Chapter 26 - Lily

Falling again…

That’s the last thing I remember before everything goes black.

When I open my eyes, I’m on a field of luscious greenery surrounded by the vivid colors of the flowers in the garden, the flowers that I’d been longing to pick with my own hand. To feel the gorgeous stems between my fingers and savor the scent permeating from the petals.

“Hi, Lily,” comes Draco’s voice, gentler than I remember his voice ever being. My lips automatically turn up in a pleasant smile as I turn around to find him standing between a rose bush and cyan-colored flowers that mimic sunflowers.

“Hi,” I respond, my voice carried by a sudden, soft gust of wind that billows my hair out to one side. Like a veil of brown, it’s translucent enough to still see the vast array of colors surrounding us in the meadow.

The warmth of the sun’s rays kisses my cheek on one side. But it’s not nearly what I truly crave. It’s Draco’s lips that I need.

His amber eyes are magnified by the brilliant morning sun, inviting me to witness his souls language. A language I seem to understand, even though its words are just the silence that stretches around me and envelopes me in its warm embrace.

Taking a step forward, Draco mirrors my actions as he comes closer. Closing the distance between us, I feel myself melting just from his presence alone.

And when his arms fold around me and whisk me into the solitude they provide, I sigh with contentment.

“We’re here at last,” he says, but I catch onto how his words mean so much more than just the surface of where we’re standing.

We’re finally here… At the precipice of a new beginning. A place where I’ve come to realize that my hero dons ruby crystals and walks on webbed claws. He flies through the air and carries me with him, and I get to see the world because of that.

I wasn’t looking for a savior. I didn’t need saving. Yet, it’s in his arms that I feel authentically me. Like I’ve been waiting all my life to come home. Home was never a place, but a being so extraordinarily powerful, that I feel empowered just by being around him.

“We are, aren’t we?” I smile as I lift my cheek from where it’s pressed to his chest. He’s staring into my face with adoration extending into how he cradles my cheek and smiles back at me.

Something about this moment feels perfect. I feel perfect—something I’ve never felt before. I’ve always felt out of place, a misfit amongst my peers. Even in my family, I felt the need to constantly fight to earn my place amongst them. I always needed to go the extra mile.

And right now, I can just be me. Careless and reckless, clumsy and without the answers to everything.

“I know it took some time…” he begins as he strokes my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “... But I’ve come to realize how important you are to me.”

I didn’t know how much I needed to hear those until they’d left his lips. I lose the air in my lungs as my heart skips a beat. Fluttering my eyelids at him, I suddenly want to pinch myself as if I’m dreaming.

“Draco—” I’m about to say how much he means to me, when he presses a finger to my lips to stop me from speaking.

He clearly has no idea what that single digit against my lips does to me. What havoc it wreaks in my core…

“I’m sorry that I didn’t get to you in time,” he apologizes sullenly.

“What do you mean?” I frown, the tender moment lost as panic begins to rear its ugly head. Its unwelcome talons claw to the top of my throat, and I gulp.

“The fall, Lily,” he whispers remorsefully. “Don’t you remember?”

As my brows pull tautly into a frown, I notice the sun’s light dissipating. Turning my face, I see dark smoke clouding our surroundings, stealing the beauty of the meadow on Aurora Island.

And stealing the peace I felt before.

***

Opening my eyes, I find myself in a very well-lit room. Blinking to adjust my vision to the onset of the bright lights, I can barely move.

“Wh-what?” I mutter to myself as I take a look around. My arms are on either side of me, resting on a white sheet covering my body. A slow beeping is the only sound I can hear.

“Oh, my gods! You’re awake!” Kairo exclaims.

It takes me a moment to move my head, to turn in the direction of her voice. She jumps off a chair in the corner of the room and rushes toward me.

“Kai?” I frowned as I took a proper look around me. The beeping sound comes from a heart rate monitor on my left, which is attached to my arm. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the island hospital,” she reveals as she gently wraps her fingers around my hand.

“Why?” I croak, attempting to lift my weight onto my elbows. The movement sends blood rushing to my brain, igniting my memories.

So I’d been dreaming about the meadow…

As my heart drops and gets lost somewhere in the pit of my belly, it churns as I realize that perhaps my dreams were too good to be true.

Again.

“Don’t you remember?” Kairo asks tersely, pressing her lips into a line.

I nod my head, wincing when it feels like my brain is loose inside my skull. I must have taken quite a hit when I fell against the castle wall. I recall the impact, and that recollections horror makes me gasp.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Kairo reassures with a squeeze of my hand. She places a hand on my forehead, her gentle caress dousing the panic that threatens to be coughed up.

“Breathe, Lily,” she encourages, wiping away the beads of sweat caught on my brows. “You’ll be fine. You just need to rest.”

Imitating the way she inhales and exhales, long and deep, I’m finally able to calm down. I haven’t had a panic attack since… A long time. My fainting spells seemed to have disappeared when I had to act bravely in front of Draco.

But right now, he isn’t here for me to pretend that I have courage. What’s worse, is that he isn’t here at all.

“Where is he?” I whisper apprehensively.

When Kairo doesn’t immediately answer, I turn with glowering eyes at her. She pointedly looks away as if she’s ashamed of the truth which she doesn’t dare to say.

“Kairo!”

She turns her face back with her lips pursed, flinching at the command in my voice. “There’s no easy way to say this, Lily. He’s—”

“Oh, you’re awake!” An unfamiliar yet friendly voice points out from the doorway. Both Kairo and I turn our heads in that direction, only to find an unfamiliar redhead at the door.

Okay, its unfamiliar to me. Kairo is visibly relieved when the woman walks in.

“Doctor Amell,” Kairo sighs. “She just woke up.”

The redheaded woman smiles at me as she enters the room with a clipboard in hand. When she nears the bed, she glances at the monitor and nods.

“Your vitals look good, Miss Turner,” she praises as she stretches out her hand. “I’m Saphia Amell, the Aurora Dragons’ resident doctor.”

Lifting my hand hesitantly, I shake the doctor’s hand. Though I can’t understand the glance she exchanges with Kairo, I’m too curious to sit there like I’m the third person.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, finally lifting my weight on my elbows and propping myself up. Kairo comes to my aid quickly, shoving a pillow behind my head.

I can’t understand why they’re acting strange around me. It’s almost like there’s terrible news looming on the horizon…

“Well…” the doctor begins, “... You sustained quite a lot of injuries during your fall, Miss Turner.”

“Please, just call me Lily.” I hope the loss of formalities will let her get straight to the point.

“Lily,” the doctor smiles. “But when Alpha Draco brought you in, we discovered something else. You’re pregnant, Lily.”

The silence that follows is deafening in my eardrums, only because of a white noise that rings out. It blocks out the rest of what the doctor says. It takes me a moment to wrap my head around this revelation.

And suddenly, it all makes sense.

“The fall…?” I ask with a frown.

This time, it’s Kairo who answers. “It was terrible, Lily. And no one thought you’d survive. But thanks to Doctor Amell—”

“No, Kairo,” the doctor interjects. “She’s only been here for one night. I had nothing to do with it.”

“So it’s the child, then?” Kairo asks.

“Wait!” I throw up a hand to stop both women from going on. “Can someone please explain what’s going on?”

Doctor Amell steps forward and pulls the sheet off my torso. “You should see this instead.”

I gasp when I feel her delicate fingers on my belly as she lifts the hem of the silk blouse. She rolls the white fabric to the top of my chest and gestures at my ribs.

“Look,” she says. “There’s nothing. Not a scratch nor a bruise.”

Kairo gasps as she leans over the bed to inspect me as if my bare belly is a strange phenomenon. When she straightens up, a broad smile spreads on her face. And I know exactly why she’s suddenly cheerful.

I know because I feel it, too. I understand it clearly, and the joy has me placing a hand on my belly.

“So that’s why he isn’t here…” I giggle. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“No,” Kairo relents as she shakes her head. “You’re not even supposed to be awake right now.”

I chuckle as I feel the strength rising within me. With acknowledgment comes power I’ve never felt before.

“Where is he?” I ask as I kick my legs off the side of the bed. Pulling out the wires connected to my veins, Doctor Amell chuckles as she passes me a bunch of bandaids.

“He’s in the boardroom,” Kairo informs me. “He called a meeting with the Dragon Council.”

“The Dragon Council, huh?” I snort as I get to my feet. “You’ll tell me all about them on our way there?”

“Of course,” Kairo smirks. “They are, after all, responsible for all of this.”