39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

So this is weird.

The voices around me were growing more insistent with each passing moment. I tried to force my heavy limbs to move, but they didn’t, like someone had tied them down. Focusing, I tried again to move, to wiggle, to do something, but I was stuck. I couldn’t be, though. Fyn needed me. I knew he did.

Still, no matter what I did, I was frozen in place.

Something smooth lay beneath me. Like I actually felt the texture. Whatever it was had a squish. I swallowed at the sensation, the true sensation, then flinched at the muscles in my throat contracting. What the fuck? I didn’t have a throat. I did it again, and my breathing increased. Fuck, I was breathing. It was weird and disconcerting; I hated it. Pain infected every fiber of my existence, and there was no escape from the constant stabbing ache.

If this was oblivion, it sucked more than I thought it would.

“Open your eyes,” someone ordered. “I know you can do this. Open your eyes.”

Zoltilvoxfyn. It didn’t sound like him, much higher pitched, but nothing was right in this… whatever this existence was, so maybe his voice was different too? There was too much happening inside of me. The pain. The smoothness of whatever was beneath me. The way my muscles clenched and loosened. My lungs expanding with each breath. There was way too much.

But Sunshine needed me; I’d promised I would never leave him, and I wouldn’t. Slowly, one eye cracked open, then the second one followed, but it wasn’t Fyn above me.

“Tinlorray,” I croaked in a deep voice unlike my own that made me cringe. What the actual fuck was that?

“Yolkeltod,” she cried, falling onto me.

My nose burned from a different sharp odor surrounding me, and twitched at the soft fragrance coming off of her. I tried to get away from both, but I couldn’t; her solid weight pressed me down, trapping me.

“Yolkeltod?” I asked as a tremor started. God, I was vibrating. I was fucking shaking, making whatever was under me move. What the fuck? A thrumming sped up, filling my ears. “You can hear me. You can touch me. I can touch you. What is happening?”

Tinlorray didn’t answer. I lifted my hand, and the world swirled around me. My fingers were covered in dove-gray scales and tipped with black claws. What the actual fucking hell was happening?

“Yolkeltod,” Tinlorray said, squeezing me.

Pain. Pressure. Touch. A harsh, burning smell. A soft, light fragrance. My heart raced in my chest, thrumming in an odd beat, while beeps grew louder and louder, stabbing my brain.

It hit me like a freight train. I was in Yolkeltod’s body, and I was alive.

Holy fucking hell. This was bad. This was wrong.

She touched me, and I yanked away. My tail thrashed. I had a tail. A tail. It kept moving and writhing. Every single flick caused shards of pain to dash up my spine. Wings pushed against my back. Wings. Tail. Claws. Oh my god. The wind blew in from the window and stirred my hair, making me yelp from the tickling brush.

Stop. God. Please stop. There was way too much happening.

“Don’t touch me,” I snapped. A deep pull in my gut urged me to run, to go somewhere else. Somewhere else was safe.

“Yolkeltod?” Tinlorray asked.

“No.” My head whipped back and forth; the beeping was so fucking loud. The texture of the sheets rubbed against me. The squish of the mattress. The rush of wind. The sharp sting invaded my brain with every inhale. What was happening? My heart throbbed, thrumming, vibrating.

“Sunshine,” I screamed. I needed him. Everything would be fine if he was here. “Zoltilvoxfyn.”

“Dr. Maklownil, something is wrong.”

“Yolkeltod,” an older drakcol with rough pink scales said. “I’m going to give you something to calm you.”

“No.” I threw myself off the bed, landing on my stomach. I grunted, body absorbing the hit, though it reverberated through my spine, sending electricity through my veins. Something crashed in the distance, and there was a tug somewhere in my gut. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I tried to yank away from the liquid sliding over my skin—scales. The cold floor burned me. It was too much. I couldn’t breathe, though, even as I thought that, my lungs expanded, adding to the cacophony in my mind.

I had to get away.

My arms trembled when I tried to lift myself up and my legs shook. I couldn’t stand. This borrowed body wouldn’t work. “I need Zoltilvoxfyn.”

“What is happening?” Tinlorray asked.

“I don’t know,” the doctor said.

I tried to claw my way out of the room, but the cool flooring scraping against my scales made me shiver. The wind rushed over my bare backside, and I yelped, hating how my throat moved. My tail thrashed, sending knives up my spine, and my wings flared, catching on the bed.

It was too much. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t fucking do this. People kept talking, aromas wafted in through the window, my muscles burned, and I could barely think. The intense need to see Zoltilvoxfyn overwhelmed me.

I gripped my head, claws pricking and sending blood dripping down my cheeks. “Make it stop!” I screamed, writhing on the floor. “Make it stop!” This voice wasn’t my own. I hated it. I hated it all. I screamed a wordless shriek.

Something pricked my arm and everything dimmed to a distant murmur that was more manageable. Tinlorray leaned over me, her long hair brushing my cheek, which made me flinch.

“Please,” I begged. “I need Zoltilvoxfyn. Please.”

Her brow furrowed. “It’ll be alright, Yolkeltod.”

“I’m not Yolkeltod. My name is Caleb. Caleb Smith.” My name was a garbled growl that the drakcol vocal cords struggled to make.

Tinlorray’s eyes went wide.

“Please. Tell Zoltilvoxfyn I’m here. I didn’t fade. I’m here.” Darkness started to crowd my vision. “Sunshine,” I breathed before everything vanished.

“You have to understand,” I said for the millionth time, “I’m not Yolkeltod. My name is Caleb Smith. I was a ghost from Earth, and somehow got stuck in this body.”

Doctors Maklownil and Dak sat in front of me on metal stools. It had been… I didn’t even know how long. Keeping track of the time was difficult, but I thought it had been a couple of weeks since I’d woken up. I’d been moved from the airy room I’d first woken up in to a locked ward almost instantly. I was getting treatments for the atrophied muscles to stimulate growth in this borrowed body. The wings and the tail, I had no idea what to do with. Also, I wasn’t used to being so tall or broad. Yolkeltod’s body towered over people compared to my old one.

“Yolkeltod, we understand this has been a trying time, but clearly, you’re not a human spirit,” Dr. Dak said, pushing her chin-length hair behind her tapered ear adorned with several bronze studs. She was new. A therapist.

Maklownil, Yolkeltod’s original medical doctor, watched me, a bony hand on his chin. He was more pensive than usual. “You say you spent time with Prince Zoltilvoxfyn?”

Dak glared at him, grass-green tail flicking. She hated him indulging me.

“Yes,” I snapped, then flinched from my voice. It was so deep. I wasn’t used to it, and every time I spoke I cringed. This wasn’t my voice; it belonged to a stranger. “Tell him I’m here. He’ll come for me. Zoltilvoxfyn will always come for me.”

He gave me a kind smile, but I knew what lay behind that look—disbelief. No one would tell Fyn I was here. I’d begged Tinlorray, multiple times, to help me. She always said she was. She didn’t believe I wasn’t her brother, though I didn’t act the same as Yolkeltod had nor could I answer her questions about his life.

Deep within me was an intense longing. I had no words for it. The need to see Fyn was overwhelming. At times, I thought I would go mad from the itch that never vanished.

I had to get out. I had to see him. He was mine . All mine .

I blinked at the claiming thought. I’d become more aggressive, and odd instincts, like to growl or spread my wings, reared up at the weirdest times. I had no idea what to do with them, besides hope they’d disappear. But this need for Zoltilvoxfyn wouldn’t fade. He was mine, and I wouldn’t let anyone separate us.

My wings flared, spanning the cell, and my tail lashed. Both of the doctors pulled back. My wings refused to curl up, and my tail wouldn't stop slashing; all the while, a rumble started to form in my chest that refused to be silenced. I couldn’t get this damn body to respond.

How the hell did drakcol do this?

“I need him,” I snarled. “He’s mine!”

“You touched the Crystal in your dream, correct?” Dak asked, smoothing her black pants while her tail wiggled rapidly.

I’d told her this, both of them this, hundreds of times. “Yes.”

“Perhaps you believe in your addled state that you are Prince Zoltilvoxfyn’s mate.”

“I am his mate,” I yelled, standing, though my knees threatened to give out. My tail slapped the bed’s leg, and I hissed from the sting. The damn thing was beyond sensitive, and every time it moved, it sent fire up my spine. “No one will take him from me.”

Her claws clicked on the tablet as she made more notes.

Maklownil tapped his finger on his chin.

Neither of them said anything of value for the rest of the session; all they did was ask the same damn questions while my all-consuming desire for Zoltilvoxfyn raged inside of me. Alongside it was worry. Fyn had to be freaking out. I had to get back to him. Now.