"Don't."
One word. The healer's hands dropped to his sides.
There was nothing more torturous than being rock-hard while carrying a dying omega.
"Protocols—" a second healer attempted, which took courage. Short-lived. He fucked off mid-syllable.
The thought of pinning her against a wall and thrusting kept replaying in Dexmon's mind. The second he killed the thought, his wolf resurrected it.
Aegon: Taste her. Touch her.
Dexmon: Go to sleep.
The girl had stopped making sounds somewhere between the clearing and the portal and every fiber in his body screamed he needed to fix this now.
As he walked, every torch in the corridor flared at once. Dexmon didn't notice.
A low vibration started in his sternum. That was new.
No.
No, no, no.
Aegon: Healing vibration.
Dexmon: I swear to every god, turn it off.
The purring grew louder. A passing guard glanced at Dexmon with visible confusion.
Dexmon walked faster, tightening his core, trying to stop it. The purr adapted. It found a new route through his chest and came out louder.
Alaric Kestrel, his Master Healer, fell into step beside him, already assessing her. "How long has she been bleeding?"
"Too long. She took multiple stabbings from a mage's dark tendrils." Saying it aloud tasted like failure and Dexmon Drakenfell did not fail. He should have been the one to stop those, not her.
Aegon: That healer is too slow. I could heal faster.
Dexmon: You don't have healing magic.
Aegon: I would lick the wound.
Alaric's hands glowed gold, still walking with Dexmon. The healer's magic should have closed it rapidly, but her skin knit slowly.
Aegon: Mate is in pain.
Dexmon: Don't call her that.
Alaric cursed and pulled his hands back. "She can feel it. I need to take a closer look. Hand her over. We'll get her stabilized."
He dropped his arms. Out came the flask. One long swig. He had the distinct feeling he was going to need every drop.
Dexmon's eyes flared molten gold, his wolf trying to surface. He shouldered past the healer into a private chamber reserved for royals, laying her on the bed with a gentleness that contradicted everything about the last ten minutes.
The hearth across the room roared to life on its own.
Aegon: The fire is a nice touch. Now we get on top and spread her legs.
Dexmon: What the actual hell is wrong with you?
Alaric followed Dexmon into the room, rolled up his sleeves, and began examining her, gold light pouring from his hands into her body.
"Silver burns. Fortunately they'll fade. Unmarked."
A dark heat flared in Dexmon's core, making his blood thrum. Unmarked meant no mating bite. He already knew that. But knowing it and hearing it were two different things.
Aegon:Bite him.
Dexmon: No.
Aegon:A corrective bite. On the hand. Wolves do it all the time.
"SHIT." The healer's usual composure evaporated and his magic surged brighter, almost desperate. "Don't you dare."
One.
Her heart tripped over itself, then stopped entirely. It was so fast that Dexmon didn't understand it.
Two.
Everything he'd been feeling from her went dark.
Three.
The void spread. Grief was warm compared to this. This was the kind of empty that made wolves stop hunting and lie down in the snow.
Four.
No. This wasn't real.
Five.
Alaric yelled something. Dexmon's ears were ringing.
Six.
Outside, every dragon roared in unison, rattling the windows like thunder.
Seven.
Dexmon's wolf pushed to the surface and his voice was no longer singular. "BRING HER BACK NOW, HEALER."
"What do you think I'm doing?" Alaric panted, dropping every safeguard he had, channeling raw, unfiltered magic directly into her chest cavity. The amount of power would have killed a lesser healer but he held, hands shaking, until her body filled with gold like sunrise.
She convulsed once, hard, before sucking in a breath that sounded like it was pulled from the bottom of the ocean.
Alaric looked up. "She needs blood now."
"Will Alpha blood work?"
"That would be our best bet with her. But—"
"Give her mine." Dexmon was already rolling up his sleeve.
The needle went in clean, and Alaric worked fast, knowing better than to ask are you sure.
When the blood was running, the healer gently tilted her chin. "The kind of pretty that makes smart men do stupid things."
"She is not to be logged," Dexmon clipped. "Not as a guest or patient."
Alaric glanced down at her, his brows furrowing. "That removes her rights—"
"Until I decide what she is, she is no one."
Dexmon's tone was steel, overcompensating, and he knew it. The urge to hold her had only gotten worse. A slight problem because he was already chained to a princess and agreed to it. A betrothal that would benefit both of their packs.
"An unmarked omega that looks like her, in the royal healing suite, with no paper trail." Alaric's tone was flat. "You understand that every wolf who walked this corridor tonight caught her scent already right?"
Dexmon didn't answer.
Aegon: Get in that bed with her.
Dexmon:There is no version of reality.
Aegon:You won't even have to do anything. Just lie there. I promise nothing will happen. I'll be calm.
Nothing about the energy behind those words suggested calm.
Aegon:I can hear you doubting me. That's hurtful.
Gold light flickered beneath the girl's skin. Alaric blinked as if his eyes were deceiving him. They weren't.
"And there it is," he muttered, reaching for his flask.
Aegon: Tell me you saw that.
Dexmon was already leaving, ignoring his wolf and every instinct he had.
On the other side of the door, he pressed his forehead to the corridor wall, chest still heaving. Then he adjusted his trousers, attempting to hide the worst, most messed up case of royal blue balls in Drakenfell history, and got the hell out of there.
✦✦✦
Dexmon splashed water on his face and dropped onto the bed, staring at the ceiling like it might give him answers. Ninety seconds later he was back on his feet.
"Fuck it."
Healers looked up as he passed.
His hand sat on the door handle for three seconds, bracing for what, he didn't know. When he opened it, her scent hit him like a wall. Her brows were pinched, body curled in on itself, face tight with a pain she couldn't fight in her sleep.
Muscle memory took over. Two fingers on her pulse, back of his hand to her forehead. The same sequence he'd run a thousand times on the battlefield, except no dying soldier had ever sent a jolt of electricity straight through his chest the second he made contact.
Aegon:Did you feel that?
Dexmon:Obviously I felt that.
Her forehead was scorching under his hand. Wolves didn't run fevers.
Dexmon: She's burning up.
Aegon: Silver poisoning slows healing. I can barely feel her wolf.
Every instinct he had said to get in that bed, wrap himself around her, and let her fever break against his skin.
Aegon:Follow your instincts. If you hold her, she will heal faster.
Dexmon: One hour. Then I leave.
Aegon: Absolutely. One hour. Agreed.
He pulled his shirt over his head and paused with it in his hands, staring at the blanket like it was a line he was about to cross.
Then he dropped the shirt on the floor and lay down beside her on top of the blanket, because the line was already behind him and had been since the clearing.
Carefully, with one hand on her shoulder, the other on her hip, he drew her back against his chest. She came without resistance, her spine finding his chest, her hips finding his hips, every line of her body answering a line of his. She fit like she was made to.
Aegon: She was, you dingbat.
The blanket was still between them but their arms touched, skin on skin, and Dexmon could feel heat passing from her into him. Like his body was taking the fever from her.
Relief came next. It took him a second to understand that was her relief, not his.
Aegon: Say it with me. OURS.
Dexmon: This is temporary. Just to help her heal. Nothing more.
Her body shifted in her sleep, and his arm tightened around her in response, pulling her tighter against him before his brain had a say.
He pressed his mouth to the back of her head. Not a kiss. Just lip contact.
Aegon: Do it again.
Dexmon: Shut up.
For the first time in years, his mind went quiet.
Three minutes later, the notorious playboy prince of Skardos, who had never stayed long enough for the spooning part, was out cold.
Across the keep, a visiting Alpha, Fin Shadowclaw, stood at his window, gripping the stone ledge. He'd come here for a trade negotiation and was discovering that trade was no longer his primary concern.
A scent had found him three hours ago and he hadn't sat down since.