“What the fuck was that?” Pip sobbed.
“A fucking miracle,” Katrina said, her eyes glued to my hands. “A fucking miracle.”
Chapter 5
Rhythe
Black.
Everything was black.
The sound of static buzzing though my head made it impossible to focus, and struggle as I could, I wasn’t able to move. Was this death? Was this what the rest of my eternity would look like? At least I felt my mate’s presence before I died.
He came for me. If this was all there was, at least I had that.
I allowed the blackness to pull me back in.
Beeping. Beeping in the distance, and then closer and closer. The blackness still enshrouded me, but somehow it was less black. And my head? The staticky buzz was less. Not gone, but less.
My eyelids itched, but as I attempted to rub them, only my finger twitched, and it buzzed like there was electricity flowing through it. Weird.
I tried again and same result. My body was heavy… so very heavy. Even my eyelids were heavy, but I needed to see where I was, that it hadn’t been a dream, that my mate was here.
Multiple attempts to force them open did nothing more. The beeping got louder and louder and faster and faster as I struggled to get them pried apart. A glimpse of light told me I had some success, but only just, as the darkness came once more.
All I wanted was for the incessant beeping to stop and to see. Was it too much to ask? Apparently.
The sound echoing through the air reminded me of the days when my twin and I shared a room and his damn alarm would go off for hours before he finally turned it off. He never bothered hitting snooze, just let the incessant beeping continue. Only, Pip and I didn’t share a room anymore. We didn’t even live in the same house. At least I didn’t think we did. Everything was blurring together, and I wasn’t sure where reality began.
Did he have a family now or was his alarm ripping me from my dream where he was living his best life, a dream where the dragon I’d always had a weird crush on from afar was sent to me by fate? No. That had to be a dream. All of this was.
My dreams had been plagued with visions of Emmen, so it was no surprise that he had been front and center of this one. But that didn’t explain the pain radiating through me or this new electricity that flowed through his veins and sizzled on his fingertips like my own personal lightning storm.
“Rhythe, baby, are you awake? Please wake up. Open your eyes.”
Somebody held my hand, and I suddenly felt like I was home. It had to be Emmen. There was no other person who could make me feel that way, not even my twin.
Maybe this hadn’t been a dream. He was here. This was his voice, and he called me baby. Did he feel the bond too? Or did I hear it wrong, my mind still not clear?
Before this, I’d only ever been in a room with him one time. But that was enough. I’d know him anywhere. The short amount of time I had spent in his presence months ago was forever burned in the forefront of my mind. I hoped one day to be worthy of being in his presence again.
“Turn the beeping off,” I managed to say, my voice harsh and unfamiliar to my ears. The breath I took to say it, painful and heavy. “I’ll get up in five minutes.”
It was a lie. I doubted I’d even be able to open my eyes, my ability to speak surprising even me.
Homesqueezed my hand, and he let out a snorting laugh. “I don’t ever want to hear that beeping stop again. That beeping tells me you’re alive and that your heart is beating.”
“Of course my heart is beating,” I said. I was a dragon. My heart would beat for hundreds of years.
Something soft pressed against my palm—lips, maybe. I forced my eyes open to see Emmen sitting there, by my side. He was everything I remembered him to be except his eyes.
“Am I dead?” I asked. It wasn’t the first time I thought so, but at least now it meant I was with the goddess, my mate finally by my side. But also, wouldn’t that mean he was gone as well?
The beeping got faster, but he didn’t seem to notice, his eyes glued to mine.
His eyes were watery as he shook his head. “No, mate, you are alive. Thank the goddess."
“Was I almost dead?” As soon as the scratchy words left my mouth, I knew them to be true. I still wasn’t able to piece together the random bits of memory I had since leaving my brother’s house, but something bad happened… really bad.
