Mating Song [Eternal Flames 14]

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Deja sat vigil in the hospital room at the bedside of his brother Vano, refusing to leave until Vano woke up. It had been a few days since the surgery to save Vano’s life after his stubborn ass refused to get medical help. Deja, Vano, and their other two brothers, Casius and Lon, who were twins and dragon shifters, had been fooling around as they walked around their new town of Crystal, Colorado, when Vano had teased Deja about his hair, as he always did. Deja hadn’t been insulted by his words, but he did push Vano’s shoulder as his brother laughed, causing him to stumble. As Vano tripped, he caught himself before he fell completely to the ground, but he had stepped on a board that had a few rusty old nails in it. One of those nails pierced right through Vano’s shoe and into his foot.

They had all stopped to help him remove the nail, and after that Vano had said he was fine, but a few days later he was still limping, and the wound began to smell. Not that he, a mere human, had caught a whiff of it, Vano was good at keeping the injury wrapped, but Casius and Lon as shifters had a greater sense of smell and they were able to detect it.

The main problem was, they were from a gypsy family and had spent their whole lives traveling around and making do with what little they had, as well as being chased out of many towns by the townsfolk who thought they were bad news, thieves, and whores—which made them all a

little cautious when it came to new people. It also meant that money was always tight. Because of that, Vano didn’t want to go to the doctor believing it was a waste to use what little they had, but Deja called bullshit on the whole thing.

A few days ago while they were all at Twixie’s diner, the dragon leader, Illan, had come in to talk to them and had called in a doctor to check Vano out free of charge, but Vano had refused.

Deja understood exactly why he had, and he and his brothers had let it go, but they shouldn’t have. They should have forced Vano to go to the hospital.

So now here they sat, waiting for Vano to wake up. The infection had gotten so bad that the doctor, Rob, who turns out was one of Casius’s mates, had to operate and put him on some pretty intense drugs to fight the infection. If only he hadn’t pushed Vano, sending him onto that nail, then none of this would have happened. It was all his fault that they could lose Vano, and Deja would never be able to forgive himself.