“I’m going to be forthright here. There don’t seem to be any issues with your sperm count, Kergot. The issue seems to lie with Penelope’s eggs. They are being attacked by her own body, killing them off before they can be fertilized.”
“How is such a thing possible?” Penelope asked, hoping for a reasonable explanation, something that could be fixed.
“I don’t know. Your white blood cell count is perfectly normal, so I’m guessing that it only elevates when you ovulate. At that point, your immune system is treating your eggs as if they are a foreign body and attacking them. They are dead on arrival, so to speak.”
“Is there nothing we can do to fix it?” she asked hopefully.
“Perhaps, but the honest answer to that is that I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. We could try medication to suppress your immune system, but that opens you up to more serious problems than infertility, I’m afraid.”
“So, you are saying it is hopeless then,” she said, already almost in tears.
Kergot pulled her to him, holding her and stroking her hair as the doctor continued to speak kindly to the two of them. It was obvious that he hated to be the bearer of such bad news, but it probably wasn’t even the worst of what he had to sometimes relay to his patients.
“Nothing is hopeless, Penelope. With your permission, I’d like to refer your records to some specialists that I know. Perhaps they have run into a situation like this and can be of some further service to you. I just don’t want to get your hopes up. I can’t make you any promises.”
“I suppose a shred of hope is better than none at all,” she told him quietly.
“We will just hope for the best. Let me get this out there, and if any of them have anything that might be useful or want to examine you further, I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Kergot told him, standing to shake his hand. Penelope rose a bit slower, but shook his hand as well before he escorted them out of the room.
“Are you okay, Pene?” Kergot said quietly as they stood waiting at the elevators back down to the first floor of the large medical complex.
“I suppose I will have to be. I’m sorry, Kergot.”
Tears fell down her face as they stepped inside the lift, which was thankfully empty. Kergot pulled her close to his chest and hugged her tightly. She sobbed as the elevator stood still, waiting for them to push a button to descend. Then, it began moving without them, and she pulled away, hurriedly wiping away her tears before the doors opened for whomever had requested it before they had selected floors.
“Come on. Let’s go get some ice cream,” Kergot told her.
“I don’t think you can fix everything with ice cream,” she told him, knowing he was only trying to lighten the mood by treating her to the rare cone she sometimes enjoyed.
“I can try,” he laughed, leaning toward her and kissing her on the forehead as they strolled, hand-in-hand, toward the Morelli’s shop they had passed on the way to the train station.
“We’re just going to have to put this behind us now and not think about it anymore. It’s better that I resign myself to not having any children and somehow get lucky rather than continue to hold any false hopes,” she said.
“There is nothing wrong with hope. Just don’t dwell on it, Penelope. We are fine just as we are. If it wasn’t meant to be, then we just have to accept that. My love for you is endless.”
“As is mine for you,” she told him.
“Here we are. I think today calls for sprinkles!”
“I’d hardly say that today’s news is sprinkle-worthy,” she said woefully, trying to force a smile.
“Then you would be wrong. Any day can be improved with sprinkles.”
“Well, then I guess we might need to double up on those right now,” she replied, finally managing a smile.
Kergot nodded as they stepped into the ice cream parlor down the street and waited in line. He reached for her hand, holding it tightly as they both stood there, lost in their own thoughts. At least, he was lost in his. She could only read his thoughts when he chose for her to do so. She, on the other hand, was an open book to him.
“Two large, chocolate cones with double sprinkles,” he told the young lady behind the counter.
“Coming up,” she replied happily, batting her eyelashes at him as if Penelope wasn’t there.
It was something she had just gotten used to over the years. Women were attracted to Kergot in a way that was unexplainable. Whether young or old, they gravitated toward him. He was a very attractive man, but it was more than that. She couldn’t explain it, but they seemed to just revolve around him anytime he came near. He seemed completely oblivious to it, laughing it off on the occasions she had even made mention of it.
“Stop it,” he whispered to her.
Penelope looked up at him uncertainly. It took her a moment to even realize her own thoughts and understand that he had read them. Her mind had drifted toward the possibility that, perhaps, he would be better off with one of those women. If he was going to be with a woman who couldn’t shift, she should at least be able to give him children.
“I’m sorry,” she said instinctively.
“Stop apologizing. You’ve nothing to apologize for,” he said softly, his words trailing off as the girl behind the counter began handing their cones to them and waited for payment.
“Thank you,” the girl told him, handing him his change with a broad smile directed solely at him.
Kergot, as usual, didn’t seem to notice. He handed her one of the cones, and put his hand on her lower back as he escorted her toward the door. Penelope’s mood lightened a bit with the reminder that he seemed to have eyes for no one but her. It wasn’t really something she ever doubted, but how much he loved her was sometimes overwhelming in such a wonderful way.
Struggling to overcome the foul mood that threatened to take her over entirely, she began to work on her ice cream and the mass of sprinkles clinging to the delicate, creamy surface. He might be right about the power of this stuff. It was hard to be distraught with so much deliciousness in hand and a beautiful man by your side.
“Much better,” he whispered, kissing her temple with chilled lips.
“Thank you.”
Penelope smiled to herself as they strolled toward the train station to make their way back to the Mournes. Penelope could no longer remember the last time she had flown without the aid of a man-made contraption. The closest she had come was hang gliding, something she still did from time-to-time when the need to take to the skies became too great.
“I think I would like to go out to the glider site tomorrow,” she told Kergot.
“Sounds good. We’ll get out there early for a flight.”
Penelope nodded quietly and returned to her ice cream before her sprinkles all melted down the sides.
CHAPTER 15
It was the last time either of them spoke about having children. Instead, they plunged themselves into the life they had, enjoying the children that were put into their care for educating and quickly abandoning any thoughts that threatened to infringe upon their serenity.
Time seemed to fly by and, with it, changes that neither could say were for the better. It all came to a head one gloriously sunny day, a rarity in wet, chilly Ireland. Penelope had been called out to the school by one of the teachers, but not because of her students. Instead, she had encountered something far more heinous. At the center of it, as seemed to be the case with any trouble that came to be, was none other than her former student, Aiden.
“What is going on here?” she asked as she attempted to enter the doorway, only to find it closed shut, men placing padlocks on it.
“This school is being closed down, effectively immediately,” he said.
“What? What on Earth are you talking about?” she replied.
“It has come to my attention that the children of this school are being taught some inappropriate things.”
“What? Like what?”
“Like that they should embrace their human neighbors, learn to live in harmony with them. That is exactly the kind of mindset that leads to the bastardization of our kind.”
“Bastardization?”
“Yes, when humans mix with dragon shifters and give birth to foul abominations, mixed breeds not fit to live among us.”
Penelope had to bite her tongue. No one in the village was aware of Kergot’s origins or his gifts. So, he had no idea that he was talking about her own husband when he made his heinous remarks. Still, she was sure that Kergot wasn’t the only one in this village with secrets and she was well aware of Aiden’s.
“What right do you have to come here and talk to me like this? Close our school? I know that Tomlin has been quite ill, but he is still dragon leader. Everyone has suffered lately with the loss of our own from the McCord family. You really want to upset them further by denying their children an education?”
“Oh, I see you haven’t heard the latest news. Tomlin has passed, and I am the new dragon leader. It’s not quite official, but all I lack is the formal swearing in. I’m just getting ahead of the game a bit by taking care of a few things. Getting the children in this village in the right frame of mind is high on my list of things to accomplish.”
“And you think that simply shutting the school down will do the trick?”
“It’s only a temporary measure. I will be calling a meeting with all of your teachers to go over the new curriculum once it is established. I have someone working on it already.”
“This is not your school, Aiden, and until the dragon council swears you in and informs me that your authority is valid, I will not be allowing you to close this school. I will be requesting a hearing to discuss the legalities of this decision, at any rate.”
Before Penelope could react, she felt his cold grip on her wrist, yanking her forward from off the steps of the building and flinging her to the ground. She lay there for a moment, stunned that he had lain hands on her. Finally, she began to climb to her feet.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she heard Kergot yell.
His voice was angry, angrier than she had ever heard him. Not even during their encounter with her former fiancé had he sounded like that. Before she could say anything, he was in Aiden’s face.
“Step off,” Aiden said calmly.
“Step off? You just hurled my wife to the ground, and you are telling me to step off?”
“Please. She’s just a woman and a fruitless one at that. You can’t be upset that I might have done any harm to anything more than her pride. Obviously, she’s not got a child in her womb that might have been injured. Everyone in this village knows she’s as barren as the rocks of the causeway on our northern coast.”
All Penelope heard was the loud crackling and a hiss that set ice adrift in her veins. He was changing, growing, shifting into his dragon. No! He didn’t know who Aiden was now. This was punishable by far more than a slap on the wrist if he brought harm to him.
“Kergot! No!” she shouted, but it was useless. He couldn’t hear her with his anger taking control of his entire being.
Aiden stood his ground, refusing the change. Kergot faced him, breathing his hot breath against the ground at his feet. The grass beneath Aiden turned brown in front of her eyes as she begged him to stop.
“Best listen to your woman, Kergot. You know what will happen if you attack a shifter still in human form while you are in your dragon presence. It would be such a shame for her to be both empty and widowed.”
Kergot’s shrill hissing filled the air around them, and then he shifted back into human form, suddenly launching himself forward and knocking Aiden backwards.
“Fine. If you cannot fight as a dragon, you will fight as a man, you miserable coward!”
“Don’t!” came a voice from behind them as Kergot lifted a single fist to strike Aiden, who was pinned down by his other hand and the weight of his body on him.
“Why shouldn’t I? You saw what he did,” Kergot barked back.
“Because Tomlin is dead, and he is your new leader.”
“He is no leader of mine,” Kergot roared, drawing his fist back further and then dropping it heavily against Aiden’s nose.
Their bodies rolled about on the ground, throwing punches at one another until Aiden finally managed to free himself and took a few steps back, finally shifting into his dragon. Now it wasn’t only Penelope begging Kergot to stop, the man behind him had joined in, raising his voice to be heard over the two mighty beasts.
Aiden shot up into the air, soaring high before reversing in an effort to dive bomb his opponent. Kergot met him full force shooting upward and barreling into him mid-air. Both dragons went skidding sideways only to regain control of themselves and clash again.
People had begun to gather on the ground now, as Penelope gave up on her shouting and watched, horrified, with tears streaming down her face. The man that had come with Aiden, she knew his name but couldn’t quite grab it in her mind. It was something Donnelly. What was his part in all of this?
There were gasps all around as Kergot seized Aiden by the neck, hurling him sideways and causing him to lose altitude. He thudded to the ground heavily, and Kergot landed atop him, pinning him down. Penelope tried to unjumble her thoughts. She wanted to speak to Kergot with her mind, try to get him to stop this, but was afraid it would only spell more disaster by giving Aiden the upper hand.
Kergot flung him sideways, hurling him into the heavy stones that made up the school’s exterior. A pained sound came from him, one wing folded beneath him at an awkward angle as Kergot lumbered toward him, once more. Penelope seized the opportunity to communicate with him while Aiden was stunned.
Kergot, please. Don’t. Let this go! her mind pled.
It was no use. He had closed his thoughts off to her. They were nothing but a massive tangle of unbridled anger that she couldn’t break through. She watched as he stood over Aiden, prepared to finish him. Then, there was the sound of powerful wings all around as more than a dozen men landed and surrounded the two men.
One of them shifted and stood before him, looking at him with a bit of trepidation. His voice trembled a little as he spoke.
“Kergot, we have been sent by the council to arrest you for your attack on the new dragon leader. Please don’t make this worse than it already is. Think of Penelope.”
Kergot’s mighty head turned, looking at Penelope standing there, her eyes still pleading with him to end this, though she said nothing. He opened his mind to her and flooded her with his thoughts.
I’m sorry, Pene. I just lost it when I saw him touch you. Are you okay? Are you hurt? his mind asked.
I’m fine, Kergot. Stop this. Please.
They will take me to the dungeons.
We will explain to the council why you attacked him. They will see reason. Stop now, before it is too late.
Kergot lowered his head and looked at Aiden, who had now shifted back into human form to avoid further injury. He lay cowering against the stones that he had hit only moments ago, but his eyes showed clearly the hatred in his heart. Penelope knew this would not be the end of it for him. He had always been vindictive and petty, even as a child.
Kergot shifted and turned back toward the guards, placing his hands in the air and walking slowly toward them. They didn’t bother to place handcuffs on him. There was rarely a need for that here, as dragons could just shift and get out of them if they chose to do so. Penelope watched as he moved away with them, once again communicating with her silently.
I will be fine, Pene. Go home and call an attorney. You know Aiden will not let this go as just a reaction for what he did to you, but the council has more sense. I will sit in his cell for now, until I can get in front of them. I love you, Pene.
I love you too, Kergot, her mind whispered back.
Then he was gone, having gotten far enough away from her that his thoughts were clouded. She began to walk back toward her home when Aiden stood an
d addressed her.
“You will need to vacate the premises of the house you are currently residing in immediately. It is owned by the council and only granted to you for as long as you operate this school. You are no longer entitled to live there.”
Pene stopped and turned back toward him, defiance in her eyes. She took a few steps in his direction and held her head high as she spoke.
“That house is not owned by the council. The land was given to us to build it on and we built it ourselves, just as we built this school from a small cottage to the large-scale, educational facility that stands here today. We taught you in it, watched you grow from a small boy to an educated, young man. If we have failed at anything, it was teaching you the importance of humanity. You want me out of our house? You’d best send someone to take me out.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I’ll be there, waiting,” she told him, her heart beating so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear even her own voice, much less his. Still, she persisted.
She felt broken as she walked home, facing the first night in a very long time that she might sleep without Kergot by her side. The thought of him in the council dungeons, the thought of what Aiden might have his men doing to him there broke her heart, but she had to stay strong. She would not let the likes of Aiden get the best of what she and her love had built together here.
CHAPTER 16
Early the following morning, Penelope made her way to the dungeons to see Kergot. Her arrival there was met with utter contempt from the guards that served Aiden.
“I insist on seeing my husband!”
“He isn’t allowed visitors,” one of them told her. “Get back home, woman.”
“Woman? We aren’t still in the 18th century, and you weren’t around when some of us were. I would suggest that you show some respect for your elders.”
“And, I would suggest that you leave before you end up in your own cell,” he spat back at her.
Awakening The Dragon (Exiled Dragons Book 9) Page 7