Page 49 of The Dragons’ Eternal Mate

Rushing over, I grabbed hold of the assailant’s coat, flinging him away from us. He smashed into a tree trunk, crumpling to the ground.

“Thanks. Who knew these assholes would be armed?”

Dragons tended to fight with fists. Weapons weren’t unheard of, but they certainly weren’t common.

I held out a hand, pulling Griff to his feet, shifting to glance across the distance at Bastian and Grey. Metal tore through Grey’s shoulder, Bastian reaching for his attacker’s neck and snapping it before getting to our clanmate in a flash. The two of them disarmed the enforcer, taking his blade and dragging it through the asshole’s neck.

At least that problem was⁠—

“Orsen!”

I spun around as Griffin called out, the guy I’d thrown barreling toward me. He collided with my ribs as I wrapped my arms around one shoulder, my heels skidding back in the dirt, but I didn’t go down. The moment the momentum stopped, I growled, squeezing the guy’s arm and neck. I held tight, cutting off the enforcer’s air as he flailed. The fight went out of him, and I jerked hard upward, ensuring he was dead with a swift crack of his spine.

Letting him drop, I panted hard, my side burning. The others gathered, taking stock of what’d happened. I walked over to the nearest tree, leaning against it as the pain in my torso pinched down, warmth noticeable at the precise spot.

I grunted, glancing at the others. Bastian kicked one of the enforcers to be sure the fallen man wasn’t getting up again.

Grey gripped his shoulder, pulling his hand away to show a smear of crimson. Blinking several times, he wobbled on his feet.

“It’s really not that bad, but…” He shook his head, like he was trying to clear his thoughts. It only occurred to me then that I’d begun to slip down the trunk I was leaning against. “…I feel…weird.”

“Shit,” I heard Griffin say, sounding like it was traveling through water. “I know that look. I’ve had that look. Remember when I got poisoned?”

I couldn’t respond, my head floating off my body like a balloon, and I only just registered the eyes turning to me, all going wide at the same time. From what I could make out, which was only odd shapes at the moment, Griffin was an off-kilter trapezoid and very angry about it.

My head swam, and I hissed, holding my hand over the rapidly bleeding wound as I sank to the ground, the world going dark around me.

My last words were, “Rowan is going to be so pissed at me.”

Rowan

“Rowan, you need to get to the clinic.” Nix grimaced, looking at his phone.

We were having a movie night, trying not to stress about the others after I’d woken up and found them gone. Initially, I had been organizing and reorganizing the clinic’s cabinets, but when Nix had found me taking out the bottles and jars from the same cupboard for the eighth time, he’d put his foot down and insisted we needed a break.

Stopping had been doable, but resting or clearing my mind hadn’t been.

I had no idea how he expected me to keep calm when the others and Griffin were out there in the woods, trying to keep Byron’s men from kidnapping Allison. Still, we curled up on the sofa and put on a movie that neither of us truly watched, snuggled up with each other.

Until now. His lips were in a tight line, his entire body tense.

“What’s happening?” I asked, jerking upright and clambering over him to check his phone.

“It looks like Orsen is injured. They’re taking him to the clinic,” Nix admitted, his brows pinched together.

I rolled off the couch and was out the door so fast, Nix was scrambling to keep up with me, which was saying something. But panic made me quick, my mind spinning over and over again as I pictured Nix when they’d brought him to me, his shoulder furious and red, the skin blistered.

Another one. Another of my mates is hurt.

We arrived at the clinic at the same moment as Bastian and Griffin carried Orsen toward me, his weight settled between them. He clutched his stomach, sweat clinging to his brow, and I could make out the red oozing from between his fingers.

“Oh God…” I froze for a moment. Orsen was hurt, and it wasn’t a light graze. There was enough blood for it to be some serious damage.

My chest tightened, and at the same time my heart rate skyrocketed, making my head spin and my throat go dry.

I was used to emergencies—I was a healer after all, but this was different. This was someone I loved.

After a second, I had to physically shake myself out of the shock. “What happened?”