” I grumbled while trying to sound like I wasn’t grumbling. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but the eye-headaches combined with the too-many-pain-meds headaches combined with random headaches from traumatic brain injuries was a whole lot to handle.

  “She’s in a lot of pain, Doc. And you said yourself that we’re trying to get away from sedation.”

  “That we are. But for now, Davie has a resistance to several common migraine medicines, and the ones that she doesn’t are contraindications to the pain medication, steroids, and anti-inflammatories we have her on. We’re still testing out different possible combinations to bring her relief, however we have to wait until she presents with a headache to test the next one.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, waving my hand. I was so tired of being difficult. It was bad enough I had failed the entire world, I didn’t also want to be a problem patient. “See ya tomorrow, Doc.”

  “Rest up, Davie. And remember to write down any questions you have for me. I’m an open book and I think it’s better for a patient to be fully informed.”

  Sneaky, sneaky. Writing was a great exercise for hand-eye coordination and one that I struggled with the most so far in my physical therapy. Between the shaking hands, the fuzzy vision, and difficulty controlling my space, I snapped the pencils just about as often as I dropped them.

  Ugh.

  “Hey, I brought snacks.”

  I looked to the door to see Bronn standing there, a tray in his hands. It was so incongruous considering the situation, but it was something that I had gotten almost used to in the three or so weeks that I didn’t get hung up on it as much anymore.

  “Are we hungry?” he asked, painfully cheerful. Sometime his smile grated me, as did his pleasant tone. I couldn’t understand how he could be so smiley. But it was better than him crying or staring at me with that haunted expression that he got sometimes, so I would take the tradeoff.

  “Hey, I’ll come with you, Doctor Olitar,” Mickey said, setting the eyechart to the side and hurrying out with a wink.

  Ugh.

  I loved Mickey, I did, but she’d taken to being very shippy when it came to Bronn and me. I didn’t know what about my injury made her suddenly into our relationship, but she’d gone from somewhere around the shovel talk to thumbs-upping me and winking whenever she left us alone.

  Which was fairly often considering that he’d hauled a ratty recliner that looked like it was from the seventies to rest right beside my bed. Everyone took turns sleeping there from my little gang, which meant at least once a week, it was just me and him.

  Not that anything happened, of course. The nighttime meds almost always had me out cold, and even when they didn’t, I usually fell asleep on my own anyways. I rarely stayed awake more than six hours at a time, and that was stretching it.

  “Your sister knows that I can see her, right?” Bronn asked, gently placing the tray in my lap and turning the recliner to face me.

  “At this point, I don’t think she cares. She’s just happy I’m alive to have alone time with my boyfriend.”

  He smiled crookedly at that, pale face flushing pink in the cheeks.

  “I guess I can’t disagree with her there.” He reached over, gently gripping the one hand I did have before leaning back. “I did manage to land a steak. Which just might be a Christmas miracle.”

  I froze right as I went to pick up the fork, my eyes going wide.

  “I… It’s not Christmas, is it?” Sure, I had lost track of time, but certainly not that much time.

  “Uh, no, Davie. Just a figure of speech.”

  “Right. I knew that.”

  My cheeks flushed and I dug into my steak. It was about as juicy and delicious as it looked, even if I had to go real slow because my jaw was sore and just about everything tired me out.

  “How is it?” The prince asked hopefully, leaning forward as he watched me eat. He did his best by me, he absolutely did, but it wasn’t like there was an abundance of high-quality supplies underground. Most of what I ate was rice, potatoes, and beans for protein. But it seemed, as the days passed, everyone was finding ways to establish some sort of supply chain.

  Which, by the way, was a whole ‘nother level of incongruous with being in an apocalypse. Were they using a grocery delivery service? Were there even grocery stores? Sure, the rotted dragon was leaving humans alone for the most part, but he had destroyed the palace, the manor, the anti-humanist’s palace—or what was left of it—and several prominent government buildings. Also, apparently a few hang out places that were popular among dragons as well just to be an extra jerk on top of things.

  “Here,” I said, very carefully using the knife-fork combo to cut the edge. It was more of a challenge than it should have been, but apparently, that was half the point. Something about dexterity and fine motor function. Also lear
ning how to use the combination utensils Bronn and the doctors had found me. I managed to get a fairly mouth-sized chunk and hold it out to him, trembling only slightly.

  It was fun watching the color rise in his cheeks as he leaned forward and took the bite. Our eyes locked as he chewed thoughtfully, and… Was it a bit strange how attractive I found that simple act?

  Probably. But whatever, I had brain damage or something.

  At least he didn’t try to cut the steak for me. It was difficult, sure, and sometimes I got frustrated, but I wanted to do things myself. Just to prove that I could.

  “Oh yeah, that’s pretty good,” he said once he swallowed. And maybe I watched the bob of his Adam’s apple as he did so a little too intently. But it wasn’t my fault he was looking so handsome at the moment. Or maybe it was because my vision was finally clearing up. Hard to admire a strong jaw and piercing eyes when everyone was a fuzzy blob.

  It took me a few minutes, but I cut him another small chunk. He just shook his head.

  “Nah, that’s for you. You need the protein.”

  “And you don’t?” I argued. “Aren’t dragons obligate carnivores?”

  He chuckled lightly at me and that was still one of the best sounds on earth.

  “Maybe we were once, but it seems that shapeshifting also came with the added bonus of being omnivores. At least in this particular body. I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve actually eaten much in my dragon self.”

  “What? Really? Why? That seems like it would be, I dunno, bad for your health or something.”

  “Well, mostly it’s a matter of logistics, I suppose. I could eat this steak and maybe a few sides and end up mostly full, then go and fly for a couple hours. Or I could go fly for an hour, be stopped by ravenous hunger, and need to eat, like…three full grown deer and maybe a bear to feel satiated. So really, eating as a human is the economical choice. Besides, once I shift back to human, there’s far too much bathroom awfulness to deal with consuming that much wild game at once.”

  He said it so offhandedly that I nearly choked on the soft, roasted potatoes piled around the steak. Something about his tone, his look, and, well, the whole situation had me sputtering and trying not to laugh.

  “I… You know what. You’re right. It just makes sense to eat as a human then.”

  “I’m glad you agree. And speaking of eating, you still have plenty left on your plate.”

  “Alright, Mom,” I said teasingly, returning to the cutting of my food.

  It was a good moment, just me and him. No running, no talk of the end of the world. No dangerous battles or lectures on being careful. Just the two of us enjoying my dinner.

  “You know, you can eat too,” I remarked as I laid back in the middle of things, needing to take a break and rest my arm and back for a moment.

  “I meant to, but I had such a big lunch earlier that I just wasn’t in the mood.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Not in the mood to eat?

  “Who do you think you’re fooling?” I muttered.

  “Hmm?” He batted his eyelids at me. Oh yeah, he definitely was trying to pull something over.

  “…we’re not short on supplies and you’re not eating to make things last longer while feeding me steak, are you?”

  He flushed again, and normally while I liked it when he looked all flustered, I didn’t like the suspicion that was crawling up my back. “We’re rationing, yes, but it’s nothing like that.

  “You wouldn’t lie to someone with brain damage, would you?”

  “Are you going to use that forever now?”

  “That depends, are you going to keep dodging the question?”

  He heaved a little bit of a sigh. “I’m not purposefully skipping meals. Some of the dwarves did a supply run and I was…helping distract the rotted dragon long enough for them to get to one of the entrances down into the underground.”

  I dropped the knork thing. “You what?”

  “We needed more supplies and to help some refugees get to cover. It wouldn’t be right to hide down here when I could help. Besides, we figured that the rotted dragon wouldn’t be able to resist such a high-profile target.”

  I opened my mouth, that white-hot anger that came so easily just roiling up in a flash.

  “You—”

  But Bronn cleared his throat. “Before you say whatever you’re going to say, please remember that I literally had to leave an entire dimension knowing that you were going to sacrifice yourself to save others.”

  Ugh. He had me there.

  “Are you going to use that forever, hmm?” I said, echoing our previous banter. That broke the rising tension and he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

  “Ceasefire?” he asked, settling back in his seat.

  “Ceasefire,” I confirmed.

  “Good. Now eat your food.”

  I narrowed my eyes again, but this time in humor. “You telling me what to do?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He reached for the knork as if he was going to cut my steak and I slapped at it.

  “Hey, I’m getting to that. Eventually.”

  He smirked and I realized that I’d played right into his hand. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  “You think you’re clever,” I said, returning my attention to the food. “But I’ll have you know, I was going to eat this anyways, not because you’re telling me to.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe me.”

  “And you sound like someone who literally fell asleep mid-conversation yesterday.”

  “…fair point.” I took the largest bite of steak that I was able to cut, chewing openly. Bronn just rolled his eyes as he chuckled, his arms crossing his chest. When I failed at grossing him out, I just settled for enjoying the delicious flavor.

  There had been a short while, in the nebulous time of coming out of my medical coma when I was actually allowed to eat, that I couldn’t taste anything. Nothing spicy, nothing sweet, nothing sour. It was all the same bland mush in my mouth, and I had been so upset that I would never taste anything again.

  Thankfully, it had returned slowly over the days and I was mostly back to normal there. Sure, my jaw tended to ache if I had to chew too much, and there were still a lot of nuances that I missed, but I was happy to be improving steadily.

  Especially if it meant I got tasty steak.

  I got almost to the end before my head started to droop forward and my eyelids flutter shut. My stomach was so full, which was pretty ridiculous considering how little I had actually eaten. I didn’t even want to think of how much weight and muscle I had lost. It was too depressing.

  “Can you finish this off?” I asked, looking to Bronn hopefully. There were only a couple of bites left, but he still looked dubious. “If I eat another iota, I will literally upchuck. I’m still getting used to eating again.”

  “Are you certain?”

  I nodded and he took it from me. In two quick forkfuls, the meat was gone and so were the remaining potatoes and greens. It vanished impressively fast, and I thought longingly of the way I used to be able to wolf anything down.

  Maybe someday.

  “You falling asleep?” Bronn asked, standing and helping me lay back. I tried to spend as much of my day as I could sitting up, but it was so exhausting, and I was just so weak.

  “Got it in one,” I murmured, feeling that sticky-syrupy fatigue climbing rapidly up my frame.

  “Well, you get some rest. I’ll wake you up for your night meds later.”

  “And you’ll stay the night?”

  “Yeah, it’s my turn. Afraid you’re stuck with me.”

  “Good,” I said with a nod, using the last of my energy. I didn’t think I ever wanted to be alone ever again.

  3

  Scorched Earth

  BOOM!

  I was used to my dreams being big, scary, and loud, but the thundering crash in my mind seemed particularly obnoxious, enough to startle me towar
d consciousness.

  Except it took a whole lot to wake me up as of late, so I managed to stay under—or at least I did until I realized something was brushing across my face.

  Now that startled me, and my eyes snapped open. Only to clamp right back shut again when I realized that no one was brushing me, but rather that dirt was gently falling on my face. Not in huge clumps, but in little dashes that tumbled down from the ceiling almost like dust.

  That… That wasn’t good.

  “Bronn?” I asked, my heart thumping.

  He didn’t respond right away, but before I could gather the energy to call his name again, another crack of thunder sounded and he jolted up, eyes bleary.

  “Davie?”

  “I—”

  Then there it was, a booming explosion and the sound of screams. The lights died, only for a loud alarm to sound and dimmer strips to illuminate along the halls.

  “Bronn,” I gasped, eyes going wide. We both knew what was happening. We were under attack. But it was too soon. I was too weak. I couldn’t even walk yet!

  “Hold on, it’ll be alright.”

  Bronn’s face had gone carefully blank and suddenly, he was moving so quickly. He went to the IV hanging above my bed and removed it from the stand, placing it in my lap. Then a run over to the drawer where he grabbed two more and put them right next to the other. He threw the spare blanket on his chair over his shoulders and then he was scooping me up like I weighed nothing.

  “I’m sorry for the jostling,” he said, already out the door and heading down the hall. I could see that part of the tunnel had clearly collapsed, and people were running out of rooms and bolting down corridors.

  “I don’t care,” I breathed, glancing up to see cracks all along the roughly hewn ceiling. “Just get me out of here. Please.”

  I’d been scared plenty of times in my life, but I’d never been so entirely helpless. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even see that well. I was so weak and useless.

  “Davie!?”