Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  “You’re alright.” She kept up a low, steady stream of reassurances. They trotted along the rail, her reins slack, and eventually his ears stayed tipped toward her, listening, and his topline slowly relaxed into the stretch until his gait was loose and swinging.

  The walkie-talkie clipped to her boot crackled and Donna’s voice came through: “Good. Bring him in toward the center and let’s do some collected canter work.”

  Mia flashed a thumb-up toward the rail in acknowledgement and gathered her reins. At the rail, Val stood undetected at Donna’s side, elbows propped on the top board, chin in one hand, smile almost dreamy.

  Her stomach did a little flip.

  Ugh, focus.

  A space opened up in the very center of the arena, and she maneuvered Brando into it, pressing him into an easy canter. She let him stretch a moment, then closed her legs and deepened her seat; adjusted the rein pressure. His neck lifted and he collected beautifully; he felt like a coiled spring beneath her, energetic and ready for the next movement.

  “Outside rein,” Donna said through the walkie. “There, yes. When he feels ready, let’s see a few lead changes.”

  Without much space to work, Mia steered him into a careful turn and started down the next long side. Dizziness touched her, just a second. Nerves, must be. She should have eaten more earlier. The PowerBar was becoming a lead ball in her stomach.

  Focus.

  She tightened her right hand, half-halted, shifted her weight, and, when the moment was right, slid her legs, one forward a fraction, one back, changed the flexion, and…Brando executed a perfect flying change.

  “Perfect,” Donna confirmed.

  Mia grinned, gave him a quick pat on the neck, and set up another.

  Tried to, at least. Her vision blurred between one blink and the next, and she felt her balance tipping. Shit, she was dizzy.

  She shook her head – which didn’t help – half-halted and tried again.

  This one was shakier; it took Brando two strides to make the change, lagging, like he was waiting for her.

  “Hmm. Not so clean. Let’s try…”

  Mia didn’t hear what Donna said next because a buzzing like cicadas filled her head. She tipped to the side, the arena seeming to tilt around her, and Brando broke into a sloppy trot, and then walk, startled by her loss of balance.

  Her stomach rolled, and sweat prickled across her skin beneath her tight, white show clothes. Thank God she wasn’t in her black coat yet; she would have swooned.

  “Mia,” Donna said through the walkie.

  Her gorge was rising. She tugged Brando to a graceless halt and leaned forward, mouth open and panting. Waiting for the vomit that didn’t seem to want to come. The ground blurred and spun beneath her, and she closed her eyes.

  No, no, no, no, no she chanted inwardly. Because now she knew it wasn’t the PowerBar, or nerves, or the heat of the morning. No, this was something she’d been dreading for weeks, ever since Val first showed up.

  Speaking of…

  “Mia!” she heard him shout, and wondered if anyone else could hear him now.

  Then Donna’s voice: “Mia! Mia, oh, shit!”

  Other voices around her: the others riders asking if she was okay.

  “There’s an ambulance over by the show ring!” someone shouted.

  Mia closed her eyes; the world spun; her stomach cramped. The cicada buzz became a wailing siren.

  “Mia,” Val again, up close, pleading. “What’s wrong, darling?”

  Donna: “Who the fuck are you?”

  Falling off was going to hurt, Mia thought. And then she was tipping, and then falling, and she blacked out before she hit the ground.

  6

  SYMPTOM

  She woke to the gentle beeping of hospital machines: a sound she knew well. For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the noise away. Praying it was just a nightmare. But her back was sore from her fall; a bruise throbbed on her hip. And her throat was scratchy, and she had to pee, and yes, she was definitely here.

  With a deep sigh, she opened her eyes.

  All hospital rooms looked more or less the same. This was a private one, small, but blessedly only boasting one bed, a TV, and a door that led into a bathroom. There was a window, the sky beyond dark and star-studded; lamps had been left on low settings, the overhead lights off.

  Her mother sat in the chair beside the bed.

  “Mom?” Her voice came out a startled croak.

  Kate threw her magazine aside on the table and leaned forward, almost falling off her chair, to touch Mia’s face, tears filling her eyes that she hastily blinked away. “Hey, sweetie, there you are. How’re you feeling?”

  Sluggish, Mia thought, eyelids heavy and mind lagging. “How,” she started, and her throat was too dry to continue; she coughed, arm too heavy to lift in time, just coughing into the air like a mannerless heathen.

  “Here.” Kate plucked a water cup from the bedside table and brought the straw to Mia’s lips. The water tasted metallic – maybe that was just her tongue – but she sipped it down greedily until her mom pulled it back. “Not too much, or it’ll make you sick.”

  Mia blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes. Kate had said the same thing when she was a teenager, the last time her life had become nothing but a whirlwind of hospitals. “What happened?” she asked, voice an embarrassing chirp. “You’re supposed to be in New York.”

  “Well, I was,” Kate said gently, easing back into her chair, hand finding Mia’s among the bedclothes. “But Donna called, and I hopped onto the first available flight.”

  Flight? Oh…

  “Donna said you blacked out and fell off of Brando in the warm-up arena,” she continued. “He was standing still, and Donna managed to catch your head.” Her sandy brows pinched together and she let out an unsteady breath; her voice remained calm, though. She had lots of practice being the parent of a sick child. “Someone ran to get the paramedics who were there for the show. By the time they got there, you – you had started seizing.”

  “I had a seizure?” Mia gasped. That explained the full-body soreness and weakness.

  “A bad one, so I hear.” She attempted a weak smile, and squeezed Mia’s hand.

  Mia swallowed, dry throat sticking. “Mom, how long was your flight?” That wasn’t her real question, and Kate knew it.

  “You’ve been asleep for nine hours, baby.”

  “Shit.” She let go of the tension she’d been holding, the attempt to hold her head up off the pillow, and sank down into the mattress. Nine hours. Plenty of time. The show was over; Donna would have taken Brando back to the farm and put him away; would have had to deal with her other three students, the ones who didn’t fall off and seize in the middle of the warm-up ring.

  “What’d the doctor say?”

  Kate winced, fractionally; if Mia had blinked, she would have missed it.

  “Mom.” Mia hated the way her voice shook. “It’s been nine hours. I had to have had a CT scan.”

  “You did,” Kate said with a deep, unsteady exhale. She reached to smooth Mia’s hair back, touch tender. “But…” She sighed again, face falling. “Baby. They…they found something.”

  Mia held her mother’s watery gaze a moment, searching for a lie that wasn’t there; Kate would never lie about this sort of thing. It was just a fruitless wish.

  Mia rolled her head away, gaze flying up to the ceiling, the silver sprinkler heads there.

  “Oh, honey,” Kate said brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Mia waited for the pain to hit. The tears, the crushing pressure in her chest. The outrage and the fear. But instead, it seemed like a black hole opened up in her chest, sucking up all of her emotion so that she felt…nothing. Nothing at all.

  Kate slowly released her hand. “I’m gonna go tell them you’re awake. Be right back.”

  Mia saw her mother dabbing tears as she slipped from the room. There was a call button they could have used; getting the doctor was a c
hance for Kate to get her emotions under control in the hallway; she’d never liked falling apart in front of her daughter.

  Mia wouldn’t have minded right now, though. She had no tears of her own to contribute. She had nothing.

  It was quiet a few seconds, just the beep of the monitors, and then, softly, hesitantly, “Mia?”

  She turned her head – her neck hurt terribly – and saw Val standing against the wall, by the window. He wore his red velvet, the outfit he’d bargained a man for – a man he’d then killed. And really, what was her brain thinking conjuring someone like him as a fantasy? She couldn’t have just imagined a handsome firefighter? Maybe a bookish professorial type? Even one of her favorite fictional characters. No, her dumb, diseased brain wanted her to have pretend conversations with Dracula’s brother, who was chained up in a basement somewhere, for crimes so terrible he’d never explained them.

  She’d let this go on way, way too long.

  She sighed and turned away from him; her neck hurt too much to keep staring.

  “Mia?” he said again, voice almost childlike. He came closer, but she couldn’t hear him; his footfalls made no sound, and his clothes didn’t rustle, because he wasn’t really here.

  He never had been.

  Slowly, he leaned over the bed, so his face was suspended above hers, his hair a gleaming curtain falling around sharp features. His eyes almost seemed to glow in the dim light.

  If it was possible, she would have reached up and gathered his hair in her hands, even if she was weak and shaky. Would have pulled him in close by it, to feel the heat of his forehead against her own, the warmth of his breath on her face.

  But he wasn’t real.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, face pinched. He looked near tears. “You fell, and no one could wake you, and I couldn’t ask anyone–”

  “I have another tumor,” she said, and she shut her eyes, not able to look at him anymore. She couldn’t keep clinging to this hallucination – because that’s exactly what he was, what she’d always secretly suspected him to be. A symptom of her illness.

  “Mia,” he breathed.

  She refused to open her eyes. This had to end. She was ending it. She’d been betrayed by her own brain – by her tumor – and she couldn’t allow that.

  “You’re not real,” she said. “You were always just the tumor.”

  He made a quiet, hurt sound. “Is that really what you believe?” Just a whisper. Soft and broken.

  “Yes.”

  When she finally opened her eyes again, he was gone.

  ~*~

  Donna came to visit her the next day during lunch, in the break between lessons. The moment she walked through the door, Mia was hit with conflicting waves of relief and guilt. Relief because her mom had gone to the cafeteria and, unlike Kate, Donna would be pragmatic and unemotional, sympathetic without being tearful. And guilt, because who was teaching Mia’s lessons? Schooling the horses under her care? Who would give Brando his daily handful of Sweet Lumps? He was addicted to those stupid, hard, pink treats.

  “No, no, no,” Donna said as she dropped her purse – it was really a small Ariat tote bag, and no doubt full of hair ties, test booklets, protein bars, and horse cookies – and came to fall gracefully into the visitor chair. “I can feel you gearing up for an apology, and just don’t, okay? I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  She was dressed in charcoal breeches and an UnderArmour athletic tank, boots and spurs, her hair back in its usual severe ponytail. With her sunglasses perched on her head, Mia could see that her eyes were dry and clear, but that real apology tweaked her features.

  Mia frowned at her. “Why would you be sorry?”

  Donna lifted her brows to say really? “Mia, my job is to look after the horses in my care, and the humans. Horses and students. You’ve been acting strange and unwell for weeks. And I saw it. And I ignored it, and let you tell me you were fine. I could see you wobbling out there, and I didn’t–” Her ever-present confidence faltered, for the first time in Mia’s memory. “I caught your head,” she said, cupping her hands around empty air in demonstration. “It didn’t hit the ground. But. I should have gotten there sooner. I never should have even let you get in the saddle yesterday.”

  “Donna–”

  “I’m sorry, Mia. You’ve been sick. I’m your trainer, and I should have done something about what I noticed.”

  Mia swallowed with difficulty, throat tight. “I can’t lose this job,” she said, pleading. “It’s my dream. I can’t–” Something jagged threatened to shake loose in her chest, tear her open. She swallowed, and swallowed, and willed it away until she was just a void again. A black hole of nothingness inside.

  “You’re not losing your job,” Donna said. “I promise. We can work out something going forward that will allow you time off for treatment, or surgery, if that’s what happens. Do you know yet?”

  “No.” And then she finally felt something, and it was cold dread. “I don’t care about treatment, I can just–”

  “Mia,” Donna cut her off, firm. “This isn’t up for negotiation. You’re sick, and you need treatment.”

  She thought about last time, about her hair falling out in big clumps on her pillow every night; about throwing up in the middle of class; about the relentless headaches, dizziness, mood swings. The terror of the surgery; the slow, painful recovery.

  She hiked herself a little higher up on the pillows. “What if I refuse treatment?”

  Donna gave her a sharp look…then checked it. “Wait and see what the doctor says, hm?” She got to her feet. “I’ll let you get some rest. Don’t worry about Brando. Javi’s spoiling him rotten and I’ll ride him this week.”

  “’Kay. Thank you.”

  “Let me know how things are going.” She offered a tight, awkward smile as she headed for the door.

  She stopped, though, lingering with her hand on the knob, and cast a look back over her shoulder, frowning. “Oh, one thing I’ve been wondering. Do you know who that was in the ring with us? He was calling your name. Screaming it, actually. Thought he was gonna faint.”

  A wave moved through her, a surge of something between dread and panic that threatened to rip apart her carefully taped seams, send all those jagged pieces slicing through her. She went through a series of swallows again, breathing past the sharp pain until it dissipated. “Who?”

  “That guy.” Donna snorted. “The pretty one with the long hair and the Halloween costume. He work at a Ren Faire or something?”

  “I…” Val. Donna had seen Val. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Donna’s frown deepened; she looked like she started to say something else, drawing in a breath. But then she gave a little headshake and said, “Huh. Oh well. Rest up. Eat your Jell-O.” She gave an awkward smile and slipped out.

  ~*~

  Donna had seen Val.

  ~*~

  Dr. Patel stood at the foot of her bed, hands clasped together, expression one of practiced sympathy and gravity. He had a warm bearing, and a gentle voice, and was one of the preeminent neurosurgeons in this part of the country. So when he said, “Mia, I’m very sorry…” Mia knew that he spoke the truth.

  Her tumor was inoperable.

  Too risky; too much chance of cutting into some life-sustaining part of her brain.

  There was a chance radiation could shrink it…

  Mia stared down at her hands.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Kate murmured, voice tear-choked.

  Mia’s voice came out detached, oddly calm. “How long do I have.”

  “It’s hard to say,” Dr. Patel said.

  Because they didn’t know.

  ~*~

  Donna had seen Val.

  ~*~

  Mia let her duffel bag slide down off her shoulder and hit her bedroom floor with a thump. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed and just…

  Stared at the wall. Took a breath.

  She had another tumor.

  She
was dying.

  Donna had seen Val. Those were the three most pressing issues weighing on her mind at the moment.

  Mom had flown back home that morning; she’d had another realtor cover her clients for the week she was in Denver, but she was losing commissions, which she needed, and Mia was feeling better; had urged her mother over and over again to leave until Kate finally caved with a grief-stricken look. Mia had tried to smile at her. “I have time.” And she did…just probably not a whole lot of it.

  Donna wasn’t happy, but Mia had been firm. If she didn’t have but a few more months to be her real self, she wanted to spend that time doing what she loved best. Spending time with the people she loved best.

  That wasn’t a long list. Kate was going to close up the house in New York, get her affairs in order, and come back to Denver. Mia would see Donna every day. And that just left…

  “Val?” she said, just a whisper. She felt stupid, but she had to try. Donna had seen him.

  She took a deep breath and continued. “I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you even want to. If you don’t, I get that. I…hell, I denied that you exist, and…” She bit her lip, not willing to admit that it had taken someone else laying eyes on him for her to believe what he’d been telling her all along. “But. I miss you. So much. And I wondered if, maybe, if you don’t hate me, you might–”

  He materialized two feet in front of her, swirling into existence, unbearably beautiful. Unbearably sad.

  Her chest squeezed. “Val. You came.”

  The barest hint of a smile lifted at one corner of his mouth; the expression didn’t touch his eyes, flat and low-lidded with unhappiness. “You called, didn’t you?”

  She had the sense of balancing on an edge; if she said the wrong thing, he’d disappear again, maybe for good this time. She couldn’t bear to risk that. So she took a breath and kept her voice soft, careful, affectionate. “I didn’t think you could hear me, though.”

  The tiny smile twisted, became mocking. “I have plenty of time to sit alone and contemplate my captivity. What else do I have to do but pine and listen? Waiting like a maiden in a tower.”