by Sophie Stern
And then my fucking jaw drops.
It’s him.
It’s fucking him.
“It’s you,” I manage to say.
“Yeah,” he grunts out, and crosses his arms over his chest. “And let’s not start with the screaming again. Why don’t you tell me why you were holing up in my cave?”
“What?”
“My cave,” he says. “Why did you come in?”
“I…the storm…” I manage to say, confused. Why is Donald being like this? Isn’t he at least a little happy to see me? And why did he give me an IV? Where are we now?
And holy dragons.
He took my clothes off.
I’m naked beneath this blanket and he took my clothes off.
“I’m naked,” I manage to say, and I know I’m turning 30 shades of red right now.
“You were injured,” his voice sounds a bit more gentle now. Great. Pity. The last thing I need. I get the feeling that I’m going to have my work cut out for me when it comes to convincing Donald to come back with me.
“How long was I asleep?” I ask. Did I miss Cameron coming back to pick me up? I don’t know what he’ll do if he gets to the pick-up point and I’m not there. Is he going to worry? Is he going to go back without me? I just don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore.
“Not long enough,” Donald says. “It’s not even suppertime.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“In a hurry?” He asks.
“You have no idea.”
“Try me.”
“You aren’t even a little surprised to see me?” I ask, looking at him. Time has been good to Donald. He’s got the same bright eyes as he did all those years ago, and his hair is longer and sprinkled with grey now. He was young when he left the village. We all were. I was just a kid when he left, and now I’m a woman. And he…well, let’s just say the age difference doesn’t really matter when you look like that.
“I’m surprised you came into my damn cave without permission,” he says. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you manners?”
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to be a dick to people you haven’t seen in ten years?”
He pales a little.
“What?”
“Wolves and penguins, Donald! Did you forget who I am or are you just not pleased to see me?”
He doesn’t say anything, instead staring at me with a mixture of confusion and pain on his face. That’s when I realize what’s happening. Donald has been hiding in this cave for ten years. This is where he’s been. He’s been up here, alone, and he thought I was breaking in. He thought I was here to damage his solitude.
He thought I came to bother him.
Well, I did, but not in the way he thinks.
And then I realize something else.
I’m an adult now.
The last time Donald saw me, I was a gangly, awkward kid who hadn’t even gone through puberty yet. I was the epitome of a late bloomer and the last time I saw him, my brother had just died. I was young and scrawny and hadn’t filled out. My hair was shorter and I had crooked teeth and pimple-specked skin.
I’m a woman now.
I’m a full-grown, adult woman who has an attitude and opinions and curves.
Does he really not recognize me?
He stares at me for a long time. His eyes search mine.
“How do you know my name?” He finally says.
“I know a lot more than just your name, Donald. I know you grew up in Fablestone and you were always the smartest kid in the clan. I know you had big dreams and high hopes. I know you left to become a doctor because you thought it was one of the most noble and wonderful things you could do. I know you traveled the world helping people.”
“How could you possibly know this?” His voice is a whisper, but I’m not done talking yet.
“I know you came back, Donald. I know you came back to your family, to your clan. I know you couldn’t stay away forever. Not when people needed you the most. I know you did everything you could, but you couldn’t save him.”
Now I’m crying, but I’m not through. I have to stay strong. I have to stay brave. I have to be honest and blunt and get everything out because once I really start sobbing, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to stop.
“I know you tried to save my brother, Donald. You did your best. I know it. You fought with everything you had, but you were just a kid yourself. What were you? 26? 27? You’re the best, Donald, but there was nothing more you could have done for him. There was more wrong with Trey than anyone could have understood. The autopsy revealed that later, but you were already gone. You couldn’t have saved him, Donald. What he had…it was incurable, but there’s something you can do now, Donald.”
He’s staring at me with tears streaming down his cheeks, too, and I know that he remembers me now.
How could he forget?
I’m pretty memorable, if I do say so myself.
“The clan…” I try to tell him. “The clan needs you, Donald. I know you left. I know you had your reasons. I know you haven’t been back in forever, but my father…my father is sick, Donald. Lucky…I don’t know if you know who Lucky is or not, but they’re this group of scientists who have been giving the dragons fucking hell for awhile now, and they managed to get us infected with something terrible. I don’t know what it is. I just know the symptoms, but my dad…my dad has it, Donald. A lot of the clan does, too.”
I swallow hard, and I meet his gaze dead-on.
“We need you, Donald. You’re the only one who can save us.”
Chapter Seven
Donald
Natalie grew up.
No wonder she smelled so familiar.
The human is different than she was before. She’s smarter now, and wiser. She’s clever and brave. She embarked on some sort of journey to come find me in order to save the clan, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t completely hot.
I always thought she was a cool kid, but she was just that – a kid. She was an obnoxious troublemaker who roamed the clan trying to be extra badass because she wasn’t a dragon, so she always felt the need to prove herself.
Well, she’s proving herself now.
And she’s telling me the clan is in trouble.
“Natalie,” I start. “I left for a reason.”
She looks at me with those big, blinking eyes.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“I did everything I could…”
She starts to move toward me and then seems to remember she’s hooked up to the IV. Natalie looks at it for just a second, and then she pulls the needle from her wrist and moves toward me.
“You shouldn’t have pulled out your IV,” I start, but I swallow hard because she’s left the blanket behind. Natalie, the most beautiful human in all of Fablestone, is standing naked in front of me. For the first time ever, I wish I wasn’t a shifter, wish I wasn’t naked right now. I wish I was normal and human and fucking clothed because I can’t hide my body’s reaction to her.
I can’t hide my heart’s reaction to her.
“You did everything you could,” she agrees. She’s close enough to touch, close enough to hold. I could hold her now. I could press my body to hers and just hug her. It would be a nice sensation: sweet and warm. It would be perfect.
“I can’t save them,” I whisper, and this is truly my greatest fear. I can’t believe I’m admitting it out loud because for the past fucking decade, I’ve been trying to make up for the fact that I didn’t save one kid. Every doctor has patients die. It’s kind of in the job description, but losing Trey was terrible for me. It was the very first time I’d ever lost a kid and no amount of training ever prepares you for that.
I can’t stand the thought of losing another child.
Not another dragonling.
Not any child.
“Donald,” she steps forward and places her hands on my chest. She shouldn’t be touching me there, but she does. I can hear her hea
rt beating loudly in her chest, threatening to jump right out.
“Natalie.”
“You have to come. Please. You don’t know what I’ve been through to get to you, to find you. Everyone has been worried about you for years.”
“They’re fine without me,” I say.
“Nothing has been fine without you,” she corrects me. “Henrietta has been trying to manage taking care of people.”
“But she’s a vet,” I protest, forgetting for a brief moment how good her hands feel on me. “Didn’t Fablestone get a doctor?”
“Here and there,” she admits. “But nobody regular. Nobody who wanted to stay long term. We live in the middle of the forest,” she shrugs. “And anyone who really wants to live in the darkness of the woods tends to prefer Thunderstorm over Fablestone.”
Thunderstorm is another dragon clan that lives in the forest. We have no hard feelings toward them, but we have had some friendly competition in the past. Thunderstorm tends to rely on tech more than Fablestone, and it’s more modern in general. Still, Fablestone has a homey, comfortable quality to it. Besides, I loved growing up in the clan. Some of the best years of my life were spent there.
And now the clan needs me.
People are dying, and that terrifies me.
“Tell me what happened,” I start, and Natalie breathes a sigh of relief. She’s still touching me, but she seems a little more calm, and her heart rate slows.
“A few weeks ago, a dragon was taken. David. Cameron’s brother-in-law. His wife tried to rescue him, but she was unable to. Instead, she was taken, as well. A rescue mission was launched – that bit’s kind of a long story – and most of the clan went to Lucky to break in and rescue as many shifters as they could.”
“And how did that go?”
“It went…perfectly,” she scrunches up her face for a second and then looks back to me. “Too perfectly. Thunderstorm did a similar rescue op at the same time. We knew of two Lucky buildings in the forests, near the edge, and the set-ups were identical. Each clan found four scientists and twelve shifters at the facilities.”
“So you brought the shifters back,” I say, knowing where this is going.
It was a Trojan horse.
The scientists, or whatever group this Lucky is, baited the dragons into attacking and taking the shifters back. They either couldn’t locate our clan headquarters or weren’t able to infiltrate them directly, so they did the next best thing: they infected the shifters.
“They were sick,” she says, confirming my fears. “I don’t know what they have, Donald. None of us do. We didn’t notice at first, but then other people started getting sick. My father…”
Her voice trails off, and I realize that’s the worst part about this whole thing.
Natalie isn’t a shifter.
She’s not susceptible to shifter illnesses. She never has been. As the token human child in a clan full of shifters, she always seemed to be healthier than the rest of the kids. In reality, she just wasn’t being exposed to the germs that typically affect human littles.
And now I have the chance to save her father.
I let her brother die all those years ago.
No matter what she says, no matter what anyone says, I should have fought harder to save him. Now I’m being given another chance to do good, to do something to help my clan. I’m being given the chance to rescue people who need me, but first I have to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.
The snow is still falling outside, so we have some time to come up with a plan before we fly back to Fablestone and save the day.
“All right,” I tell her. “What are the symptoms?”
“What?”
“What are the symptoms of the illness?”
“You’re going to help me?”
“Of course I’m going to help you, Natalie, but you have to tell me what the symptoms are, first.”
“I…I…”
Then she launches herself at me, pressing her breasts against my chest, and wraps her arms tightly around me.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Just…thank you.”
Chapter Eight
Cameron
“He doesn’t look good,” I murmur, glancing at the chart of the patient on the makeshift bed. The veterinary clinic is completely full of patients and we’ve opened the doors to the old clinic that was used back when we had a proper doctor. Anyone with medical training who isn’t sick has been called in to help, but we’re still swamped, and the dragons seem to be getting worse with each passing day. “How much time do you think he has?”
“Not a lot,” my mother admits, lowering her voice. She shakes her head and walks away from me. She hasn’t cried, but I know my mom, and I can tell that she’s barely keeping it together. She’s been working day and night to take care of the dragons and rescued shifters alive, but we’re starting to lose people.
This virus took awhile to gain speed, but now?
It’s in full force and we’re almost out of options.
Thunderstorm is in just as much trouble as us. They’ve reported ten shifters dead already. They’ve sent messages to anyone who will help asking for assistance, but they haven’t physically sent anyone away. They don’t want to risk the infection spreading. After all, we don’t know how long the incubation period is. We don’t know how long the virus lasts. We don’t know anything except that the fever turns into seizures which turn into heart attacks which turn into pain. The sores that start on the patient’s stomach gradually spread, which leads to incredible pain. The vomiting and diarrhea is enough to dehydrate anyone on its own, but coupled with the other symptoms, it’s one of the most horrible illnesses our clan has ever seen.
And that’s saying something.
I set down my clipboard and walk outside of the clinic. Looking toward the mountains, I can see their peaks just over the top of the trees.
“Come on, Natalie,” I whisper. “Bring him back to us.”
Chapter Nine
Donald
“Fever,” she says. “Seizures and heart pain in some.”
“Heart attacks?”
“Two so far,” she says. “Both patients are still alive. Well, they were when I left.”
“What else?”
“Vomiting, diarrhea, and sores.”
“Sores?”
“Here,” she presses her hands to her belly. “Sores here and then they spread.”
“Abdominal sores?” I ask her, because this isn’t good. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
I groan and turn, leaving the room.
“Where are you going?” Natalie says, but I hear her footsteps and I know she’s following me down the hallway of the cave. The entire place is wired with electricity and has flooring that’s really nice. It cost me a fucking fortune to install and even more to pay off the guys who built it not to tell anyone I’ve got a secret, decked-out, underground mansion.
“To the study,” I growl, focused on my mission. There’s only one thing this virus could be. I’ve seen it before, but long ago, and I thought I wouldn’t ever see it again.
I prayed I would never see it again.
We reach the study quickly and I move to the shelves.
“Have some books,” she says in awe.
“You still like to read, do you?” I murmur, but I’m not really listening to her answer. I’m too busy pawing through one shelf and then another looking for the infectious diseases guide my counselor recommended my final year of medical school.
I lay the book on the table, spread it open, and start flipping through it.
“You know what it is, don’t you?” She asks quietly, moving beside me.
“Yeah, and it’s not good.”
Her hand rests on my arm, and I look up at her.
“Can you cure it?”
I don’t answer her. Instead, I turn back to the book and keep turning pages until I come across the one that scares me more than anything else in the world.
&
nbsp; “Draco febricitantem.” I point to the page. It has a crude drawing of a dragon shifter with sores covering his belly. Next to the picture, it lists the symptoms, in order:
Fever.
Seizures.
Heart pain.
“Draco febrici…” Her voice trails off.
“It means Dragon Fever.”
“Donald?”
“I’ve only seen it once before. I was in Asia. It was a remote village and there was only one patient still alive when I got there.”
“Did you save him?” Her voice is a whisper and holds the slightest sliver of hope.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“Is there a cure?” She says, refusing to be turned down. Not when she’s this close, I realize. To her, this is everything. To her, this is her family, her heart. Natalie needs her father. He saved her and took her in, raised her as his own child. Not many adults would be brave enough to love a random child as their own. Her father, though? He not only loved her, but he protected her. Cared for her. Did everything for her.
He made sure she was just as strong and fast and smart as any dragon child in the clan.
“There’s a cure,” I told her. “But we’re going to have to take a little trip.”
“To where?” She asks.
“Dragon Isle.”
Chapter Ten
Natalie
“Dragon Isle?” I find myself asking. “I mean, I know what it is. I know where it is, but why there?”
“I have most of the ingredients we need for the medication,” he says. “But there’s one plant I do not have and it’s native to that damn island.”
“So, what, the cure to this is just growing on Dragon Isle?”
“Yep.”
“What’s the catch?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s always a catch, Donald. So what’s the deal with this plant? Is it surrounded by bees? Guarded by sharks? Do we have to fight through the Dragon Isle Clan before we actually get to the fucking leaves?”