Page 16 of Tank

He knew that as well. He was sick of hospital food and the smells. Being a shifter, he could smell things stronger than a human could, and he just wanted to go home, shift, and take to the skies to wash some of the smell off him. He realized that he’d missed something and asked his brother to repeat it.

“I asked if you two have talked all that much. I know you can’t sit in the room all the time, but surely you have some time to talk to her about yourself.” He said that last night they’d spent an hour in the cafeteria just doing that. “Good. I hope things for Serenity end well for her. Are they sure that Beth is going to die?”

“Yes. Since she’s been here, the tumor has grown again. It looks like it’s pressing so hard behind her eyes and the rest of her brain that there’s little room for anything else. She’s in a great deal of pain all the time, too.” He told him about the IV drip they had her on. “She’s getting medications, but it’s not making her any friendlier to anyone. And she has a mouth on her that would make a sailor blush. Especially when she’s talking to her sister.”

“I hate that Serenity is going through that. I bet she’s hurting all the time.” He told his brother that she was a great deal. “I wish I could do something for her. But I know that since Beth is a human, she had to progress in the right way or people will have questions.”

“Other than making it so that she doesn’t suffer, I have no idea what we can do for her. Serenity said she didn’t want her around forever. I don’t blame her. Beth is hard on the heart.” He asked if she’d said anything to him. “I don’t think she notices me when her sister is around. I know that she’ll look at me, but the medication is making her eyesight blurry. Not to mention the way she’s losing weight. Every time they put a feeding tube down her throat, she yanks it out and causes pain for herself. I think that they’re doing the best they can with her. Beth isn’t being as combative as she’d been before. I think she’s just too weak to do much more than complain about things.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know that humans suffering is hard on the family, but I’ve never known one to be honest. And since Serenity is my sister now, I doubly hurt that she is. As I said, I wish I could help her in some way.”

“The only thing we can do is pray for her. I know that a lot of people won’t like me saying that, but that’s all there is left.” He said he’d do just that. “Thank you, Ace. You’re the best brother a person has ever had.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll be there tonight, but don’t expect us to eat all that much, especially not Serenity. I’m worried about her losing weight, too.”

“We’ll give her something that she’ll want. Anything.” He said she’d been eating ice cream cones from the vending machines. “Then I’ll make sure that we have plenty of flavors around for when she gets here. I might even join her in eating ice cream.”

They both laughed when they closed the connection. Sherman felt better after talking to Ace, and he was glad that he reached out to him. One or more of his cousins had been stopping by since they’d been here, and that was good for him as well. As soon as this was over, he was going to take Serenity on a long vacation and see if he could get her to fly with him. She might enjoy that more than anything.

Chapter 7

Waking up at six-thirty, Serenity decided that she wasn’t going to lie around in bed all day but get up and get going. Today, she was going to spend some time with Sherman and his cousins. They were all coming over later to help them move some of the furniture that she’d bought at the auction and then stay for dinner. Going down to the kitchen, she’d forgotten that it was under construction and tried to stay out of their way. She only wanted to get some juice from the refrigerator, and they allowed her to do that. She found Sherman in the new dining room when she went in there to drink it.

“You’re up early. I didn’t expect you to come down until much later.” She said that she’d been lazing about enough. “I don’t know that you’ve been lazing about at all, but just catching up on your sleep. You’ve had a rough few days.”

“I’m going to go in later today. I’ve decided that I can’t spend all day there, and like myself very much. I want to lash out at her, but I can’t do that. I did for a while yesterday, but today I’m going to be nice. As nice as I can be anyway.” She leaned down to kiss him on the mouth and was surprised when he pulled her closer for a longer, hungrier kiss. “That was nice.”

“Thanks, love. I’ve been wanting to do that for days.” She sat down in the chair next to his and played with the drip marks on her glass. “You all right? You seem sort of down today. I’m sorry if I went too far with the kiss.”

“It wasn’t that. I enjoyed that too.” She smiled up at him and shoved her now-empty glass away. “I’ve been thinking about sex with you. I don’t know that I’m ready right today, but I’m beginning to know that I want to make love with you. Is that something you can get on board with? I mean, you can say no. I’ve had—”

“Yes, I can get on board with that when you’re ready. I’d love to claim you as mine.” She was embarrassed now and looked out the window instead of at him. “I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that we might be able to do that would get us to know one another better. How about after you visit Beth tomorrow night, you and I go out to dinner? We can see a movie too if it’s not too late. Remember the thing I told you about with the family? We’ll meet them at Ace’s home and have a good night.”

“I’d love that. Yes, that would be great. I don’t know how much company I’ll be tonight, but I’m going to enjoy myself watching you fly.” She smiled at him again. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so distracted lately. I have a great deal going on.”

“I know that. You do. And as soon as we can, we’ll move on with our lives and try to get some normalization going so that you’re not so stressed all the time.” She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “What’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about you a great deal, and I’m sorry that I’ve been spending hardly any time with you. I want to spend all my time with you and things…Beth keeps getting in the way. She’s so mean to me.” That had her bursting into tears, and he pulled her into his lap while he held her. “No matter what I say to her, all she can come back with is the fact that she wants to murder me. I don’t even think she knows why now. Or at least remembers it. She never mentions money. She only knows that I’ve wronged her in some way and that by killing me will make it right.”

“I’ve noticed that she’s never mentioned Helen either. Do you think that she remembers her at all? The mind is a strange thing, I know. Especially the human mind. But she seems to be focused on making you pay for whatever injustice she feels like you’ve done to her.” He held her until she cried herself out. “I have you, babe. I won’t allow her to hurt you physically anymore. I don’t know what to do about her mentally abusing you, but I can be there when you need me.”

“I know that. I have no idea why I know that, but you’ve been my rock since we got her to the hospital the first time. Now she’s going to be there for a while longer, and it hurts me that I can’t make her feel better. Or at least feel like she doesn’t have to hurt me. What did I ever do to her that makes her want to kill me?” He held her while she cried more. It seemed like all she ever did was cry anymore. “I need to invest in tissues. I have used a ton of them over the last two and a half weeks.”

He held her while she quieted down. When he moved his arm to adjust her, he realized that she’d cried herself to sleep. Holding her tightly in his arms, he thought about all the time that they’d been spending together, yet not really. Just because he was with her when she was with her sister, it didn’t mean that he was getting any quality time with her. As soon as she looked up at him, he fell more in love with her.

“I love you.” He kissed her in a way of an answer, and she smiled more. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t with me all the time. But I do know that I have to get away from the hospital for a few hours, even if I just stay here where all the construction is going on.”

“That can be arranged. We could go over to Ace’s home, and I could shift for you. He has that high fence put in so that no one can see him when he shifts.” She nodded and asked him when they could leave. “I have to make sure he’s home. Not that he’d care, but I don’t want to be my dragon, and he has someone showing up to talk to.”

“Yes, that would be bad.” She giggled, and it caught him off guard. She’d had no reason to laugh of late and thought it felt good that she could laugh today. She was going to do it more often if he could make her. “All right. I’m going to change, and then I’m going to go with you. We’ll have a good morning of it and then take your brother out to lunch. I have to go to the hospital later, but I feel like I’ll be more prepared when I go there after today.”

“More than likely, yes.” She stood up, and before she could pull away, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It wasn’t a light kiss but something akin to a craving. When he pulled away and rested his forehead on hers, she asked him if he was all right. “I don’t know. All I’ve thought about is having you in my bed and making love to you. I want to claim you as my own so that everyone knows that I have the best mate in the world of dragons.”

“That’s so sweet.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and smiled at him. “You make me feel so special, Sherman. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. I know that it would be worse than it is now. Let’s get going.”

It only took them about half an hour to make their way over to Ace’s home. He wasn’t home, but at a breakfast thing, but he’d be home later. He was going to fly with the others tonight, but for now, he was going to show his dragon to her. She’d been asking about it for days.

After he shifted in the grass, she made sure not to get too close to him. He had warned her that his tail at times had a mind of its own and could hurt her. She kept an eye on it the entire time she was walking around him, and when she got to his head again, a massive thing, she sat down on the grass in front of him.

“I don’t know why, but I thought you’d be a pretty blue. But you’re a fiery red, aren’t you?” He lay his head down beside her, and she loved that he was careful. “The spikes on your head are bigger than I am. I bet that’s so that you could fight if you had to.”