I’m sitting in bed beside Skye, reading, when she moves in her sleep, her bare arm brushing against my thigh. We had to change her clothes and the bedsheets several times because she sweated right through them.
I put my book away, then reach down and brush a curl of hair from her face. “Skye?”
Her fever broke several hours ago. If the antibiotic hadn’t worked, I was getting ready to fly Skye to a human hospital—we’d all been afraid that she’d get dehydrated.
The terror of watching her toss and turn in a fever dream was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. But if she stays here, if she accepts me and allows me to join Jack and Ty, this will be my new reality. It’s terrifying as hell.
She blinks slowly and opens her eyes. It takes her a moment to focus on my face, and then she offers me a feeble smile. “Hi.”
Sighing with relief, I touch my forehead to hers. “Hey. You had us worried there for a minute. How are you feeling?”
Skye yawns and stretches one arm above her head. “Not great. But I’m glad to be awake. That was…” She clamps her mouth shut and shakes her head.
I slide down in bed and tuck myself around her. The pressure in my chest eases as Skye rolls toward me and puts her palm on my chest.
“How long was I out?” she asks.
“More than two days,” I tell her. “We figured your exhaustion from healing all those people combined with hypothermia to bring your immune system down.”
She groans into my t-shirt. “Yeah, I’m going to need a better system for that.”
“You won’t be healing anyone else,” I reply.
That prompts her to lift onto her elbows to stare down at me. “What?”
“I’m not letting you heal anyone else if this is the result.”
I’ve thought a lot about this, and it’s what’s right. We managed just fine with Leanne as our nurse, and since sea dragons heal much faster than humans—or witches, apparently—we can continue as we always have. Skye will be able to focus on her own work and not get burned out as a result.
“But I can make a real difference,” she argues. “I just need to pace myself.”
I level a hard stare at her. “You were doing it to get people to like you better, weren’t you?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again. Then she flops on her back beside me and stares at the ceiling.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I press her.
She fiddles with the sheets and doesn’t meet my gaze. “Maybe.”
“Well, then.” I capture her hand and bring it to my lips so I can kiss her knuckles. “I can’t allow you to hurt yourself because some people in the village are close-minded idiots.” I pause, then add, “Especially since I was once one of them.”
She sighs and turns to face me. “You were never an idiot.”
I lean in and press a gentle kiss on her lips. “I was. But thank you for sticking with me anyway.”
Her cheeks flush pink, and she cuddles next to me. I stay with her, stroking her back, until she falls into a deep, untroubled sleep, then slip out of the bed and find Ty to switch shifts with him. I have a clan meeting to prepare for.
* * *
Freshly showered and shaved, I stand on the hastily repaired porch and face the entire community of Amber Bay. Even small children are in the crowd, brought along by their parents who likely didn’t want to miss this.
An unpleasant thought keeps rolling through my head: this might be the last time I face these people as their leader. I have no idea what rumors have circulated around the village, and if I were more of a politician, I would have waited until I had a good grasp of the climate before calling in a vote. Jack, Ty, and I haven’t left the house in days, and only had a couple of visitors—Leanne, who came by several times to check up on Skye, and Jack’s family, who brought us food so we didn’t have to cook on top of everything.
Whatever these people think of me, I’ll learn it soon enough.
“Hello, everyone,” I greet them, my stomach squeezing tight. “Thank you for coming today. I understand that some of you were unhappy when I changed the date of the meeting, but we had an emergency situation to deal with.”
“Is Skye okay?” a voice calls.
