“His bones aren’t healing fast enough to keep from collapsing on his heart. His heart isn’t strong enough to beat. We need the paddles.” Electric shock. They were going to electrocute him on purpose. I understood the basic whys of the procedure, but knowing it was my mate it was happening to…
Different people spoke, but it all blurred together for me. The sound of the bolt of power being shot into him, louder than the most powerful weapons of war. At least to me.
I waited for the beeping to come back, for them to say he was safe. It didn’t come. It wasn’t working.
We were losing him.
Rhythe’s broken body jerked off the bed for the third time.
“Still nothing,” the nurse, or maybe a doctor, it was all blended together, called out. And did it matter? The result was the same. This wasn’t working.
Rhythe’s mother let out a wail, and she held onto her husband tightly. He too was sobbing, something I’d never witnessed in all my years knowing him. This was every parent’s worst nightmare.
I refused to give up. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t. Fate wasn’t this cruel. The man I had dreamed of for my entire life was now in front of me, slipping through my fingers. I never even got to see his eyes. This couldn’t be the end.
My dragon roared, this time not a low growl meant to ward off a do-gooder. No, this was a full-on roar. The walls shook.
My gift, the thing I kept closely guarded, sizzled on my fingertips.
“Clear!” Another try with the paddles. The human tools weren’t powerful enough to revive a dragon.
“It’s not working,” the nurse said, her voice hiccuping. Losing a dragon, especially a young one, was hard. We were long-lived. It took a lot to take us out.
“We’re gonna have to call it—” The person holding the paddles wasn’t going to finish that sentence. None of them were.
“No,” I barked and pushed at the doctor.
“Emmen, no, you can’t—” Eryx was the only one here who might have a guess at what I was doing, and even at that, I doubted it. I’d been good at keeping it hidden.
“Everybody back up!” I shouted. The lights flickered as electricity shot through my veins. It had been years since I had used this part of me, but it came to me easily.
Lord Malric and I had long since decided that no one needed to know that it existed. Eryx had been around then, which was the only reason he might know. So much for keeping it secret. Here I was, exposing it all for the world to see. I refused to feel badabout it. If there was so much as a glimmer of hope that it would work, any and all exposure was worth it.
This was my mate, and I was not letting him go. Not without a fight.
I placed my palms over his chest and let my gift loose, trusting that my dragon would know what it would take to bring him back. There was no time to read up on the science of this procedure. It was trust my beast or give up. Giving up was not an option.
I fell away and let my dragon take over. Second-guessing him would only put my mate at risk. My beast needed 100% of the control. Rhythe’s body jerked off the bed when the lighting from my fingertips sizzled into his body. When he laid flat again, I checked the monitors.
A slow, steadybeep beepechoed in my ears.
“His pulse is coming back,” someone in scrubs said, relief filling the air at those few words.
I knew better than to think my mate was completely out of the woods. But hope was present, and I held onto it with both hands. Keeping my eyes glued on the monitor, I watched the steady beat of his heart, afraid it might disappear if I looked away. A lot of power had gone into his broken body, doing it again wasn’t an option.
After a long moment, Rhythe drew in a gulping breath. He reached for me. Electricity still sizzled in my palm, but I grasped him anyway. I had control of my gift, so I didn’t let the lightning fly. Once upon a time, that wouldn’t have been the case.
“I’m here, mate,” I said.
“Stay,” he mouthed more than said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes fluttered closed again, and I was afraid that I’d lost him once more. But the steady beat of his heart echoed in the room.
“Let’s get the X-ray machine going. I want to make sure his rib cage is healing, but as long as his heart is beating steadily, he has a chance.”
Chance. No promise of being out of the woods. He had a chance.
