Page 33 of Matched By the Dragon

“It’s okay. You can go back to sleep if you need to. Are they giving you enough pain medicine? Does it hurt too much?”

“I.. Are they okay? Why are they going to the hospital?” he asked. “I didn’t drop Resin when I fell, did I? Thought I had him tight enough.”

“You did. You did great, alpha,” I told him over our mating link while trying not to sob. “They’re going to the hospital because you’re going to the hospital.”

“Okay. It’s okay. I’m okay.” Durin said, his eyes sliding shut again.

At the hospital, it was as if the world exploded into action. The medic handed the babies back to me and then they whooshed Durin away. I tried to get out of the ambulance but Clyde climbed inside before I could stand up. He took the babies one by one and put them into this big laundry basket he’d gotten from only Juda knows where. Then he gave them each a beef stick. Before I knew what he planned to do he was listening to my belly with his stethoscope.

“I didn’t fall! Durin did!” I said, trying to wiggle away, but my back was against the literal wall and there was nowhere to go.

“I know,” Clyde said. “Humor me for a few minutes, okay? Just all the stuff I have to check because you’re stressed out. Blood pressure’s next.”

He slid the cuff onto my arm and the machine started pumping.

“You were snatched up by a dragon,” Clyde said. “He had good timing because it was probably better than sprinting in this heat from temple to temple, but still.”

“Clyde!” I shouted. “I need to get to Durin! This is going to have to wait!”

“We have to start it over now,” Clyde said his voice level. “They’re taking him straight back to scan his brain and stuff. They’re going to take a while checking him out and when he wakes up, he’s going to want to know if you and the cubs are okay.”

“Okay. Okay.” I nodded at him. “I guess. Just do it.”

“Just try to stay still for me, okay? It doesn’t take long,” Clyde said gently.

I let the cuff beat the shit out of my arm in its squeezing rhythm.

“Not too high. Normal for being snatched up by a dragon. Normal for being scared.” He said.

“I felt it. Not the impact but the after affects,” I told him.

“That’s normal. I don’t tell this story often, but during the War of the Wildlands, I broke my wrist. It was stupid. I was pulling an idiot out of the way of an explosive and we both fell. His fat ass fell on my wrist. Snapped it. Before I even processed something was wrong, Ashley was growling up a storm inside my head that he was going to eat that moose shifter for dinner. Only he didn’t use such nice words. I didn’t register the pain fully for two to three minutes after Ash ley felt it. Then before that with our second litter, Ashley was napping on the sofa. Pregnant as can be. Like so pregnant I refused to leave the house. I was doing dishes and I swear to the Crow King it felt like I peed my pants. His water had broken. It doesn’t happen with all mated pairs, and a lot of people don’t like me saying it, but sometimes pairs who bond in trauma or have previous trauma are more likely to experience it. When your person is all you have or all you had at one point, of course, your whole world revolves around them.”

I wanted to cry. Not because Clyde broke his wrist or because I was traumatized, but because in so many ways he was right. Sure, I had made new friends by founding Omega Ward. I even adored Alby and Bennie, but at the end of the day, Durin was my person. Now my person was getting tests to see if his brain was broken.

“Hey, he’s going to be alright. They said they thought he was talking to you on the way here. That’s a good sign.”

“He was a bit confused.”

“That was probably the meds in part. They didn’t want him to wake up as a bear and lose his s-h-i-t because of pain. Injured bear shifters have been known to lash out. They haven’t called for a door watcher to be with him. So, he’s probably okay.”

“When can I see him?” I asked.

“Let me grab a wheelchair for you. Humor me with that, please? And we’ll figure out when you can see Durin.”

I did humor Clyde and let him load me into a wheelchair. I only went along with his plan because it had a basket for the cubs to ride in. Plus, I’d have ridden in on a tricycle if that was the only way I was getting to see Durin. I needed to make sure he was okay. He had to be okay, or I was going to lose my ever-loving shit! I could not afford to lose my shit. I had babies to take care of. There was no two ways about it!

Alby and Bennie were already inside waiting. I wasn’t sure how they beat the ambulance to the hospital, but they were a welcome sight. Especially when it turned out to be a two hour wait to see Durin. The staff might’ve kept me waiting longer if Durin hadn’t climbed out of bed as a bear and padded down the hallway.

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed yet,” a big wolf alpha said, following on his heels.

Durin turned and growled at him. The wolf man kept following but he shut his mouth. I was stuck in my chair because the boys were asleep in the basket, but Durin found me anyway. The nurse who followed was not impressed with his runaway patient, but it wasn’t like he could physically carry Durin back to bed. My mate came to the side of my chair and rested his head against me. I wrapped my arm around his big, furry head and held onto him.

The wolf man nurse stepped closer and I growled. It was a selfish thing to do and I knew it. This poor overworked nurse who smelled like breakfast cereal was just trying to do his job. His little wolf pin had spun upside down sometime during his shift. Still, Durin was mine and I needed to see him. He must’ve needed me too, because he found me.

“Give them a minute,” Clyde slid between me and the nurse, saving me from having to bite him or having to wake up my babies. “If he can be upright and find his true-mate, he’ll be okay for a minute.”

“But the doctor said he needed to stay in bed until the morning,” the nurse said.