Page 63 of Brutal Alpha Dragon

“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 recollection's 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, it's 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.

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