I slept and woke, thumbed my drip, slept again, woke when a nurse came in to draw my blood, then slept again. I don’t recall dreaming, but a weird sense that I had dreamed – dreamed of dragons – swam in my subconscious. I fell asleep again, and when I woke I blinked. And stared.
At Willow.
Like Alaric, she bent to kiss my cheek. “You look so tired, dear.”
“I am.”
My last morphine intake was hours ago, but I wanted to stay sober enough to talk to her. My pain flared at every movement, so I remained stock still and looked at her as she sat back in the visitor’s chair.
“The truth, Willow.”
“Alaric didn’t lie, sweetie. We are dragon shifters.”
“Show me.”
“Here?” Willow laughed. “My dear, if I shifted now, I’d bring the ceiling pancaking down until this hospital is rubble.”
I recalled the sight of those eyes, the flames, far above me. Surely that was shock. I imagined it. “How can you be real?”
“We’ve been here since humans made stone tools and lived in caves,” she said. “We’ve stood by and watched your kind make war, nuclear weapons, and murder one another. We want no part of your world, honey. We have our own island, a place where humans never come. And never will find.”
“But you work here.”
Willow sighed. “Only because we must. If we had enough resources, your people could obliterate yourselves, and it’s nothing to us.”
I licked my dry lips. My tongue felt as thick as a size twelve cowboy boot. “Can I have a drink of water?”
“Of course.”
Willow cradled my head in the crook of her arm, holding the glass with the straw to my lips. The water tasted like sweet nectar.
“Thanks.”
I shut my eyes as Willow opened her purse and rummaged through it. “I’m sorry I’m so weak.”
“Nonsense, dear. You almost died. I brought you something, now where the devil did I put it.”
Expecting a get well card, I felt some surprise when Willow bent over me again. I opened my eyes. “What?”
“This is a gift, dear,” she said, uncorking an old fashioned glass vial. “A gift from Lanokota herself.”
This is really too much. Gods and goddesses don’t exist.“Thank her for me.”
“Now, now, never spurn the offering from the divine,” Willow said, her tone a warning. “She approves of you, Hayley. Drink this.”
As if I had a choice. Willow held the vial’s mouth to my lips and spilled the vile tasting liquid past my tongue. I swallowed in self-defense, unable to stop her. Like a strong whiskey, it heated my mouth, my throat, and entered my stomach like molten lava.
“Agh,” I gasped. “It’s terrible.”
“Drink more water, dear.”
I desperately sucked water through the straw, soothing my tongue and throat. I felt the fires cool and dropped my head back to my pillow, exhausted. “What was that?”
“Never you mind.” Willow put the cork back in the bottle, and the bottle vanished into her purse. “Sleep now, dear. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Rising, Willow kissed me again, and departed. By the time the door swung shut on its pneumatic hinges, I was sound asleep.
***
