DragonSpell

by Natalie Lougher

  “Have you told her you love her?” she asked carefully and Ian shook his head.

  “I want to tell her that when she opens her eyes.”

  “You love me? Really?” my imaginary being sat down dumbly. His actions over the last few days had spoken louder than words, but to actually hear the words...

  “The heart of the dragon may be gone, but the heart of the woman is clearly the stronger of the two and she might like to hear it.” Ciara bent down to give him a tight hug before she squeezed my hand and quietly left the hospital room.

  By day three Ian was positively beside himself with anxiety. My burns were almost gone, my breathing was a little smoother, making him think that the cracked ribs were starting to heal but I still didn’t wake up.

  “Where are you, lass? Please, give me a sign that you’re in there somewhere and I haven’t lost you.” He whispered, resting his head on the bed beside my hand. He was so tired, he barely slept because he didn’t want to miss anything but when he did, he had such horrible, vivid dreams of me being lost in a forest and not able to get out.

  He woke up with a start when someone tapped on the partially closed door and when he looked up, he blinked in surprise and then rose to his feet, arms extended.

  “Rachel! You made it!” She went into his embrace without hesitation and he heard her sniffle against his sweater. She was a good few inches shorter than I was, slight but solid and her bouncy dark curls framed her pretty face, but nothing could touch the worry in her eyes.

  “Rachel?!” I cried in my head, tears coming to my imaginary being’s eyes at the sound of her name. As if it hadn’t been hard enough over the last two days, being stuck in my dark, watery prison while Ian had sat so steadfastly by my side. But now to hear Rachel’s name, and smell her familiar perfume, added more salt to my wounds and I started to fight against the wings that held me down.

  “Ciara sent me a text over Skype the other night telling me what happened and that if I wanted it, there would be a plane ticket waiting at the airport for me. It took me a day to get my schedule figured out and get on the plane but here I am.” She squeezed his hand tightly as she turned to look at me and she choked back a sob. “Oh sweetie, look at you.” She whispered, her heart breaking as she reached a gentle hand out to touch my scorched hair.

  “I’m glad that you’re here. And I’m sure Kailani is too.” He told her thickly and she shot a fast glance over her shoulder at the handsome doctor. He had such dark circles under his eyes and she immediately felt bad that he wasn’t sleeping and grateful that he was staying with me.

  “How is she? Or more importantly, what the hell happened?” She asked quietly, but before Ian could answer, my mental struggles finally succeeded in waking my body up enough that I started to cough and gag against the breathing tube and Ian and Rachel both turned to me in surprise.

  “Kailani! Hang in there, lass.” Ian said, his voice tight with emotion as he hit the page button for the doctor on call.

  “What’s happening? Is she okay?” Rachel asked in alarm and Ian looked over his shoulder at her as he smoothed a soothing hand across my forehead and over my hair as my body jerked with every cough and gag.

  “She’s waking up Rachel. Her body is starting to protest the breathing tube.” Tears shone in his eyes and she closed her own eyes as tears burned her eyelids at the news.

  “Can you take it out? You’re a doctor.”

  “I could but I shouldn’t. I’m not her attending doctor.” Just as he said the words, Dr. Michaels and Emma burst into the room and they came to my side, forcing Ian and Rachel to step back out of the way. The two professionals who tended to me pulled the breathing tube out and Rachel closed her eyes and turned her back with a shudder as the long plastic tube came out of my throat. Ian put his arms around her comfortingly, assuring her it didn’t hurt me, and when the tube was gone everyone stood back for a second to see what I would do.

  I had been so elated that my body had finally done something other than just lay here that I fully expected to be able to sit up and look around. But when I tried, nothing happened. I couldn’t even flutter an eyelash. Dammit! Dr. Michaels and Emma read a few charts, talked quietly for a moment and then when it became clear I wasn’t waking up, they looped an oxygen tube under my nose, wished Ian and Rachel well, and left again. When the three of us were alone, my two friends relaxed.

  “I was about to say that physically she’s fine. No one can explain the coma she’s in but her injuries are healing and that’s obviously very important.” Ian wandered over to the door and eased it closed so no one walking by would hear their conversation and when he rejoined her, she perched on the side of my bed while he took the chair again.

  “That day that we talked to you over Skype was the day of the confrontation. She was so amazing Rachel, I can’t even begin to tell you. She just stepped in front of all of us, taunted these two fairies that were down on the sand threatening us, and when she changed forms, damn did she mean business. Everything she could do to protect us she did. She has more power inside her than any of us ever expected her to, and I don’t know if maybe she surprised herself sometimes too. She was casting spells, she was breathing fire, she was snapping at these guys and flying around, making it hard for them to hit her but still keep their attention on her instead of us. She was spectacular.” His voice held so much awe that Rachel looked back at me, still laying in bed peacefully now that the breathing tube was gone and she raised her eyebrows.

  “So what happened that she’s in the hospital?”

  “She bit the one fairy in two and he disappeared. That pissed off the more vocal one and they got into a real battle of wills. He sent a bolt of lightning at her but he missed and it hit the cliff wall, sending boulders crashing down on the beach. Unfortunately Kailani was down on the sand when the rocks fell and they crushed her back-end. So she cast some kind of dragonspell on him that by the look of it crippled his mind and then she roasted him. But as he was dying, he cursed her, saying the dragon’s heart would stop beating at midnight that night. And it did.” Rachel gasped at his words and she turned to make sure I was indeed still breathing and her eyes were full of confusion.

  “But - ?”

  “Up until midnight she was unable to change back into human form. Whether she couldn’t do it or it hurt too much to do, I’m not sure but when midnight struck, she changed forms, not of her own free will, and when I realized that she was alive but unconscious we called for an ambulance. She suffered a broken leg, hip and knee, cracked ribs, second-degree burns to the front of her body from her own breath of fire that got blown back at her.”

  “Oh my god, this all sounds like some dark and broken fairy-tale.” Rachel looked down at my hand beside her and the IV tube that was attached to it.

  “Believe me, it felt like one for a long time too.” Ian sighed tiredly and tipped his head back to rest against the chair and Rachel smiled at him sympathetically.

  “I’m here now and I’d like to stay for a little while. Do you mind if I have a few minutes alone with her?”

  “Of course not. I’m going to head down to the cafeteria and get something to eat, are you hungry?” Ian rose to his feet and she tipped her head back to look up at him, shaking her head with a faint smile.

  “I’m good thanks.” She watched him walk out of the room and when he was gone she turned back to me. “Damn woman, you picked a hot one this time! And he certainly makes those jeans look like they’re right off a runway!” She whispered with a giggle and slipped off the bed to pull the chair Ian had just vacated closer to sit down on. She stared at me silently for a long time and finally she sighed.

  “Girlfriend, what am I going to do with you? From what your boyfriend just told me, it sounds like you put up one hell of a fight. Not that I’m surprised, you’ve always been so protective of anyone you love. The number of times you got in the face of any boy that broke my heart, or the girls at school that would try to bully me...what were we? In grade six?
You’ve always been there for me. I just wish I could have been here for you when you needed it most.”

  “You are Rachel, you’ve always been there for me. I love you.”

  ⧫⧫⧫

  Stephanie and Jamie came to visit an hour or so later and when they left, Rachel went with them to get herself settled at the estate. There were no signs to indicate my condition was going to change any more any time soon so she felt relatively comfortable leaving me with Ian.

  “You’re sure you won’t come back with us? Or you go and I’ll stay? It’s the least I could do.” Rachel tried to persuade him but he just shook his head sadly.

  “I won’t leave her until she wakes up. I’ll be okay.” He assured her and Rachel frowned and then gave him a big hug.

  “Thank you for taking such good care of my cousin, Ian. It means the world to me.”

  “You are more than welcome, Rachel. She means more than anything to me, I won’t let anything happen to her.” He waved as his friends left and when it was just the two of us again he reached his arms up high over his head in a stretch. Jamie had brought him a fresh change of clothes and a razor and he wanted a shower, bad. Bending down to brush his lips against my forehead, he smoothed a finger along my cheek and down the bridge of my nose.

  “I’m going to pop into your bathroom for a quick shower and shave, lass. I won’t be a minute.” He whispered against my forehead before grabbing his bag and disappearing into the bathroom.

  The shower was hot and beat down on his tired and aching muscles relentlessly and by the time he got out and shaved, he felt like a new man. He put a fresh pairs of jeans and button-down shirt on, rolled the sleeves to the elbow - a habit from his work routine - and then brushed his thick hair back from his forehead. He splashed a little aftershave on over his freshly shaved jaw and stepped out of the bathroom, his gaze immediately going to my comatose body and to Emma who was standing over me.

  “Good evening, Doctor.” She nodded at him in greeting and he smiled thinly.

  “Good evening Emma.”

  “It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry about what happened to your friend.” She nodded down at me as she changed the bag of fluid attached to my IV and Ian frowned slightly at the term ‘friend’. I was so much more than that to him but he didn’t feel like getting into with her right then.

  “Thank you. It hit everyone really hard when we found her.”

  “But you more than the others, I take it? You haven’t left since she was admitted.” It didn’t take a university degree to figure out that Emma was fishing for details and he wasn’t about to give it to her.

  “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were sounding a little jealous.” He countered and she blushed slightly.

  “It’s not every day you break out of your physician role and let your guard down enough to show that you’re human. And a fresh shave and cologne for a comatose woman? I’m not a fool.”

  “I would never take you for one, trust me.”

  “Can I just ask you one question?” the red-head started and when Ian nodded silently, she licked her lips quickly and continued before she lost her nerve. “Why her?”

  “I’m sorry?” he asked in genuine surprise, and in my head I strained to pay closer attention. My heart was already broken, knowing that Rachel had made the flight all the way back to Scotland to be with me, and that Ian was so adamantly staying by my side and I didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. Now I was clearly going to have to torture myself by listening to these two old lovers.

  “Why her? She’s an American for Christ’s sake, Ian. You’re head over heels in love with a tourist. What are you going to do when she packs her bags and goes home?” Ian was head over heels in love with me? Could I hope that was true? His actions over the last few days had me hoping that I wasn’t reading too much into it, and even Ciara had suggested that he loved me, but to hear the words spoken out loud by someone who didn’t know anything about our relationship…

  “What does it matter to you, Emma? If I remember correctly, when we were dating you said our schedules were too different, that we were too busy to get serious. You wanted me to quit my practice at the estate and take a full-time position here at the hospital so we could see each other more. And when I wouldn’t do that, we called it quits. That was three years ago. Why do you care now about who I have feelings for?” Ian stood just outside the bathroom door, his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he regarded her and she sighed and looked around herself restlessly.

  “I’m just trying to understand. Of all of the people you could have chosen, why her? Why the one person who you know will leave you one day to go home?”

  “Do you think my goal in life was to find an American tourist and fall in love with her? We don’t always get a say in who we choose, Emma. Sometimes, it just hits you out of the blue. Sometimes you just look into another person’s eyes and your world suddenly feels like it’s been turned upside down. You find yourself looking for them every minute of the day, and when you finally see them you feel absolutely giddy and out of breath and tongue-tied. And you wonder what’s wrong with you because you’ve never felt like this before and you must be crazy, when in fact, all that person has done is woken you up. And you realize that you can’t image your life without them in it.” At his words, Emma’s mouth fell open slightly in amazement and I preened in my head. He had really felt like that around me? I thought it had just been me!

  “Forget for just a moment that she’s going to break your heart when and if she wakes up and gets back on a plane. If your roles were reversed and it was you in that hospital bed - god forbid - would she be sitting by your bedside for two days?”

  “You’re damned right I would.” I thought fiercely, wanting to clench my fists in anger. How dare she talk like that to him?!

  Ian paused for a second as he thought back to the day of the confrontation with the Fae and how I’d shrieked in rage when he’d almost been hit by the bolt of lightning, and my immediate fiery retaliation. He swallowed hard, moved beyond words by the memory and his gaze went past Emma to me. Slowly, he nodded, his eyes full of tears.

  “I know she would.” He said quietly and my heart soared at those words. She may doubt his feelings for me but he certainly didn’t doubt me! That realization made me almost light-headed and I realized that the feeling wasn’t my imagination. I felt lighter, the underwater world I had been trapped it suddenly seemed a little brighter and I realized the mental image I had of myself was missing my wings and I no longer felt like I was standing at the bottom of the ocean.

  “Well, I pray she doesn’t destroy you too much when she goes back to the States, Doctor. Because that’s inevitable and I hope you realize that before it’s too late.” Emma started to walk past him but before she left he surprised her.

  “Maybe when she goes, I’ll go with her.”

  “And give up your practice here? Are you crazy? You wouldn’t think of even moving ten or fifteen minutes away, but you’d leave the country? For a girl you barely know?”

  “The Cameron estate is Edan’s life; his dream. It’s about bloody time I started living mine, and maybe that’ll be here, or maybe that’ll be somewhere else. But don’t you stand there and prophesize the demise of my heart. I don’t expect you or anyone else to understand what I think or how I feel, but I hope that one day, you find someone who makes you feel as tongue-tied and twisted-inside-out as I do when I’m with her.”

  “I thought I had, but clearly I was wrong.” With that, Emma turned and left the hospital room. Ian watched her go and just before she turned the corner down the hall, she cast one final, wistful glance behind her at him and then she was gone.

  With a heavy sigh, Ian turned and went back to his chair and dropped down into it.

  “I know you’re in there lass. Just know, I’m right here beside you.” He squeezed my hand and then rested his head on the mattress, closing his eyes. Emma’s words haunted him but not for the reasons she maybe w
anted them to. They weighed on him because he had meant every word he’d said, he had felt everything that he’d explained to her and for two days before the Fae had come around, he’d been in heaven. And then he’d watched me get attacked while he and everyone else had just stood there and watched, completely helpless. Then, he’d sat in the grass with my head in his lap while we’d all silently counted the minutes to midnight. A part of me had passed away in his arms that night and the grief he’d felt still made him feel sick. So while Emma maybe feared that his heart would break the day I got on a flight back to Hawaii, she could never understand how happy that would actually make him feel - even if he wasn’t with me. Because that would mean that I was alive and well and living life. And that was the most important thing in the world to him.

  In the silence after Emma left, I laid on the bed and felt Ian take my hand in his and give it a squeeze. I heard the soft Scottish burr in his voice as he whispered his reassurances to me and I got a faint whiff of the aftershave he’d put on after his shower. The sharp, clean scent made me remember all of the times he’d been so close to me that I’d been able to smell it - the first time he’d given me a checkup in the Cameron’s dining room, when he’d helped me up out of the grass after I’d passed out. When I’d sought the hug from him later that same afternoon. And then when he’d leaned in so close to me on our date to admire my dragon necklace. I remembered the way he smelled later that night when he’d come to my cottage and had finally kissed me and I yearned with all my heart to be able to touch him, to look at him and talk to him and just wake up! My mental image of myself struggled in her watery prison, desperately trying to reach the surface and I just wanted to stomp my foot and scream,

  “Please, wake up! I love him and this silence is killing me!” And with that admission, the tail fell away and the last of the weight holding me down was gone and I was finally able to rise to the surface of consciousness.