Page 49 of Kidnapped Plus-Size Mate

A part of me felt guilty for peeking out through the side of the curtain, but I couldn’t stop myself. I heard the dragons' roaring screeches and thunderous howls the moment I entered the room, and I couldn’t bear it.

Knowing Stryker was out there, I had to see for myself that he was still alive. I watched him fight the other dragon before, and there were a few close calls.

A torrent of mixed emotions comes crashing into me, sending me hurtling onto the balcony when I see Stryker fly down after hitting the gray dragon in the side and knocking him off his course with the help of his brother, who’s identical to him.

What does the gray dragon want with me, anyway? Is it just a coincidence that every time I’m around Stryker, he wants to capture me?

Bracing my hands so tightly on the rails until my knuckles pale, I watch the gray dragon serving a blow to Stryker that has him tumbling to the ground, and my gut fills with horror. The impact is so forceful that the ground quakes and sends vibrating pulses up the cobblestone walls of the castle.

“Stryker…” I whimper fearfully when the gray dragon steps a large webbed foot on Stryker’s chest. Just then, more dragons come swooping in from the sky, disrupting the fight until the imposters gather near the mountain as if they’re retreating.

When the gray dragon flies up, he glances at me briefly, a glint of menace in its dark eyes before it spins around and flaps its wings toward the sun. Roars and screeches fill the air as the handful of intruders fly out, with a gold and ruby dragon giving chase.

I look down at the meadow in time to see Stryker’s scales slithering into the folds of his human flesh. But he doesn’t get up. Instead, he remains limp on the ground, his eyes closing while he has a hand pressed on his ribcage. Dread fills my gut when I notice the bright red liquid seeping through his fingers and pooling beside him.

Oh, no!

“Stryker!” his brother shifts into human form and rushes to him.

With my heart in my throat and a thrumming buzz in my ears distorting my mind, I bolt for the bedroom door and run as fast as I can to the elevator.

It takes too long to come up, so I take the stairs on the side, hopping down two at a time in my haste to get to Stryker. Almost tripping and rolling down the last flight, I somehow manage to regain my footing and reach the landing just in time to see someone carrying a lifeless Stryker past the door.

“Is he still alive?!” I cry out as I swing through the door and follow the man behind the castle to a stone path between the garden.

“Hanging on by a thread,” the man with a resounding, husky voice remarks. He doesn’t stop jogging toward a brick-faced building, and I have to run twice as fast to keep up with the pace of his longer strokes.

It’s my first time outside the castle, but I have no time to appreciate the lavish garden. It’s like I’m running through my dream in the physical world this time, but it’s turned into a nightmare as blood oozes from Stryker’s ribs and drips like breadcrumbs toward the building behind the castle.

I hurry ahead, pushing the door open for the man as he carries Stryker into what seems like a hospital. The air is full of the crisp scent of antiseptic medication and the subtle fragrance of soaps and cleaners.

The tall, broad man makes a beeline for the first door, kicking it in just as a red-headed woman appears out of nowhere.

She doesn’t bother to introduce herself as she hurries into the room. I follow her inside, rushing to Stryker’s side when the man lays him on the bed and rips his shirt off.

I wince when the ghastly wound is revealed as if Stryker had been mauled by a bear. His flesh is ripped from where the gray dragon sliced his sharp claws into his side. The gash is so deep, I can almost see the bars of his ribcage from where blood splatters.

“He’s losing too much blood!” the man hisses, glaring at the woman in the room. “Do something, Doctor!”

The woman nods, flitting around the room and gathering tools on a rolling tray she wheels over without a word. She seems calm and composed for someone with a dying man on the bed.

In no time, she hooks Stryker up to a drip containing a cloudy liquid, then prepares her suturing tools to stitch his flesh together. I swallow back the acrid bile that rises in my throat every time she pierces his skin with the thick needle, desperately wanting for this horror to be over.

It feels like time stretches hauntingly before the doctor can stop the bleeding, even if it’s only a few minutes that have passed. She rolls a high-tech machine over and uses a type of scanner that illuminates Stryker’s skin with ultraviolet light that magically repairs uneven bumps of flesh and weaves them together until his skin is smooth again.

The heart rate monitor calms down, the beeps becoming less incessant and steady as the doctor turns to the man.

“He’ll be fine, Alpha Draco,” she assures the man, and I quickly realize that the tall, dark man is none other than Stryker’s oldest brother - the dragon clan leader.

He turns to me, offering a reassuring smile. “Heard that, Camilla? He’ll be fine,” Alpha Draco says, patting my shoulder loosely.

I barely know him, since we haven’t met before, but Draco seems trustable enough when he leaves the room and leaves Stryker’s condition in the doctor’s hands. I’ve only ever heard about him from Olivia, and she swore that he could be trusted. He’s the leader of the Aurora Dragons, after all.

Then why can’t I shake off the terrifying feeling that I’ll never meet Stryker’s eyes again?

Even the doctor assured me that he’d wake up soon, and left me alone in the room with him.

She says he needs time to recover, but her voice is nothing more than a blur that does nothing to ease this broken heart of mine. As it pitter-patters unsteadily, the raindrops of tears that flow from my eyes stain the white sheet that covers Stryker’s body. Seeing him in this condition, I realize that my torn heart is as ripped as his flesh had been a few moments ago.

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