“I love you, Rowan,” he said. Why not? He felt it. And what did he have to lose anymore that he’d keep something like that a secret? He blinked up at her beautiful face and waited to see if his prayers were answered.
“I love you too.” She smiled at him, her cool hands soothing his hot skin. It was odd. She was close but somehow seemed like she was at the end of a long tunnel, as if a circle of darkness was constricting around him.
“I knew it. Who could resist this?”
Then he closed his eyes and gave in to the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Tobias, what the hell is going on? What’s wrong with him?” Rowan crowded around the examination table with Harriet and Gabriel as Tobias examined the love of her life.
Nick had passed out, and Harriet’s usual concoction of herbs and magic couldn’t rouse him. In fact, her ministrations hardly helped at all. She’d remembered Tobias was a human physician, but they didn’t dare take Nick to a hospital. There’d be too many questions. Instead, they’d used Sabrina to commandeer a nearby veterinary clinic so Tobias could examine him.
“He’s hypovolemic,” Tobias said. “He’s bleeding internally. It’s a slow bleed, but it’s lethal.”
“What are you waiting for?” Rowan said. “Stop it!”
Tobias frowned and placed his hands on her shoulders in a way that she recognized was meant to comfort her, but in fact had the opposite effect. Her heart raced in her chest.Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“It’s too late for human medicine.” The words fell between them like glass vases that shattered at her feet.
“No.” Rowan’s chest constricted from a combination of fear and panic. “I can’t… I can’t lose him, Tobias. I’ll become like Alexander. I won’t survive it. I don’t want to survive it!”
Gabriel spun her around, pulled her into his chest, and held her tight. “There is another way, sister,” he whispered in her ear. “And you’ve already done it once.”
She met his gaze, and his eyes shifted to Harriet, who was staring at her intensely. For over a century, it had just been the two of them, locked in the bond that had formed when she’d saved her friend from tuberculosis with the gift of her tooth. Now the old woman had tears in her eyes, and although her suit was a happy shade of green offset with a gorgeous Hermès scarf in a spring floral pattern, her disposition was nothing if not blue.
“My dragon, my friend,” she said. “It will not be easy sharing you. We’ve endured too much, managed too many escapades, cried too many tears, laughed the laughter of old friends. But I must encourage you to do this thing. My heart, although immortal, is not strong enough to watch you lose him. Don’t you dare worry about me. There’s enough room in our lives for a man like the detective.”
Rowan placed her hand over her heart. “I want him. I want him so much.”
“Then take him,” Gabriel said.
“Not without his permission. It was a leap for him to accept me as his girlfriend. What if he can’t accept me as his forever mate? It’s too fast.”
Tobias wiped a thumb under her eyes. “Life throws us curveballs, little sister. All we can do is take our best swing. But if you’re going to try to hit this one out of the park, you better do it soon. Nick doesn’t have much time.”
She took a deep, cleansing breath and blew it out slowly. “I’d like the room.”
Tobias and Gabriel gave her one last hug each and then exited.
Harriet stayed behind. “If he says no…”
“I won’t force him,” Rowan said.
Harriet squeezed her arm. “But I will force you.”
Rowan raised her eyebrows in question.
“I will force you to go on. I will force you to survive. I will force you to heal. You will not become like Alexander. I won’t let you.”
Rowan hugged her friend as her tears flowed freely. “I love you, Harriet. Your friendship is a light in the darkness.”
The old woman pulled back. “I try. Besides, without you, I couldn’t afford to keep myself in Hermès and Chanel. I have quite the habit, you know.”
She kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, I know.”
Harriet squeezed her arm one last time and left the room, closing the door behind her. It was just Rowan and Nick, his body as still as if he were already dead. She hated it. The tick of the clock on the wall measured out the seconds. Rowan raised her ruby ring and called on the magic that resided in her dragon heart, magic that was her dragon birthright. It was said that in the beginning of time, dragons were slaughtered by other beings searching for the piece of them that embodied immortality. All they achieved was killing those dragons of old and killing their magic with them. For the magic was not in their scales or their blood or even their organs, it was in their souls, their minds, and their ability to love beyond limits.
