Age of Dragons

by Olivia Ash

  “If you give her another fifteen minutes, she should be awake,” the nurse continues, adjusting the IV bag as it hangs beside the bed.

  “Thanks.” I pat the doorframe absently as I force myself to walk away.

  I want to make sure Tucker's all right, and it won't do any good to sit at Irena’s bedside and twiddle my thumbs. I figure when Irena does wake up, she will want some time to herself.

  I meander through the corridor until I get to Room 17, and when I peek in, I find Tucker laying in a bed almost identical to Irena’s. His curtains are drawn, the sun streaming in through the windowpanes and filling the room with a warm light. A few chairs line the wall opposite him, and I grab one, carefully setting it beside him.

  I sit in the chair and lean my chin against the railing of his hospital bed, watching him as his heart rate monitor beeps steadily in the background. His bare chest rises and falls, half covered by a sheet, and I find myself simply watching him, hypnotized by every breath and grateful he's okay.

  For once, I have nothing immediate and urgent I need to do. Jace told me to take the day off from training, and since we won’t mate until he’s found his replacement, he’s focusing his full attention on securing a new chain of command for the dojo with Drew and Levi's help.

  And that leaves me with surprisingly little to do.

  It's nice to just sit here, to be with a man who has risked his life for me time and time again and be grateful that he's going to be all right.

  As I rest beside Tucker's bed, listening to the steady beep of the machines around him, I find myself surprisingly tired. My eyes get heavy, and even though the cold metal of the railing isn't exactly comfortable, I find myself beginning to doze off.

  The rustle of sheets captures my attention, and I jolt awake, not even realizing I had actually fallen asleep and with no idea of how long I was out.

  “Hey, babe,” Tucker slurs.

  I rub my eyes to clear my vision, and I find him watching me with his eyelids only half open. He grins as I wake up and reaches for me, his palm facing the ceiling as his fingers twitch slightly. I set my hand in his, holding him tightly as his grip tightens around my palm.

  And with that one little touch—just our hands grazing—I hum with gratitude and love.

  Real, true love.

  Tucker put his life on the line, as he has so often, for me. Love is a loaded word, but I think for him, it's the right one.

  I clear my throat, still not entirely comfortable with all this emotion and feeling.

  “So, you're hurting yourself for attention now?” I ask with a playful grin.

  He laughs. “That's a good one.”

  Seconds later, he cringes in pain and holds his free hand against the shoulder where he took the bullet. His face scrunches in agony, and I figure he probably needs another dose of morphine to help with the pain.

  “Nurse!” I shout into the hallway, hoping someone can hear me.

  “I'm fine. I'm fine,” he says, shaking his head and dismissing my concern with a wave of his hand. “Really, Rory.”

  I frown, not completely believing him, but I leave it alone for now. I'll tell one of the nurses on the way out that he should probably get a few more pain meds.

  My grip on his wrists tightens possessively. “Tucker, look. I'm sorry,” I say quietly, not quite able to look at him. “I blame myself for letting you get hurt. You should never have to take a bullet for me, and—”

  “Rory, stop,” he chides me softly.

  I look up to find him already studying my face, wearing a drugged grin as he admires me. It's charming and endearing, and I find my mind slowly going blank as that charming expression dissolves everything I wanted to say.

  “This is the life we chose,” he says calmly. “Bullets and facing down death every day, that's what we do. And Rory, I'll give anything to live that life with you.”

  I smile, utterly and completely enchanted by this foolhardy and adorable man. I stand, leaning toward him, and kiss him gently—even though I want to straddle him and hold his face. I need to be tender with him for now since humans don't heal quite as quickly as dragons, and he might be a little fragile for a day or two.

  “I'm so damn lucky,” I say, brushing my nose against his.

  “You really are,” he says, grinning. “I'm quite a catch.”

  I chuckle. “And modest too. Don't forget that.”

  “Oh, the most modest,” he says, smirking as he brilliantly plays along.

  The clack of heels against the floor catches my attention, and I look up as a nurse walks in. She rifles through the pages on her clipboard, frowning slightly as she studies Tucker's monitors.

  “Miss Quinn, you needed to tell me when he woke up,” she chides. “Mr. Chase here needs lots of rest and a lot more meds. Out, out,” she says in a slightly sing-song voice as she gestures toward the door.

  I chuckle. In this domain, I have no control. What the nurses ask for, they get, and I'm not about to argue with them. Not when my man's life is at stake.

  “I'll see you later,” I say, kissing him gently.

  “Don't worry, babe,” he says with a lighthearted shrug. “We'll get plenty of exercise later when you help rehabilitate me. I think I'll need lots of physical therapy.”

  He winks.

  I laugh on my way out the door, shaking my head at my adorable idiot.

  “Oh, Miss Quinn,” the redheaded nurse says as she passes me in the hallway.

  I pause, turning around as she stops mid-stride and points at Irena’s room.

  “Your sister’s awake,” she says with a smile. “She’s asking for you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, eager to see how Irena’s doing.

  I peek into Irena's room to find my sister sitting upright in bed, stretching her fingers. She studies her hands, flipping them over again and again as she examines every inch of them. It's almost like she can't quite believe they're there, but I'm not entirely sure what she's doing.

  “Hey,” I say quietly, knocking gently against the doorframe so as not to startle her.

  Irena slowly lifts her head and winces, tenderly touching her temples as she fights a headache.

  “You doing okay?” I ask as I shut the door behind me.

  I have a feeling that whatever Irena and I are going to discuss won't be lighthearted or playful. She's going to want to get down to business, and it's better if nurses don't overhear it.

  “I don't hurt as much as I normally would after an ass-kicking like that,” she admits with a small sigh.

  “That's the dragon healing,” I say, pulling a chair from the far wall up to the foot of her bed. I spin it around so that it's facing away from her and sit on it backward, with my elbows leaning against the backrest of the chair.

  Irena scoffs. “Well, at least the dragon blood is good for something, then.”

  I'm tempted to lecture her. The more she rejects her dragon, the greater her chances of killing it. But what she said was vaguely positive, and I'm going to take it as a win, however small of a win it might be.

  “The doctor says I'll be back on my feet by tonight,” Irena says, lifting her eyebrows in disbelief. “It's crazy to think about. Before the coma, I'd be out for two weeks easily after something like this.”

  “Yeah, that's dragon healing,” I say again. “You have a lot of gifts now that you didn't have before.”

  She quirks one eyebrow, daring me to scold her or ask about training with Harper, and I take the not-so-subtle hint to shut the hell up.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” I ask instead. “What went wrong at the storage facility?”

  Her shoulders droop slightly, and she bites her lip as she stares out the window. Her jaw tenses, and I can see the muscles in her neck tighten. “A lot went wrong.”

  That's an understatement, but I don't say anything. I sit with the silence, letting her speak when she's ready.

  “We were betrayed, Rory.”

  “Yeah,” I say b
itterly, looking at the floor as I absently brush my thumb against my jaw.

  “I've been trying to figure out who did it,” Irena admits, her voice deadly serious. “As I fell in and out of consciousness and the pain was too much to bear, the only thing that kept me going was figuring out who would do this to me. Who I shouldn't have trusted. There were a few vulnerabilities in my network, some people I wasn't quite sure of, but one stands out as the obvious weak link.”

  “Who?” I press.

  Irena shakes her head, looking at her palms as if she can't bring herself to say the name. She pinches her eyes shut, her lips finally parting, but even still she hesitates.

  I've never seen her like this. She looks—well, vulnerable. Exposed, and a little raw. Whoever this person is, they meant a lot to her.

  “Benjamin,” she says quietly after a while.

  I frown because I have no idea who the hell that is.

  “You never met him,” Irena continues, still not looking at me. “I kept my lovers secret as much for your sake as mine.”

  Oh.

  Oh, shit.

  “Irena,” I say softly, leaning toward her. “You're not saying this is someone you love?”

  “Yeah,” she admits, her voice breaking as she looks out the window yet again. “I guess his loyalties lay elsewhere.”

  I shatter for her because the thought of being betrayed by the men I love—even just the thought—breaks me. I stare at the floor, trying to get my bearings and figure out what to even say. “What makes you think it's him?”

  “There's no one else it could be,” she says simply, squaring her shoulders. “I gave every contact a different location for the cases. It was a test, Rory. To see who I could trust and who I couldn't. But Benjamin, I had to give him the real location. He was the one who helped me get it there in the first place,” she says, catching my eye. “I figured if I could trust anyone, I could trust him, and—” Her jaw tenses painfully as she squeezes her eyes shut. “I guess I couldn't,” she finishes, swallowing hard.

  I sigh, rubbing my eyes, not sure how to handle this. I don't care about Benjamin. I care about Irena. I care about what this is going to do to her, how it's going to break her to be betrayed by someone she trusted so intrinsically.

  “That's why Zurie wasn't there last night,” Irena says, breaking my train of thought. “I had four contacts, and based on the chatter, it looks like two of them betrayed me. Zurie went to one location and Diesel went to the other, both with massive forces and both with one goal.” She pauses, looking me dead in the eye. “To kill us.”

  I let out a slow and heavy sigh as I process what she's telling me. “What are you going to do?”

  “I have two men to kill,” Irena says, her eyes narrowing as she glares outside.

  We sit in the lingering silence for a while, mostly because I have no idea what to say. I don't know how to make this better because that's not something that's even in my power to do. This is Irena’s battle, her wound, and all I can do is be here for her.

  “Rory, I can't believe I'm about to ask this,” Irena says, pinching her eyes shut as if she's bracing herself to ask the impossible of me.

  “Yeah?” I ask warily, preparing myself for the worst.

  “Can you call a meeting with your men?” Irena asks, wincing as if the words literally hurt her. “This is something we need to discuss before any action is taken.”

  For a moment, I just watch her with a small smile on my face, not bothering to mask how impressed I am with her growth.

  “Yeah,” I say with a small nod. “I think we can do that.”

  “Good,” she says, shaking out her shoulders uncomfortably. “If you don't mind though, I could use some time alone beforehand.”

  “Of course,” I say, standing and returning the chair to where it was originally. I head for the door, pausing only briefly as I leave to check on her over my shoulder. She's still staring out the window, stiff and uncomfortable, battling her demons alone.

  I don't blame her, of course. I was the same way before Tucker. Before Levi. Before Drew. Before Jace.

  Love changes you, but only if you let it.

  I sigh and walk into the hallway, closing the door behind me as I leave. I duck my head in Tucker's room one more time to find him out cold, snoring slightly as he no doubt rides another wave of pain medication.

  As I leave the medical ward, the double doors slowly closing behind me, I notice a familiar soldier lounging with his back against the wall. When he lifts his gaze from the floor and sees me, he abruptly stands upright, smoothing out his shirt as if he's been waiting here for me.

  Eric.

  “Is Irena okay?” he asks, briefly glancing at the doors.

  I nod, grateful that there's at least one man around here that Irena can trust. “She's fine. You can go see her.”

  He shakes his head. “She won't let me in.”

  His shoulders droop slightly as he speaks, and in that moment, everything clicks for me.

  I sigh deeply, rubbing my temples as I realize just how badly this Benjamin person messed Irena up. Two of her lovers just betrayed her to our former mentor, to the woman who wants us both dead in the most painful way possible.

  Of course Irena is closing herself off. It's all she knows how to do.

  I set my hand on his shoulder. “It's not you, Eric. She doesn't trust easily, and she's shutting down right now because—well, because…” I trail off, not even sure where to start with this. It's not my story to tell.

  “Thanks,” he says, clearing his throat as he looks again toward the medic bay doors.

  He seems to get it, and I'm thankful I don't have to explain anything more than that.

  “Tell her I'm here,” he says, looking at me. “When she's ready.”

  I offer him a half-hearted smile and a small nod. At that, he walks away, disappearing around the corner.

  I need to have a talk with her. She can't shut out all love just because her old life betrayed her. She's a new woman now, with a new future. She just hasn't accepted it yet.

  She will in time.

  …I hope.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As the moon rises over the mountains surrounding the dojo, I once again walk into Jace's war room. It’s just me, the dojo master, and the Darrington heir—and this time, those two aren't at each other's throats.

  It’s surreal, I won’t lie. Welcome, but strange.

  They sit at the far end of the table as I enter, already laughing at some joke Drew's finishing up. Both men smile at me as I get comfortable in my chair.

  I figure they're probably swapping playful insults, and I'm just grateful to see the two of them getting along for once.

  It's a nice change of pace.

  I went to check on Tucker again an hour ago, and he's out of commission. The nurses said he needs more rest, so, unfortunately, he won't join us tonight. I figure Irena will be on her way soon, though, as I assume she’s been ignoring the doctor's orders to sleep and heal.

  We Quinn girls don't usually do what we're told, anyway.

  The door opens, and Levi enters. He smiles warmly as our eyes meet and sits beside me, gently brushing his knuckle along the exposed skin on my arm. As we touch, our connection opens, and a flurry of affection swarms through from him. It fills me with sunshine and joy, and I allow myself to simply sit with it, to enjoy it.

  Hi, I say through our connection, smiling as we speak without saying a thing.

  He grins, a flirty glint to his eye. Hey.

  The door swings open, and Irena enters. Despite the bandage still wrapped around her wrist, she seems completely normal. There's no limp, no blood stains, and not even a hint that she was ever seriously wounded in the first place.

  Across the table from me, she leans her palms against the wooden surface, not bothering with a chair. Her bright green eyes seem sharper than usual.

  Clearer.

  Focused.

  Angry.

  It's surreal to think
my sister has Kinsley's magic in her. That, in some small way, Kinsley is somehow in there.

  It’s a sudden thought, the kind that comes out of nowhere but won’t leave. I never really thought about it that way before, but something in the way her bright green eyes rove over the table makes me realize how quickly she's adopting the little traits of a dragon. It's subtle, but I can see it in the way she moves, in her posture.

  The way she walks.

  The way she thinks.

  Even if she hasn't accepted what she is, her body is changing.

  There's nothing she can do to stop that.

  “How far along are you in producing the Spectre tech we acquired?” she asks, her eyes darting between Jace and Drew.

  I chuckle. It's just like her to get right down to business, to assume control of the room and immediately start making demands of people.

  Jace seems to get as much of a kick out of it as I do, given that this is not only his dojo, but his room. A small grin plays at the corner of his mouth as he briefly looks at me, surprised Irena has the guts to take control.

  Everyone here is used to handling stressful military matters, and we're fine with just getting right down to business. Only Tucker would have said something, maybe—Hey, Irena. We're great, thanks. How are you?

  But since he's asleep, I bite my tongue, resisting the impulse to make a sarcastic crack.

  “I found the materials,” Drew says, reclining in his chair as he taps his finger on the table. “However, it's difficult to get a steady supply without raising all sorts of eyebrows. I need a bit more time and a few shell companies to make it all happen with any kind of consistency. Otherwise, we risk all sorts of investigations across dozens of countries, and we don't want any of this tied back to us.”

  “Exactly,” Jace says, leaning his elbows on the table. “The Fairfax production facilities are nearly ready. We're clearing out a few of our military weapons compounds to prepare and produce this tech you've given us, Irena. Once Drew procures the resources in a steady fashion, our factories will be able to manufacture most of what you gave us. Not all of it though, so we're still figuring out how to get some of it working.”

  “Like what?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.