Page 104 of Heart of the High King
“Come on, I can teleport you back,” Killian said.
“I’ll meet you guys in the waiting room after you finish flying. We can go to the cafeteria together,” Dravyn commented; then the group exited, leaving Aleksander with Brogan, Mac, and Worth.
“You’ve not calmed down at all about Rafe’s reaction, have you?” Worth asked.
“No,” Aleksander retorted. “How can I? I know he’s going to be pissed, and it’s my fault. And I’m angry myself. We were both robbed of our matebond. I mean, what the fuck? We can’t get that back.”
“Technically, your bond isn’t complete. He is orwasa dragon. You still need a bite from him to fully snap it into place.”
“Thanks, Brogan. That’s very helpful, especially since no one has survived losing their beast, so we don’t have the first clue how to help him reconnect to his dragon,” Aleksander deadpanned.
“We’ll figure it out whenever they finish these healing sessions.”
“How in the world am I ever going to convince him to do this again? The only things he insisted we avoid are done with no way to undo them. That cancer is going to tear through him, making him miserable, and he’s not going to let us do shit about it.”
“There’s a good chance his cancer is being cured right now by your dragon blood,” Worth reminded him. “I know you’re upset about how it happened, but you need to think about the important bits. He’s yours now, Aleksander.”
Through the fury and terror inside him, Aleksander found a smile. “Yeah.”
“Okay, Your Highness,” the nurse said, patting his arm. “Go on up to the roof and have a good flight.”
“Thanks.”
∞∞∞
Grand Warlock Dra’Kaedan D’Vaire was sitting on the floor, hurling magic at his mother while he quietly cried. His familiar was leaning against him, weeping, and they weren’t the only ones in the room fighting to keep their emotions from overwhelming them. Control was long lost, but he wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. Since the moment he knocked on Aleksander’s door more than a decade ago, he’d wanted the now High King to find his mate. In his mind, he’d tried to picture the woman who would rule with him, and it had been easy to switch that dream to Rafe when Aleksander had revealed his sexuality. In Rafe’s brief visits, Dra’Kaedan hadn’t had enough opportunity to get to know him, but he’d ached for Aleksander when he’d disappeared from his life.
What he’d endured in that time had broken Dra’Kaedan when he saw the pictures of his torture. Once beaten himself, the brutality of it dwarfed anything Dra’Kaedan had ever suffered despite six centuries with his abuser. The strength and fight inside this incredible man were why he was now sobbing so steadily. When they’d started working on healing Rafe, they were faced with obstinate tissues that were reluctant to mend.
Then Dr. Suricata had started the transfusion, followed by Aleksander barging in to seal his matebond. When Aleksander’s notoriously powerful beast had done that, Rafe’s body had gone into overdrive. It took a quarter of an hour to fix his ankle and the rod in his leg not much longer than that. Although he was swelling, it wasn’t fast enough to alarm anyone, so they’d moved on to his internal damage.
The magic was sticking to his cells and moving through him no matter how they pinpointed a single area. With each strike of the clock, they were able to check another thing off their list and so the men in the room with warlock, necro, and wizard blood had started funneling power into Saura and T’Eirick. There was no consensus on what was possible; they didn’t need words to press on, and so they had.
“I want another transfusion,” Dr. Suricata stated. “I’ll go get Aleksander to donate more. The swelling is picking up, and I’d prefer not to stop.”
“We can take him straight into the room with the Cwylld stones if things get dangerous,” T’Eirick said when Dr. Suricata raced out of the room. “His vitals are still steady?”
“First time in my career I’ve seen someone steadily improve as the day has gone on,” the anesthesiologist mused. “His Highness’s dragon is in another league.”
Dr. Suricata returned and raced to check on her patient. “I’m going to order a CT scan after we’re done to make sure we haven’t missed anything inside. There was massive damage in there, and I don’t want to cut him open to see how we’re doing with the healing.”
“When I finished with the colon, the magic shoved back at me,” T’Eirick revealed. “I do believe we can tell when we’ve completed a spot but like you, I wouldn’t mind some proof that we’re completing our tasks.”
“I’ll order some labs to make sure we’ve eradicated the cancer. I know Aleksander’s blood is helping him, but the reality is, it’s going to dissipate, and we can’t keep transfusing him forever. We’ll overwhelm his system. I’m anxious to see what happens with the aging once he’s himself again.”
Dra’Kaedan hiccupped, and his cousin Scheredin used a little magic to clean his face. “Won’t their matebond help keep that in check?”
“I have no idea, so we’ll keep an eye on it.”
“The kidney is finished,” Saura stated. “I’m going to start on the lung.”
“I can’t even believe we’re doing this right now,” Dre’Kariston remarked. “We thought we were coming in here to fix his hips. And now…”
“And now, we’ll be restoring him completely,” Dr. Suricata enthused. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m definitely going to be writing a paper about Rafe and what we accomplished with his determination, medicine, and now magic. Although I can’t publish it until after his case is solved, since I don’t want to impact the outcome, I want everyone to know his incredible journey.”
“The only thing Sorcery D’Vaire will have left to do after today is figure out if there’s a way to assist him in regaining his dragon,” Chander remarked. “Even if I could find his dragon across the veil, I can’t resurrect it like I did with Drystan and Conley. You can’t put something dead into a living man.”
“Pretty sure dead things go into you on a regular basis,” Dra’Kaedan quipped, causing Chander to give him a cheeky grin.
