Chapter 27 - Draco

1 Day Before

“Doctor Amell!” I roar as I burst through the hospital doors with Lily in my arms. Her limbs lifeless; I rush inside with my only hope being behind these walls.

“Alpha Draco?” Doctor Saphia Amell rushes out of her office. When she discovers me in the hallway, her eyes widen with shock.

Her face is already paled from the dissonant screeching and hissing outside the building. Standing a few meters from the castle, the local hospital is nothing more than a facility medically inclined dragon shifters use for trials.

It’s not like we’ve ever needed to utilize this place. Being immortal means that we never get sick. So, a lifeless body in my arms is shocking.

“She needs your help. Please!” I beg, wincing from the cries of my clan outside. My brothers swore to take care of the Blaze Legion Alpha. And I’ve placed my trust in them to take leadership and decisive actions in my absence.

This is more important. Lily is more important right now.

“What happened?” Doctor Amell asks.

“Just get her back, will you?!” I spit venomously. I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t desperate. After all, Saphia is Skarlett’s mother.

“Come this way,” Saphia waves toward a closed door. Once inside, I lay Lily down on the hospital bed as the doctor gathers equipment.

“You’ll have to tell me what happened, Alpha,” Saphia presses gently as she prepares the defibrillator.

“She was caught in the war…” I explain everything about Lily’s fall from the top of the castle. “... She’s human.”

“I thought as much,” Saphia reveals. Luckily, she doesn’t ask me any further questions.

Like why a human is on Aurora Island.

Until today, it’s been a secret to the clan that their Alpha was to breed with a human mate. Only the Vulkan family knew about Lily’s existence. Everything is in the open now.

It’s not like it matters anyway. All I can care about is Lily’s life as Saphia hooks her up to machines and then presses an electric charge on her chest.

Once… Twice… Three times before the heartrate monitor zaps to life. I breathe a sigh of relief, lifting Lily’s hand to my lips to press a grateful kiss on her knuckles.

When Doctor Amell lifts her blouse, I see the full consequence of Lily’s fall. Her flesh is marred with bruises and battering from when she hit the rails, and her ribcage caved in where her ribs cracked. Bile rises to the surface, souring my tongue.

“What now?” I breathe dubiously as my heart drops to the soles of my feet.

“Don’t worry, Alpha,” Saphia assures as she gets to work poking needles through Lily’s veins and preparing drips. “She’s going to be fine.”

The doctor’s reassurance comes with little hope as I pull up a chair and watch her breathe. Every breath seems staggered, her throat screeching into the oxygen mask. I can’t bear it, but I can’t leave her side either. So I walk up to the window just in time to watch the Blaze Legion dragons retreating.

The fight is over, to my relief. Turning back, I look at Lily forlornly and realize how important she is to me. I would do anything to protect her—even leave my clan in the midst of war to save her.

My only consolation is Saphia’s impeccable medical skills as she works on Lily. Suturing her cuts and cleaning her wounds, she then draws Lily’s blood into a vial.

***

“Brother!” The door comes crashing in long after the doctor has left. My siblings file into the room, their faces turning ashen when they spot Lily lying on the bed.

“How is she?” Kairo steps forward with dread contorting her face.

“Doctor Amell says she’ll be fine,” I say without much conviction. It’s been a few hours, and she hasn’t even stirred.

Kairo goes to the bed and begins weeping softly. “I really hope she’ll be fine.”

Clearing my throat when I feel a sob lodging there, I turn to face my brothers. They update me on everything that’s happened and how the fighting finally ended.

“Cadmus?” I ask.

“He’s dead,” Aragon informs me flatly.

“How many casualties?”

“Five,” Stryker says as he hangs his head in a show of grief. “Maybe six.”

“That brings us down to two-hundred and eighty-one,” I calculate the population of the Aurora Dragon clan.

“Two-hundred and eighty-three, if you’re counting the human.”

I frowned as I lifted my head to see the doctor coming back in. She’s carrying a clipboard under her arm, more composed than before.

“What do you mean, Doctor?” I ask with confusion.

“Well, if the human is considered one of us…” Saphia begins, “... You’ll have to account for the child she’s carrying.”

Hushed gasps go around the room as I lose the ability to breathe. I stand there frozen, trying to process what I’ve just learned.

“She-she’s pregnant?” I mumble almost unintelligibly.

Doctor Amell nods her head as she passes me the clipboard. “According to the tests I’ve run, she is.”

I take the clipboard and read the results of Doctor Amells tests on Lily. The last one on the list is a pregnancy test. My head began to pound as I read the word ‘Positive’ beside the test description.

“What about the gift of immortality?” I look up with brows raised expectantly. “Is there any way you can check if her body has accepted that through the conception of my child?”

Saphia Amell seems taken aback by my brutal honesty as she gulps, her eyes going wide. It shouldn’t be a secret now. Not anymore, at least.

But when she shakes her head, I know there isn’t much hope. We’ll never know if Lily has been touched by immortality. And if she hasn’t, the seed Ive planted in her will only kill her.

Already, she faces death because of the accident, and now I’ve just made it worse.

Everything around me fades to a blur as I turn on my heel and march toward Lily. Throwing the clipboard over my shoulder, I push past Kairo and stop at the bed.

All around me, voices are blurred into unfathomable ringing noises. Ones I don’t care to pay attention to. Whatever any one of them is saying is pointless in my mind, the only voice that matters is silenced right now.

I reach out to touch Lily’s hand, but then draw my hand back as if I’m too ashamed to go ahead. Too guilty, knowing I’d harmed her myself. I’d poisoned her with my seed, and there’s no going back. Already, she’s knocking on death’s door.

The child growing inside her is bound to make things worse. Take her life sooner.

Take her from me sooner.

***

Present

“Cadmus is dead,” I inform the gathering of the Dragon Council members, along with every member of the Aurora Dragons. I’ve just recounted all that had happened during the unexpected fight.

But this meeting isn’t only to regroup after the war.

Id called for the members of the clan to be present and gathered in the hall to hear what a grave mistake the council had made.

And what a fatal mistake their Alpha had made, mating with a human.

Father, Nova, and Nimbus exchange glances amongst themselves. Father clears his throat before he speaks.

“We will have to converse with Zark, as he is the Blaze Legion Elder. Now, the question remains of who will take leadership of the Blaze Legion clan.”

I narrow my eyes derisively at my father. “I don’t think it should be left up to the Council to decide who becomes their Alpha now,” I remark scornfully. “After all, the decisions made by the Elders as of late have caused us more trouble than having any benefit to our kind.”

“Draco?” Nimbus stands up, his voice gravelly and commanding. “What is the meaning of this?!” he demands.

I narrow my eyes at the Flame Serpents Elder, fist curling at my sides. The determination of my real reason for this meeting comes to light.

And I am as ready as ever to take them on.

“The meaning of this?” I sneer. “I’ll tell you what the meaning is! The human mating process is a—”

“Success!”

I’m cut off by a familiar voice reverberating off the walls of the grand hall. I hadn’t expected to hear that voice roar as loudly as that single word. The Lily Turner I once knew wouldn’t be brave enough to face a hall of dragons.

Unless…

“Lily…?” I slowly turn around, shocked when I find her standing down the aisle with Kairo by her side. She’s still wearing a hospital gown, but her face glows with life and zest.

It is as if the accident didn’t just happen yesterday.

She meets my eyes and smiles as she begins walking into the hall between the two rows of benches on either side.

“The human mating process has been a success,” she declares, her voice loud enough to carry all the way to the front. She lifts a hand to her belly, the smile widening on her face. “I am Draco Vulkan’s human mate, pregnant with his child!”

Shock renders me speechless as Lily nears me. How is she so fierce? How is she radiating so much power? How is she even walking?

And then it hits me when her voice enters my mind alone.