Bound By Heat - Dragon Shifter

by M. K Eidem et all

  Without an argument, Ver’gren straightened his wings, lifting them higher as if to cradle Adri’s small still form between his scaled shoulders. I see the target on the hospital roof, though their personnel cannot hear me calling for them. They need to hear me, my warrior!

  His dragon sounded as panicked as Ti’eron felt and he sent a mental broadcast far and wide to his men, to his fellow commanders as much as he was able. My mate is hurt by Berstat electricity. Need assistance in summoning human help at Bedlow Hospital in Glacier Springs.

  Ver’gren touched down on lightly on the tarmac of the roof and took another step forward before he came to a full stop as gentle as Ti’eron had ever experienced. It could’ve been seconds, minutes or even fucking hours as he shifted back into his own human form, supporting the limp shape of his beloved on his back as he bent forward, supporting her body by a hands underneath her ass as he raced to the door. Two steps away, the door exploded with medical personnel and a gurney.

  “Here, dragon-rider,” a guy yelled, pointing towards to the rolling bed. “On her stomach. Jesus, what happened?”

  It wasn’t until his woman was face down on the rolling bed that Ti’eron saw Adri’s wounds. Wide stripes bleeding red, her sweet voice rough and edged in fear as she yelled out her pain when she was moved, jostled by the very ones who could see to her needs.

  Fucking bloody hell!

  His hands drifted to his scalp as he grabbed his hair with bloodied hands. “Fix her. Please. Dear god, please help her.”

  Someone in scrubs clutched at his arm, distracting him from his number one concern. “We will, to the best of our ability. But you’ve gotta go to reception and fill out some forms.”

  Leave her? Leave her when it had been him who’d put her in the path of harm?

  Not fucking likely.

  Another hand reached for him, banded around his chest and Re’nal’s voice puffed the hair around his ear as he held Ti’eron from behind. “Steady, dragon. Listen and do what they say.”

  Ti’eron turned his face towards his best friend, the one who had always held his back until the man moved to take both himself and his squad to Russia. Until Re’nal was no longer a part of Ti’eron’s everyday life, he never realized how much he both valued and depended on the commander of the blues for his clear, albeit, not-ready-for-prime-time views. “She’s gonna get help from the pros. Got it?”

  At Ti’eron’s nod, Re’nal’s arm, the one holding Ti’eron in a vise, eased. “So then you’ve got to play the human game, yeah?”

  “She’s hurting, Ren,” Ti’eron muttered back through lips stiff with fear. “We couldn’t move away in time and she—“

  “Shut the fuck up, amigo.” Re’nal pressed his head to Ti’eron’s as he again gripped with the arm he’d used to hold his warrior brother back in order to allow the medicos to do their thing. “Go down and do the shit these bastards require. Then we’ll talk, okay? Vanessa should be arriving soon and what you don’t know, she will.”

  Ti’eron allowed himself to sag against the man who he knew wanted nothing but the best for him and the dragon he held inside. If she dies…

  Ver’gren gave off a mournful roar and Re’nal waited until it passed until he spoke again. “If she dies, then you’ll mourn for her just as she did you.”

  Oh fuck! What Ti’eron was feeling now was what she’d lived with every day he’d been away?

  How had she survived?

  Re’nal released his grip before placing a hard hand between Ti’eron’s shoulders. “Do what you gotta do, brother. She both needs and wants you. So go deal with the paperwork shit and then reconnect with your mate.”

  Ti’eron raced down the stairs, going all the way to the bottom as his mind whirled with all the possibilities of Adri’s outcome. After slamming through the door, chin lowered in challenge, he confronted the girl at the desk. “Adrienne Votte?”

  Her fingers fumbled on the keys and he couldn’t blame her for the deep swallow she took. Yeah, at the moment he was a scary motherfuck, one determined to know the status of his woman. “She’s being seen to in Emergency bay one.”

  As Ti’eron turned towards the curtains that prevented him from finding his woman, yet another hand stilled him. He glanced before he shook off the light restraint only to find Vanessa holding him back, her face shimmering with tears.

  “I already gave them her insurance info and her address, Eron.” Of anything that he could object to, the use of his younger name on Vanessa’s lips was the least of his worries. “They said…” the blonde woman hesitated and Ti’eron’s stomach dropped. “They said they’d be moving her to surgery soon. I told them I was your sister and you were her husband. Only so they can give us her progress. Was that wrong?”

  Wrong? How could it be if it allowed the medical staff to report his woman’s status as the humans treated her? “No,” he replied, his voice was overly rough as he answered Adri’s friend. He coughed lightly, hiding Ver’gren’s flames of distress behind the hand he used to shade his mouth. “As long as we’re in the inner circle, the ones to hear of her condition first hand, I don’t consider it wrong.”

  Re’nal mate’s shoulders dipped as if in relief. “There’s a waiting room outside the surgical area. Maybe we can wait it out there.”

  Without a word, Ti’eron waved the other woman into the small space of the car of the elevator opening before them.

  It was a tense, silent trip upward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was on my stomach, face scrunched in some sort of thing you pressed into when going for a massage session. But my back was on fire. The medical personnel was behind me, beyond my view as the rolling bed I’d been placed on skidded and sharply turned, tipping me in both directions as they ran alongside my gurney. But their words hit me in the solar-plexus. “I need a bag of both blood and another of saline.”

  They’d intubated me on the roof, making me gag while thrusting a multi-joined metal juncture into a vein into my arm as well. Shoving life-giving fluids into me as the mobile bed I leaned into sped through halls, down slow-moving elevators.

  An unknown nurse bent down, one knee bending, until I could see her with my face immobilized downward to the floor, her brown eyes lifting up to my greens. “Ms. Vote-tay? Stay with us. We’re taking you to surgery. Your back is in bad shape. We’re gonna make every effort to repair it, all right?”

  Where was Ti’eron?

  That was the question beating within me. I didn’t care that the unknown woman messed up my name, screwed with my independence as she told rather than asked for my compliance. All I wanted and needed to know was where my Eron was in the whole of the scheme of what the people in scrubs planned for me.

  “Count backwards, Miss Vote-tay. Starting ten, nine, eight, seven…”

  *.*.*.*.*

  Ti’eron paced two steps, turned and took another lap in the opposite direction. Adri had been alone for three hours, three fucking of the longest hours of his life as even Ver’gren withdrew from the guilt both of them carried.

  She’d been under their charge and they’d failed to keep her safe.

  “You’re making me dizzy, dragon guy,” Vanessa stated in a flat voice. “Either get your shit together or get gone because what you and your dragon are feeling is too much for this chick.”

  As he dragged his burning eyes to Re’nal’s blonde-haired woman, Ti’eron tried to put a damper on his feelings. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah. You know that word doesn’t quite cut it for me.” Vanessa’s fingers plucked at her lower lip as she jiggled her crossed legs. “How come she was even up in the air when all the squads are allegedly grounded?”

  He parted his lips, as his feet stilled in order to answer her because it was a question he hadn’t yet answered himself. “We were in the air…”

  “Save it.” Her voice echoed against the walls of the tiny waiting room, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know the particulars and especially don’t want to be called as a witness
to all the charges you’re probably facing.”

  Ti’eron turned away from her voice, dropping his ass into one of the horrific orange pre-formed chairs bolted together. She was fucking right. He deserved to be arrested for what he’d allowed to happen. Christ! Adri had been so happy to ride, so filled with wonder both he and Ver’gren had forgotten about the Berstats and the battle they’d fought for weeks.

  Not to mention the injunction against flying at all.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. To his mind, and the silent beast holding back from any interaction, they’d fucked up.

  The next couple of hours dragged by and without any status, Ti’eron was left to imagine the worst. He remembered Re’nal bringing up coffee, but his cup remained untouched as his mind whipped from the image of his Adri face down on the gurney to even worse images of what was happening in O.R. The overwhelming guilt at his lack of attention consumed him.

  He could sense Ver’gren was feeling the same since the beast stayed so close to the surface although thankfully remained silent.

  A doctor in light blue scrubs arrived and stood in the doorway. As one both Ti’eron and Vanessa stood and faced the man. “She’s out of surgery and will be in recovery for a couple of hours.”

  Ti’eron waited. Surely the man had more to say than that!

  “Her wounds were very deep and since they crisscrossed her back, we needed to ensure her spinal cord was intact. Thankfully it was, although a couple of her vertebrae were nicked.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Vanessa’s whisper seemed loud to Ti’eron’s ears but he was glad she asked since he’d somehow lost the power of speech.

  “Given enough time, yes,” the doctor replied. “There’ll be scarring, some of it bad enough to require additional surgery but we believe she will retain full use of her arms and legs.”

  Vanessa gasped and grabbed Ti’eron’s hands. So that’s why the man had talked about Adri’s spinal cord first!

  “We’ll know more in a couple of days, after the swelling has gone down,” the surgeon continued. “With the volume of stitches needed, our biggest fear at the moment is infection. Considering what she’s been through, I’m cautiously calling her condition stable.”

  The medical man gave a tired grin that didn’t reach his eyes before he turned away. “You can see her in a couple of hours.”

  Ti’eron swallowed over his cotton-filled throat. “Thank you, doc.”

  The surgeon raised a hand but didn’t otherwise respond as he walked down the hall.

  Squeezing Vanessa’s fingers before he disengaged from her grip, Ti’eron also stepped away.

  “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to stick around until she—“

  He stopped but didn’t look back. “We won’t be able to see her for a couple of hours and there are things I need to do. I’ll be back later.”

  *.*.*.*.*

  I was out of it for more than a couple of days, what with the painkillers and other drugs the nurses administered every few hours. In light of how I felt when they reduced the dosage—the stinging of my back, the stabbing pain of my muscles when I only shifted and the hole in my heart at Eron’s continued absence—I kind of missed that drugged cocoon.

  Especially now the doctor had signed off on allowing me to be moved to my back. Being on my stomach, unable to see any of the flowers Vanessa said I’d received much less, any of the people who’d visited was awful. Not to mention, once on my back I’d be allowed to eat real food although the nurses warned I’d been on a ‘soft’ diet at first. When I balked, they patiently explained real food meant real reasons to use a toilet.

  I didn’t think I was up to that particular task yet so I quit my bitching.

  “Where do you think he is?” If I had a nickel for every time I’d asked that question, I’d probably have enough to pay my portion of the hospital bill.

  Vanessa flipped a page of the fashion magazine. “Don’t know, don’t care.” I heard the scrape of the chair and then saw her face as it appeared underneath mine. She did it so often, saying she needed to look at me when we talked, she’d even brought a yoga mat to lie on. “Re’nal hasn’t been around much either so I’m thinking they’re off doing dragony kind of things. Since the injunction was lifted and all, I’m sure the warriors are pretty busy.”

  I’m sure they were too, but Eron used to make time to see me back before my accident. And that’s exactly what I considered what had happened. It was a simple accident, something unforeseen but I’m not sure he would see it that way. Even as a boy, Eron always took responsibility and blamed himself when things went awry.

  “You don’t think he’s staying away because he can’t face me, do you?”

  She sighed and her eyes slid away. “From guilt, you mean? Honey, from what I heard, he more than deserves the blame for you being here. In my opinion, the man should’ve been arrested for reckless endangerment or something!”

  “Don’t say that, ‘Ness.”

  “Why? It’s the damn truth.” Her voice was full of righteous anger to the point I had to close my eyes since I couldn’t turn my head away. “You could’ve been killed, Adri. Or been a cripple for the rest of your life.”

  I’d heard that from both the doctor and nurses, even from some of the people who’d come to visit. About how lucky I was to be alive, that the Berstat’s strike hadn’t cut into my spinal column and that I’d somehow managed to live even though I was wearing about a thousand stitches holding together the muscles and flesh of my back.

  I didn’t feel lucky though.

  Not if my injuries kept Eron away.

  “Well speak of the devil,” Vanessa drawled before sliding out of sight. I heard her booted heels as she gained her feet. “Hey Ti’eron. It’s about time you showed up.”

  “Can you give me and Adri a minute?” The sound of his voice was music to my ears, soothing the ache of my heart.

  Her heels clacked against the linoleum and the door gave a soft thump as she closed it behind her.

  “Hi baby. How you feeling?”

  I wished I could see him, look into his face so I could gauge what he was feeling since his voice gave nothing away. “Okay, I guess. Not too bad.”

  His leathers creaked and I saw him go to his knees before he, like Vanessa had before him, went all the way to the floor and scooted his head and shoulders underneath my bed. “Hey there.”

  I couldn’t help the tears that flooded my eyes, from dripping down onto his forehead. The sight of his handsome face, of his winsome grin was the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I knew it was my turn to say something but I needed a couple of moments just to take him in.

  “Why the tears?” He reached up awkwardly, bypassing the cushion of the hole my face was shoved into and used a thumb to swipe at my wet eyes.

  “It’s good to see you,” I mumbled on a hitched sob. “So damn glad you’re here.”

  His cheeks took on a deeper hue but he didn’t look away. “I didn’t mean to stay gone so long but time got away from me.”

  “Vanessa said the injunction was lifted and the squadrons are busy.”

  “It was and we are. But that’s not what kept me from you, Adri.”

  The door creaked open and the squeak of shoes broke into our moment of quiet. “Okay, missy. You ready to be turned so you can look at the ceiling instead of the floor? Oh! Hello.” My day nurse, Helga began to laugh. “I’ve heard of bringing a man to his knees but I’ve never quite found the right thing that’ll lay ‘em out flat on their backs.”

  Eron winked up at me before he pulled back and stood. “We were just talking.”

  “Uh huh, that’s what they all say.” Helga was a hoot and was one of the few medical personnel I could count on to make me laugh. “Whatever it was that you needed to say face-to-face will have to wait. Why don’t you go wait in the hall, handsome, and I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

  The pain in moving me from front to back wasn’t as awful as I’d thought it woul
d be but it wasn’t a cakewalk either. When we were finally done, I was covered in sweat and Helga, bless her, provided some pain relief through my IV. “So for your first meal, do you want soup and gelatin or gelatin and soup?”

  What I really wanted was for her to shut up and leave so I could see Eron again. Something she must’ve picked up on because she threw me a narrow-eyed glance before opening the door again. “Yoo-hoo. Prince Charming? You can come in now.”

  Ti’eron’s huge physique filled the doorway as my heart began to beat hard and loud. He didn’t look at me but watched as Helga fluttered around the room arranging cords and wires, rolling the half-table over and straightening my covers. “I’ll be back later to see about taking out the IV and bring you some water and food. Just remember, you’re going to hurt for a while but buzz me if it gets too bad, okay?”

  I nodded and let my eyes trail her until she stopped in front of Eron. “She needs to heal, kiddo, so here are the rules: no making out and definitely no playing ‘let’s bump uglies’. You can kiss her but keep all other body parts out of it. Understand?”

  He swallowed and blinked before mumbling, “yes, ma’am.”

  As soon as she cleared the doorway, I held a hand up in invitation, reaching for him. In the blink of an eye, he was next to my bedside entwining his fingers with mine until we were palm to palm. He leaned in and brushed some of the sweat-wet tendrils off my forehead. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” I answered on an inhaled breath, soaking in the smell of leather and dragon man. “Now that you’re here, I’m better than just okay.”

  Without disconnecting our hands, he snagged the only chair in the room and slid it up next to my mattress. “Good. Because we’ve got some planning to do.”

  The chair’s seat made a swooshing sound as he eased himself into it.