Page 6 of The Dragon's Emberlinked Mate
I opted to take the stairs rather than the elevator, not wanting to wait for the car to arrive. I took them two at a time as I ran up all three flights. I didn’t know what it was that was driving me to get to Rhythe’s side, but I needed to be there. I needed to see him and look into his eyes. He had to be all right.
I didn’t bother to check in at the nurses’ station. Instead, I bolted straight to his room and pushed open the door. I dared them to stop me. I’d fought off entire armies, there was no way a few nurses would be able to keep me at bay.
It was like walking into a horror move. There were multiple beeping sounds, buzzing, and swishing. And that all hit me after the scents of antiseptic, burnt flesh, fresh blood, and healing wounds all assaulted me at once. And the lights, they were an orangy yellow that reminded me of the morning after a long battle, when the soot still filled the air.
His family and staff surrounded him, but they faded into the background. My attention was focused solely on him.
“Rhythe,” I said, nearly falling to my knees when I saw the battered body on the table.
Rhythe was a young dragon, full of life and with the world ahead of him. The man on the table was… broken. There were wires coming out of everywhere, all connected to human machines. Were they what was keeping him alive? I’d known it was going to be bad, but this? This was so much worse.
“Emmen, you came.” His voice was barely a whisper. “You’re here. Thank the goddess.”
I was shocked to hear his voice in his condition, and even more so that my name came from his lips. But beyond that was my own body’s reaction to it.
Mate,my dragon screamed.
“Mate,” I said out loud, not able nor wanting to hold it in.
“Yes,” he breathed. Light flared in his eyes, but only for a moment.
Then all the beeping stopped, and instead, a consistent flatline pulse burst through the air.
Rhythe was gone.
I’d only just found him.
Chapter 4
Emmen
Hours ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick out Rhythe from a crowd of people. I knew that my friend’s new mate had a twin, but I had never met him. But honestly, picking him out of a crowd wouldn’t have been easy either. I’d met so many people in my lifetime, and unless they played an active role in my life, they didn’t take up permanence in my working memory. There was no reason for them to.
Being that we had such a large age difference between us, Rhythe and I didn’t exactly run in the same circles. And hisfather and I had the kind of relationship where we could easily go decades between seeing each other and not think anything of it.
Yet in one moment, he became the focus of my entire world. I could now find him anywhere. He was mine and I was his. Even in his bruised and battered state, I could see him… truly see him.
How everything changed in that flicker of an instant.
Mate,he had said, and when he did, it was as if the last puzzle piece of my heart came together. Everything clicked into place. He was mine. My mate. The dragon made just for me. I wasn’t sure how he knew or when he found out. That was something I wanted to learn, though.
I wanted to learn everything about him. What was his favorite food? Did he like pets? Was he a homebody or did he like to travel? A million questions flashed in my mind, but then they were pushed out of the way to make room for the dread and fear that was now filling me.
Everything went in slow motion as I watched him slip from this world. His eyes fluttered closed, his body went completely limp. The machines that he was hooked to echoed the long beep of a flatline.
Everyone around him stilled as he slipped from this world.
It was too soon. He was too young. Weren’t those machines supposed to be keeping him alive while his beast helped him heal? Wasn’t that the entire point of being here?
It all happened at once, like I was a person watching from a distance instead of being frozen in my spot.
The people around us began moving with a flurry of activity, and others rushed in with yet more equipment. Someone tried to get me to move out of the way. I wasn’t even sure who it was, but I roared and they gave up. My beast wanted to be by his side, holding his hand, helping him wake up.
But he wasn’t sleeping and me getting in the way wasn’t going to help. It took all the strength I had not to let my dragon take over. He was demanding I fix this. If only I could.
His twin, who had been holding his hand, let out a sob as they pushed him back to make way for a cart holding some medical machine. He nearly collapsed onto the floor, his mate catching him and hugging him close.
More doctors and nurses that came into the room pushed us all out of the way, this time my beast under enough control that I went with his parents, Eryx and Katrina, as they were pushed against the wall. We watched helplessly as they tried to bring him back. Eryx and Katrina held onto each other, and it only magnified the situation at hand, that it was my mate, the one I was meant to comfort, who was lying in that bed breathless.
