Page 16 of Eliza's Cursed Dragon

I shook my head. I wanted to stay with Caspian.

“I’m Daisy, and this is Mike,” the lady said, looking at me questioningly and I raised my finger to my lips and shook my head to indicate I couldn’t speak.

It wasn’t pity that shone in her eyes, but compassion. “It’s alright. Come. I promise Mike will take care of your swan.” She tried to pull on me again, but I stood my ground. My brothers began to squawk and gently pushed against Daisy’s legs.

In the meantime, unperturbed, Mike examined Caspian. “Alright, so your swan is a he. And he has a nasty gash on his side. I’ll clean and stitch it. He’ll also need some antibiotics.” He looked up at me, resigned. “I suppose you can’t pay?”

I pulled out a golden ring, my mom’s wedding band, and handed it to him. Surprised, he looked at it.

“I can’t take that. That looks like a wedding ring.” His brow furrowed and he held the ring back out to me, offering it up on his outstretched palm.

I closed his fingers around the ring on his palm and pushed the hand back to him, beseeching him with my eyes to just take care of Caspian. My mom would have gladly sacrificed that ring for her son.

“Fine, sit.” He pointed at a chair behind me. “Daisy, just bring her some hot chocolate, she looks like death warmed over.”

“Poor child, what happened to you?” Daisy crooned at me.

Suddenly that was too much. Tears rolled down my cheeks and a sob pulled my shoulders up. Once the dam opened, there was no way for me to stop it, especially not when she pulled me into her arms and held me against her warm chest.

It had been so long since somebody had held me and told me everything would be alright, that I just sank against her and cried for what seemed like hours.

Edward

I had never heard of ghouls attacking living beings, but these ghouls hadn’t had any bodies to consume in centuries. They took me by surprise when they attacked her, but thankfully I wasn’t too far away. Seeing her being attacked though, made me see red. A visceral hate for the ghouls exploded inside me, so strong and hard the likes of which I had never experienced before.

It took all my willpower to focus on one ghoul at a time and not to spray my fire indiscriminately, which would have incinerated some of the swans as well. For some reason I didn’t understand, they were attached to the girl and she to them. I didn’t care what the reason was, they mattered to her and that was good enough for me.

Still, I was too late to prevent one of the swans from being seriously hurt. My heart bled when the girl held the swan’s body out to me, begging me to help him. What could I do in my dragon form though?

Vet, he needs a vet, my mind screamed, and thankfully I knew just where to find one. Michael Pinkerton had only recently moved here. Urged by my father with the offer of a substantial bonus plus a house and a practice to relocate here. Vets were important he told me. People moving here needed to take care of their pets. And now I saw how true his words were.

I didn’t think that this was what he had in mind when he brought Pinkerton here, but if anybody could help the woman’s swan, it was him.

I gestured for her to get on my back, all the while pondering how to make her understand, when to my surprise, she did just that. Her trust in me startled me. I would not have climbed on my back if the roles were reversed. No way in hell would I have trusted a dragon even if he had saved my life.

But she did and it made things a lot easier.

I took her to the vet’s office, where I regretfully left her and her swans. I would have loved to stay and support her in any way I could, but Pinkerton would not have taken lightly to seeing a dragon at his front stoop. I figured he might accept a swan. A dragon most likely not so much.

So I took off, flew to the trees where I always left my car, and circled it for long hours. Too restless to stop and meditate. Just like my body circled the trees, so was my mind circling around the girl.

The sun couldn’t rise soon enough for me and I roared my frustration over it more than once, frightening birds from their roosts and startling other forest creatures, even a bear who took off running.

Finally, finally the first light appeared in the sky and I landed next to my truck. Walking agitatedly around it, waiting for the first rays to hit me and turn me back into my human form.

After what seemed like an eternity, when I was me again, I got dressed and pushed the truck to its limits to race down the dirt road until I hit the freeway that brought me to the exit for our development, which still needed a name.

Like a man possessed—which I felt like I was—I drove down the streets to the vet’s office. I was in such a haste, that I barely remembered to turn off the engine, but left the door wide open when I reached it.

I banged my fist against the vet’s door, not stopping, until a rumpled-looking woman opened. Daisy. I met her when she and her husband moved in.

“What in god’s name is going on?” she asked, the curlers on her hair shaking as if supporting her disapproval.

“Where is she? Is she okay?” I rambled, pushing past the vet’s wife to where the treatment rooms were.

“She’s fine. She was, understandably, a bit shocked, but she’s sleeping now, in here.” She pulled me back by my lapel in the opposite direction of the examination rooms. Right into a cozy living room, where ten swans lay curled on and around a couch on which the object of my worries lay, hugging the eleventh swan to her chest.

I stopped and breathed in at the sight of her. For the first time since the ghouls attacked a few hours ago, my heartbeat returned to a normal pace and my breathing evened.

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