The Dragon King's Shaman

Blood and Bandages

Avery

Tiredness suffused my body today after another night of screaming and sweating. I was relieved I never took a room in the main packhouse. The clinic was sufficiently busy today though, to keep my mind off certain ongoing absences. Had he left for good? Why did I care?

I pulled my focus back into the room.

“Griffin, you really need to be more careful around swords.” I shook my head at the wolf on my exam table.

Griffin must have been the clumsiest pack warrior ever, here in my clinic twice as many times as anyone else. He was only nineteen.

Oh, to be young and enthusiastic again.

“What can I say, Doc? The swords are still new to me.”

“I don’t know why you are still training with them!” I grumbled.

He laughed and then winced as I placed another suture in the huge cut that ran the length of his thigh. Wolves healed fast, but big cuts bled profusely and could leave scars if I didn’t close them, especially in lower-ranking wolves.

The war with the vampire-hybrids was over a few weeks ago, and I thought crazy wounds - from a variety of weapons I never even knew existed - might slow down. Sadly, our warrior Luna liked variety in training, and it made my mornings busy.

“All done.” I snipped off the final dissolvable suture, knowing his body would heal and extrude it within the day.

“Thanks, Doc, always a pleasure.” He winked at me, and I restrained an eye roll.

Nothing said cougar quite like a thirty-four-year-old woman indulging a nineteen-year-old boy in flirting. That said, a lot of the unwanted flirting from pack members had fallen away recently. Likely owing to the huge dragon standing sentinel at the hospital doors. His overbearing presence and glowering stare directed at any male patient seeking medical attention kept them away.

My hand balled into a fist. Yet another controlling man.

A noise at the door caused me to jump. I spun around, clutching the forceps in my hand.

“Avery.” Alpha Quinn stood in the doorway, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

I took a breath, trying to slow my racing heart, my muscles tense.

I’m safe. I’m safe. I repeated the well-used mantra in my head.

“Alpha,” I said and spun back to clear the suture pack away.

Silence stretched until I snapped my gloves off.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I stiffened, clutching the couch-roll in my fist. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, wiping down the couch and moving to the other side of the room.

“No, it does.”

I jolted, realising he’d closed the distance between us. I fell back against the counter.

He raised his hands again. “It’s not okay, Avery. I’m so sorry. I never thought it would affect you like this.”

I snorted. “Men never think.”

I was being a bit unfair. I’d been with his pack for three years now. Three blissful years of safety and finally not looking over my shoulder. He saved me from a terrible situation and gave me a home. I trusted him like no man I’d ever met, but that was the thing about trust. It was fragile.

“Erik and I—”

“Don’t speak for him!” I hissed, my temperature rising.

“We wanted to keep you both safe.”

“Well, that wasn’t a decision for you to make! Your mate was the best weapon we had in that war, and I was needed for medical support as the pack doctor! Just because you alpha males wanted to lock your possessions away, everyone had to suffer!” Blood pounded in my ears.

Damn men, assuming what was best.

He looked away. “Some did suffer, they even lost their lives, and I’ll live with that guilt for the rest of my life.” He looked up and pinned me with his dark eyes. “But Avery, I don’t think this was just about taking your choice. This has triggered you. You’re jumpy and not yourself. What happened to you in the past?”

“Nothing. And it is about choice. And men who are physically stronger than women taking it away!”

My arms shook, and I ground my teeth. I waved a bag of wipes at him, seething. Him coming to apologise broke the dam on all the anger I’d bottled up since that day. As a human though, arguing with a werewolf, an alpha no less, in the middle of my exam room wasn’t a good idea.

Mind you, Quinn and that i***t dragon may have made a huge error in judgment when they locked Irina and me away - allegedly protecting us from harm during the invasion - but Quinn would never physically hurt me. Even with all the memories their stupid stunt had brought flooding back, I could acknowledge that.

He pulled the offending wipes from my hand and placed a hand on my arm. I flinched away from his touch.

He frowned. “Maybe you don’t want to talk to me, but please talk to someone.”

I made a non-committal noise in my throat. “Sure, I’ll think about it. Now, Alpha, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to my office.”

I strode out of the exam room, and he trailed behind me. I entered my room, about to tell him I needed privacy, when my eyes zeroed in on my desk.

The floor fell away, and my stomach dropped. I was dimly aware of Quinn gripping my elbow to keep me upright. He spoke to me, but I never heard it over the rushing in my ears and my shallow panting breaths.

A bunch of red and white roses sat obscuring half the desk. Grotesquely large, they splashed unwanted colour into the space. The oxygen seemed to be sucked from the room, and their scent stifled my senses. The memories, the pain, the fear, it all came rushing over me. Disorientated and unfocused, I grasped at Quinn’s sleeve.

“Avery! Avery?” Quinn’s voice became louder to me.

I whimpered and shrank back from his loud voice. Unsticking my legs, I strumbled to the desk. Shudders ran through me unchecked, and my trembling hands vibrated the desk. A card quivered on top of the mass of red and white.

“Blood and bandages,” I whispered, my lips numb.

I had to know. My hands shook badly as I fumbled the envelope open.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you, Red?”

I jerked back as bile rushed up my throat. I dropped the card like it burned, and with a sob, I folded to the floor of my office. Reality crashed down on me like an avalanche; it buried me alive.

He had found me.