Ashton Drake

by Emilia Hartley

  Behind him, nurses kept passing by the door. Makenna watched them each pause, take in Griffin, and scurry away before he turned. He seemed oblivious to the whispering in the hall and the faces that would lean to peer into the room. The whole ward was besotted with the silver dragon.

  Maybe he would find a nurse on his way out who could convince him to set aside his bitterness. She doubted even the nurturing demeanor of a nurse could help Griffin sort through whatever he was holding onto. He needed someone who could chip away at the wall of cold steel he erected. She didn’t know a woman strong enough to handle that.

  “Ashton asked me to bring this to you,” Griffin announced. He lifted the large parcel he’d been carrying.

  The familiar worn leather and stickers would have told her what it was if the shape hadn’t given it away. Her guitar. She reached for it with a trembling hand before jerking back like she’d been burned.

  Griffin stepped back, obviously uncomfortable while she dealt with her emotions. Her annoyance at him was a welcome distraction from the guitar case resting near her feet. She was tempted to ask him to stay if only to see how many nurses would come along and ask if Makenna needed anything.

  But she had no voice.

  She could ask for nothing.

  Griffin nodded and awkwardly made his departure, running into a nurse on his way out. He bumped chests with the male nurse, who watched Griffin leave with more than a little enthusiasm. When the nurse entered her room to take away her lunch tray, he let out a low and appreciative whistle.

  “Are you any good with that guitar?” the male nurse asked. “I wouldn’t mind a tune if you wanted to play. To be totally honest with you, I’m dreadfully tired of the country station playing in the lobby. Please save me.”

  Makenna gave him a tight-lipped smile. The guitar case would remain closed. She couldn’t bear the thought of opening it. Not now.

  Instead, she lay down and turned on her side. Her chest ached for the one person who wasn’t there. She reached for the bond that had filled her with light while the darkness tried to claim her. She gave it a soft tug. Tears stung her eyes.

  Where was he? Why wasn’t he with her?

  ***

  Ashton prowled the mountainside, clawed feet digging into the scorched and musty earth. While fire had ripped through the lifeless trees, the water Jasper and Griffin had poured down turned the ash to sludge. The ragged strip of mountain was forlorn. It set Ashton’s teeth on edge.

  His mate had slept through the night. He’d spent it by her side, cramped in the hospital chair so long as it meant he could make sure she was safe. When morning light broke over the horizon and Makenna was still asleep, he set out to hunt down the cause of the fire.

  The local firefighters hadn’t found anything. They always assumed every fire was caused by the local dragons. The thought had Ashton curling his lips. The firefighters, a bunch of bulky men, had stepped back from him as he stormed from the room.

  Which led him to the side of the mountain. He would hunt down the source of the fire on his own. Jasper could fly to Florida for all he cared. What mattered was getting to the bottom of the disaster that nearly stole his mate from him. He knew the anger and drive was in part because of his beast, but he wasn’t in the mood to deny the creature.

  He let the beast’s instincts push him further. The air was still laden with the scent of smoke. He’d been responsible for a lot of fires in his life, but never one this bad. It had clawed its way down the mountain, devouring everything in its path like a demon.

  He didn’t think demons were real. Even if they were, one wouldn’t take to the Drake Mountains to harass a bunch of dragon shifters. Ashton figured the cause of the fire was much more mundane than that. The human side of him knew he would find a faulty transformer or a camp site at the heart of the blaze.

  There would be nothing for his beast to maim in the name of revenge. He should be back with Makenna. It’d been too hard to sit in the hospital. She was healing, but not fast enough. Until she opened her eyes and said his name, the fear that she would never wake haunted him. His life would mean little to him without her.

  Unable to find the heart of the fire, no raging demon begging him to fight his heart out, he took to the skies once again. The beast was disgruntled. It still pulsed with unspent energy. He circled the sky, hoping to find a glimpse of something, when he felt a tug in his lower abdomen.

  It pulled him back to Grove.

  His heart leapt with excitement before the rush of emotions from the other end of the bond hit him. They washed over him, a flood of fear and doubt and shame. The beast roared. She needed him and once again, he wasn’t there.

  Chapter Twenty

  Makenna was being discharged already. Her healing had been impossibly fast, skin returning to normal. All that remained was her ruined throat. The doctor told her to come in again so they could monitor it, but other than that there was no reason for her to stay.

  Still, Ashton hadn’t returned. It wasn’t until she looked to the sliding glass doors that she realized she had nowhere to go. The apartment was surely nothing more than wet cinders. The only thing that had survived was her guitar. It’d been in the back of Ashton’s truck.

  She wondered at the strangeness of it. There was surely some hidden message in the fact that the old string instrument had survived without a scratch or scorch, but she couldn’t find it. Not while her stomach dragged along the floor like a lump of lead.

  Her home was gone, her job was on the line, and her voice was gone. Her life had been turned upside down. When she looked out the doors, she became lost. The skies beyond were dark. A draft of frigid air swept inside each time the doors slid open. She didn’t even have a jacket to wear outside.

  She was about to turn around and slump in a lobby chair when a draft slapped her in the back. Before she could turn around, arms closed around her. They swept her off her feet and spun her in the air. Ashton’s scent enveloped her. It cast away the gloom that had been trying to overtake her.

  “You’re awake!” he repeated it over and over while burying his face in her neck.

  She tapped his shoulder and staggered away when he set her down. It seemed she hadn’t healed as fully as she’d thought because his heat set her skin ablaze. He looked at her, brows bent together. Makenna opened her mouth, but her lips just shook. Her breath escaped her in a shudder.

  “What is it?” His voice cracked.

  His concern for her warmed her from the inside out. With him, there was hope. She reached for his hand and held it tight, unable to let him get far from her even if his heat pained her. She would bear it because being near Ashton meant that things would be alright. With time, with patience, everything would be alright.

  She coughed. It felt like swallowing a hot coal, but she bore the pain and found a few words.

  “I can’t sing,” was all she managed to say.

  The truth stung. It was a needle in her heart. Saying it out loud had given it truth, especially when she heard the gravelly tone.

  “Correction,” the doctor said, sliding into their conversation. “You can’t sing right now. I suspect that the rate of your healing will allow you to sing in a month or two. You just have to let your body take its natural course.”

  The doctor gave her a disproving look. She’d taken his words and let them spiral out of control in her mind. Ashton caught the twist of her lips and frowned.

  “That’s my fault,” he said, as though he could read her mind. Devastation darkened his eyes and dropped his shoulders. “If I’d been here, we could have handled this together. I should have been there.”

  She knew he wasn’t talking about the hospital anymore. Ashton blamed himself for this. There were so many things that could have happened, that they could have changed, but none of that was actually what happened. He couldn’t spend his life chained to her side just because she was human and therefore fragile. Neither of them could have predicted the flames that swept down the mountain.
>
  All they could do was make the best of what they had.

  The despair that gripped her earlier was banished. It was a screaming ghost that broke apart into nothing so long as she held his hand.

  “I do, however, foresee some changes in your voice,” the doctor intoned. He turned to Makenna. “I do not think your healing process will be perfect. You will never go back to exactly who you were before the smoke. I will advise you to embrace your changes when you do decide to sing again. They are not better or worse, just different.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Hope flickered but remained. It was weak and fragile. She cradled it and tried to keep it alive. There was no way to know what the changes would sound like until she got to record again. Without the studio Ashton had made in her apartment, she wouldn’t be able to record anyway.

  “I’m sorry you—" she swallowed past the pain— “wasted your money.”

  Ashton’s brows arched in surprise. “What? Oh, you mean the recording equipment?” He shook his head, grinning despite everything that had happened to them. “That just means I get to buy you bigger and better equipment for the new house.”

  She didn’t know where he was getting all this money, but he was part of the biggest bank in the world. She wouldn’t ask questions.

  The doctor dismissed them. Ashton shrugged off his coat and slung it over her shoulders. It was snowing when they stepped outside, but the pristine white wonderland set Makenna’s soul at peace. The cold flakes melted on her cheeks. She welcomed their cool touch after the fire. Ashton lifted her into the passenger seat of his truck. When he tried to take the guitar case from her, she held onto it.

  Though she’d wanted nothing to do with it earlier, she now wanted to find her song in it now. If she couldn’t sing, perhaps that meant she could focus on other sounds. Her ears had not been harmed. Her hearing was just fine. She would coax sound from the guitar until she found her voice and could give words to the songs budding inside her.

  “I know you can’t have a waffle cone right now, but how does a large soft-serve ice-cream with extra sprinkles sound?”

  Makenna leaned over the seat and kissed her mate’s cheek. His offer sounded much better than the hospital gelatin. She couldn’t wait, but she would have to. She gestured to her state of undress. Her clothes hadn’t exactly survived the fire and subsequent hospital visit.

  “Ah, I was rather enjoying the view,” Ashton teased.

  She kicked him, but he reached and found her super soft pair of sweatpants, the ones she’d let him borrow days ago. A little while later, after more rummaging, he produced a faded t-shirt to go with it. She turned away from the passenger window and tugged the hospital gown over her head.

  His clothes smelled like him, like musk and metal. She breathed deep, relaxing into his jacket. He reached over and held her hand, like he didn’t know how to let go. He had some things to work through. They both would after something like that.

  Now she knew Ashton would never be far away. Even if he was gone, he would return as soon as she needed him. The thought was like a comforting blanket. It was one she drew over herself, protecting her from the world. He might beat himself up over what happened, but when it no longer pained her to speak, she would tell him of all the ways he saved her.

  Not just from the fire, but from letting her dreams slip away. Had she lost her voice before he returned, she never would have despaired. She would have let it roll over, just another loss among many in the numb life she’d been living. Ashton had returned and brought with him a flame to light her own from.

  “So, about the housing situation,” Ashton began. She caught his nervous glances at her and the quirk at the corner of his lips. “I have an idea, but I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it. Bear with me while I tell you.”

  Makenna knew they couldn’t go back to her apartment, but she also didn’t know what happened to his own claim on the cabin. Had he signed over his rental agreement when he left to move in with her? Where else would they go?

  “I haven’t exactly asked him yet, but I’m going to assume my status as part of his court means I can use some of the rooms at the manor.”

  Surprise made her laugh incredulously. It hurt, but it was worth it.

  Did he really think they could just sneakily move into Jasper’s house? The gold dragon had made it very clear he wanted nothing to do with visitors. She couldn’t imagine waking and grabbing a box of cereal to find Jasper staring at her from the kitchen table. His glare alone would set her on fire.

  “I think it’s for the best,” Ashton went on. “Just think about it. I’ll be there whenever Jasper’s beast tries to make a break for it. Plus, we’ll all be in the same place. It will be like having an actual family for once.” He paused. “A very dangerous and dysfunctional family.”

  Makenna had never heard of a time when the Drake house had been set on fire. It seemed like the safest place in all of Grove so long as Jasper didn’t haul them out the moment he found them. She found the idea humorous, to be honest. Jasper clearly needed someone. Griffin wasn’t the best company, but she knew Ashton would liven up the place.

  Perhaps even her music would help.

  “It would be only as long as it takes to build our own house. I don’t want to spend my life with Jasper.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It didn’t take long for Jasper to figure out what Ashton was doing. The moment they stepped onto the property with boxes of new stuff, Jasper stormed out the door, snarling and shouting. Makenna watched her mate take it all in stride, like it was a child’s temper tantrum. She realized when Jasper didn’t haul them out of the massive house that the new dragon king wasn’t all that mad.

  It was more of a surprise when Jasper kicked open a door and told them that they could stay there. The bed inside was nearly twice the size of her old one. The room itself was more of a suite, large enough to have eclipsed her entire apartment. Makenna was doubly impressed when she found the attached bathroom and its soaking tub with a television mounted over it.

  She pointed to it and told Ashton with her raspy voice that she would need a set up like that someday. He kissed her brow and told her she could have anything she wished.

  That first day, she’d sat on the edge of the bed and took in the things they’d bought to replace everything lost in the fire. It was a new life, waiting for them to unbox it in a new home. She reveled at the idea of a new beginning, at the knowledge that she would never be on her own again.

  Nothing would ever be the same. She’d lost her job at the gas station, but she didn’t mourn it like she thought she would. It was a weight lifted from her shoulders. The crew at the diner visited her. They brought her flowers, magazines, and delicious food. One waitress even bought a party sized tub of ice-cream and lingered to watch Jasper and Ashton argue.

  Makenna thought staying with Jasper would have been awkward and fraught with tension. Instead, Ashton and Jasper made it strangely homey. Their arguments, though they always ended in violence, felt more like sibling fights than actual hatred.

  The times that Jasper attempted to leave the mountains, one of the two dragons were always nearby. In the first few days, Ashton earned a few new scars from the fights and chasing after Jasper, but Makenna delighted in kissing them all when they retired for the night.

  ***

  A month had rolled by, almost sneaking past Makenna. The only thing that marked the passing days was the return of her voice. As the pain vanished and the gravel started to fade, her heart lifted. She spent her nights, now that she no longer had to worry about shifts at the gas station, playing her guitar for Ashton. She liked to think that the sound helped Jasper, too.

  He hadn’t tried to leave Grove in his dragon form the entire month they’d been there. Makenna wondered if he was on his best behavior because there were two dragons in close proximity or if he was truly beginning to respect Ashton and Griffin as his court. She could no more crawl into the mind of the dragon king than
she could make her debt disappear.

  Ashton sidled up behind her. He gripped her hips and pulled her into his groin with a growl. His breath was hot on her ear.

  “You’ve gotten thick,” he whispered. “I like it.”

  Her stomach dropped. While healing, she’d had too many bowls of ice-cream and milkshakes. The lack of a third job meant she had more time to relax, but she was beginning to see the drawbacks. Her hips had widened, and her stomach had become soft. She pinched her skin and scowled.

  As if to drive home his point, Ashton’s fingers dug into her waist possessively. He nipped the soft skin of her neck. “I like this,” he said as he ran his hands up her waist and over her stomach. “I really like this,” he said cupping her larger breasts.

  She laughed, feeling giddy with his affection. His words left her with a high. “You don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better.”

  Ashton spun her around. The mirth was gone from his eyes. “I would never lie about loving you. I love this Mac the same as I loved the Mac from a month ago, from six years ago. There won’t be a form of you I won’t love. You could shift into a sparrow right here and now, and I’d think that was the sexiest sparrow I’d ever seen.”

  She shook her head, a little thrown off by his comment about the sparrow. Still, his love warmed her. He constantly amazed her. It shouldn’t surprise her because she felt much the same about him, but to have it turned on her was different.

  “You best not tell me you’re swearing off milkshakes because I ordered one for you. Food should be here by now.”

  “You ordered food?” Makenna asked. She’d planned on making a big pot of spaghetti for everyone. It was the cheapest meal, one they’d lived off for weeks now. Springing to order food hadn’t exactly been in the budget. “Are you celebrating?”

  The corner of Ashton’s lips quirked. “I have to. It’s the first day that’s gone by without a fight.”