But then Zain had moved away from her as quickly as possible, and the spell broke, reminding her this wasn't some sort of fairy tale. She was a human, he was a dragon-shifter, and there was a mile-wide ravine of hatred and fear between them.
However, Nikki's mention of a surprise garnered her full attention. Holidays hadn't been celebrated inside the Dragon Knights. After all, dragons didn't stop existing for a birthday or Christmas. And while she'd tried her best not to wish to have those things again—they'd been some of her favorite times of year before joining the Knights—it'd been hard not to have a tree to decorate or experience the anticipation of opening a present.
But her past was that—the past. Ivy needed to start celebrating the small things, such as surprises.
Bram shook her hand, smiled at her—was it real, she wondered—and left. And without thinking, Ivy turned toward Nikki. "Can't you give me a hint about what's coming?"
Nikki laughed. "Wow, if I'd known something as simple as a surprise would bring out the true Ivy hidden beneath all that fear and misinformation, I would've suggested it earlier."
The words stung a little, but Ivy wouldn't let them ruin the first real enjoyment she'd had in a long, long time. "That's still not a hint."
Jane snorted. "Tenacious, aren't you? Maybe with time, you'll fit in here nicely."
Not wanting to go down the road of thinking about her distant future, Ivy chanced a glance at Zain. The furrow of his brows made her blink. "Now what are you angry about?"
He grunted. "I don't like surprises."
And without thinking, she blurted, "Good, then there's more for me."
His frown deepened, and Ivy had no idea why. If they were to act as mates, he was bound to see more of her true self going forward.
Strange how a marriage of convenience had encouraged some of the old Ivy, the person she'd been before she'd joined the Knights, to come out of retirement.
No, it wasn't the fact she was now legally bound to a dragon-shifter that'd done it. The mention of a surprise had been the only reason. Yes, that was it.
A knock on the door made her heart rate kick up. What she wouldn't give to get out of bed and go see what was waiting on the other side.
However, it'd taken both Nikki and Jane's help to change her clothes earlier. Ivy had a long road of recovery still.
But as a pale, dark-haired woman walked through the door, pushing a wheelchair into the room, Ivy wasn't sure what to say. If that was her surprise, then she'd grossly overestimated it.
Nikki waved to the woman. "This is Dr. Emily Davies. She's a human, like you, and has been helping our doctors here on Stonefire. She convinced the other doctors to allow you a short visit outside the surgery, provided Emily's there to monitor you and that you're also in a wheelchair."
Zain growled before Ivy could say a word. "No. Taking her from the room is bound to send her into a relapse."
Emily raised her brows, her Welsh accent filling the room. "Just because I spend the majority of my time doing research doesn't make me less of a medical doctor. I know humans better than any other doctor here, Zain. Or, do you want to challenge me on that?"
Before anyone else could jump in, Ivy blurted, "Why is a human doctor living on Stonefire?"
Emily smiled at her. "That's a long story, and one I'll save for another day. We only have about an hour before I have to bring you back here. And considering it's sunny right now, we should take advantage of the weather before it changes its mind. Because I know that if I had been in a coma for so long, I'd want to feel the sun on my face again."
Nikki tossed back the blanket around Ivy's feet. "Come on. She's right, and we outnumber Zain four to one anyway. He can't win against us."
Zain muttered, "I'm her mate. Or did everyone just forget what happened here?"
Sensing this was a sort of test and would determine how their fake marriage would play out, she looked at Zain and stated, "The doctors have cleared the visit, so I'm going. Unless you're going to physically restrain me to the bed, then stop wasting what little time I can have out of this room."
Nikki grinned. "I bet Zain has ideas of how to restrain you to the bed."
Blood rushed to Ivy's cheeks as a mental image of Zain lying on top of her, his face mere inches from hers, flashed into her mind.
No. She could barely sit up by herself. Ivy wasn't going to think of sex.
Let alone sex with a dragon, of all things.
And especially not a grumpy, verbally stunted one at that.
Zain stepped back and waved toward the wheelchair. "Then risk your health. But no one can blame me if she dies. I'm entrusting her into your care, Nikki, meaning she's your responsibility until I get back."
With that, Zain stormed out of the room.
Jane looked toward the ceiling. "Overdramatic Zain is not the best side of him."
While she yearned to ask what was the best side of him, she let it drop for the moment since Emily positioned the wheelchair next to her bed and motioned for Nikki to help her.
Emily nodded toward the chair. "Okay, let's get you situated and go. We have a very important appointment with a sizable group of people we can't be late for."
Since it took everything she had just to move what little she could when Nikki and Emily asked her to, Ivy kept her questions to herself.
"A sizable group of people" seemed like a lot. Especially when it came to those who didn't outright hate her or wanted to hand her over to the DDA.
It seemed the full breadth of her surprise wasn't over.
But odd as it was, she was starting to trust Nikki. She and Ivy were about the same age, and the dragonwoman always just seemed so happy.
Could she ever be the same?
Not wanting to ruin what small amount of time she had out of her blasted hospital room, Ivy pushed every negative thought and doubt out of her head. After all, if someone from within Stonefire was going to hurt her, they would've done it while she was sleeping.
So after the women tucked a blanket around Ivy's lower body, as well as placed a light coat on her upper body, the doctor wheeled her out of the surgery. As they rolled along, Ivy forced herself to look ahead and not at the ground. She had a lot to be ashamed of in her past, but she needed to be strong when facing the dragons.
Or, so Nikki and Jane had mentioned to her.
Although when they entered the corridor, she realized her small show of bravery was wasted—it was empty. But as soon as they wheeled her out a back door and into the afternoon sunshine, she forgot all about it and instantly tilted her face upward, reveling in the heat on her skin.
She did that until the others cleared their throats, and Ivy opened her eyes. She spotted some clan members walking around, about ten or fifteen feet away.
One in particular caught her attention—a dark-haired male holding a small baby glared at her. Nikki stuck out her tongue at him and said, "That's my mate, Rafe, and our daughter. Ignore him. He thinks you have some master plan to kill me when I'm not looking."
Ivy watched the man as they wheeled past. He was tall and muscled, and it was hard to tell he was human and not a dragon-shifter. "I can barely sit up in this wheelchair. So unless I can kill things with my mind, you're safe."
Nikki laughed. "I think taking you out of the surgery was a good choice. Because if this is the real you, we will get along famously."
Was it her, though? For more than five years, she'd pushed her personality deep down, trying her best to hide it so she could focus on her work, determined to rise through the ranks of the Dragon Knights.
She had no idea who Ivy Passmore would be going forward.
Maybe sessions with Serafina Rossi would help her figure it all out.
Jane pointed toward a large brick building as they went past it. "That's where the security building is. In case you're curious about where Zain spends a lot of his time."
The building didn't stand out from most every other brick building in the country. But then a dragon jumped up from
behind it and pumped its wings as it ascended into the sky, reminding her this was dragon territory.
Her first instinct was to huddle down and try to hide.
But Emily placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured, "Don't worry. That's Zain. He won't hurt you."
Finding out it was her dragonman, Ivy studied the deep red dragon. He was big, and his wings had to be extremely powerful as he effortlessly moved higher into the atmosphere. When the sun glinted over his hide, the red also revealed flecks of gold.
For the first time since she could remember, she thought a dragon was beautiful and not scary and abhorrent.
She truly was past the line of no return in her life. Unless she was personally attacked or threatened, Ivy didn't think she'd ever be deathly afraid of dragons again, let alone hate them.
Ivy watched until he disappeared into the horizon. "I guess he really wanted to get away from me for a bit, especially considering Bram told him to watch over me."
Jane was the first to speak. "Maybe, but not for the reasons you think. Besides, he trusts us to take care of you. Or, more importantly, Bram does and won't chew him out for it."
Nikki muttered, "It's still a little odd. I can barely get Rafe to trust others with our daughter, let alone me."
Jane replied, "I have a few tips I haven't shared yet on how to manage my brother. I'll share them later."
So Rafe was Jane's brother. That had to be the connection, the way Rafe had been allowed near female dragon-shifters in the first place before mating one.
As Ivy listened to the pair, it was clear they still didn't trust her as they spoke in vague statements. Not that she could blame them, but she desperately wanted to belong somewhere on this clan. And with more than a psychologist whose duty was to help her.
Which meant Ivy would just have to try to win over the children, starting with Freddie and Daisy. If she could manage that, then maybe the adults would give her a chance, or at least not outright despise her. Either way, she'd take what she could get.
As she tried to think of how to accomplish those goals, two familiar children rushed toward her—Freddie and Daisy.
Daisy ran faster and reached her first. "Hiya, Miss Passmore! We're your official guides for the day."
"Guides?" she echoed.
Daisy bobbed her head. "Yes. You're coming to school for a bit. And I wanted to make sure you had some friends to answer questions before facing all the other students."
So the group the others had hinted about turned out to be an entire school. Bloody brilliant. Ivy hoped she had the energy to face them, especially since children rarely had filters and could be brutally honest.
And while she knew she'd have to face the truth eventually, maybe she wasn’t ready to face it quite so head-on yet.
Freddie sighed and muttered something Ivy couldn't hear. No doubt, something unflattering.
However, Daisy didn't seem to notice. "Freddie will help me and you. He promised and knows how important promises are to me. Now, let's hurry up. Everyone's waiting. And we don't want Mr. MacLeod or Miss Lawson to get mad because we're late."
Emily gently squeezed her shoulder. "Don't worry about the students. They're just curious. And facing the questions you know are coming from children is easier than from adults, don't you think?"
"Maybe," she murmured.
Daisy took her hand and tugged, her wheelchair only staying put because of Emily's hold on it. "Come on. My class leaves Stonefire this afternoon. It's only a short visit, you know, to get ready for our play. So if you want some time with us, to see what we're doing, you have to hurry."
All eyes looked at her. Ivy doubted saying no would mean going back to the surgery. Still, she appreciated that they waited for her reply.
Again, their behavior was at odds with everything she'd been shown and taught for years.
Hoping she made the right choice, she nodded. "Okay, then let's go."
Letting go of Ivy's hand, Daisy jumped up and down a few times. "Yay! Everyone will be curious and have questions. Me, too. I have heaps. But I don't know if Mr. MacLeod will let me ask them all. He usually only allows one or two so that everyone else can have a chance. But I always have more than one or two. There's just so much to learn on Stonefire."
Freddie motioned with his hand. "Come on, Daisy. Or Miss Passmore won't have any time with our class at all, and no one's questions will get answered."
Daisy bobbed her head. "You're right, I guess. Let's go!"
Daisy raced ahead with Freddie.
Nikki murmured, "He's going to have his hands full in about four or five more years."
Ivy frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Emily pushed the wheelchair, and they all moved again. The doctor said, "Everyone on Stonefire is taking bets on them being true mates or not. They're far too young, of course—they're nearly eleven. And dragons don't fully mature until age twenty. However, Freddie is one of the few who can get Daisy to focus or stop talking. But who knows if that will be the case when they're teenagers."
Ivy studied the quickly disappearing pair. She couldn't keep from asking, "Were the classes introduced that way on purpose? To pair up humans and dragons?"
Jane sighed. "Who would ask that? Oh, right, a former Dragon Knight. No, it was merely for the children to get to know one another and hopefully make friends."
"Oh," she stated. Without being surrounded by hate and bias, it made sense. If dragons and humans interacted from the time they were children, they'd be more familiar and at ease when they were adults.
Ivy hoped the Knights hadn't got wind of Stonefire's efforts with the schoolchildren. Otherwise, they could become targets, too.
Just something else she needed to share when she had the chance.
Jane placed a hand on her hip. "You know what? The more we learn from you, the more horrible the Knights sound. Did they also say humans offer up virgins to appease the dragons?"
Ivy bit her lip. While the idea had seemed plausible when she was younger, it sounded a bit ridiculous now. "Yes. That was some of the rationale behind creating the Dragon Knights centuries ago. They wanted to show they could protect humans from the dragons, so it was better to hire them to slay the beasts than to keep appeasing the dragons with offerings."
Jane grunted. "So they were mercenaries pretending to be righteous. Why does that not surprise me?"
Emily chimed in. "Relations have changed over the decades, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But it's our job to create our own future, right?"
"Says the female who doesn't go after what she wants herself," Nikki said with a sly look on her face.
Ivy glanced between the pair. "What are you talking about?"
Emily shook her head. "Yet another story for a different time. The school is straight ahead of us. Some of the other students should rush out to meet you any second now."
The human doctor had a lot of stories and secrets. Not that Ivy could prod more since Freddie and Daisy rushed out of the building, Daisy holding the hand of another student her age with black hair. Even from about ten feet away, Ivy could hear Daisy say, "See, Emily? I told you today would be brilliant. Not only is Nikki here—I wish I could shift into a dragon and be a Protector, too—the other Emily came, as well as the lady who's been asleep for a year inside the surgery. This is so much better than painting sets for the play, right?"
The little girl said something Ivy couldn't hear, but she soon forgot all about the children as a tall, dark-haired man with a tattoo on his bicep came out. Nikki whispered, "That's Tristan MacLeod, one of the teachers. He's the mate of the female who wrote the famous book about dragon-shifters."
So, the dark-haired man with narrowed eyes was mated to Melanie Hall.
Who had been, and probably still was, one of the top targets of the Knights. Anyone who steered public opinion in favor of the dragon-shifters was a top priority.
Ivy blurted, "I hope she's protected."
Nikki and Jane both faced her.
"Why?"
She hesitated a second at Nikki's flashing pupils, but finally managed to reply, "She's been one of the Dragon Knights' top targets for years. Her name, and others, are on an encrypted file inside the information I brought with me."
Jane shook her head. "I told you we should've arranged a meeting with Nate and Lucien instead of this."
Emily cleared her throat. "No, this is better for her mental health, and we're sticking to the plan."
Nikki raised her brows as she stared at Ivy. "Before you fall asleep again, you're going to tell us what file you're talking about as well as how to unlock it."
She bobbed her head, and Nikki relaxed a fraction. The dragonwoman gestured toward the school. "The kids are all but dancing and asking a chorus of 'Why aren't they moving?' Let's get a move on, or Tristan really will be in a bad mood."
Not wanting to see any dragon-shifter in a bad mood, Ivy motioned with her hand. "Then let's go. I don't have a lot of time before we have to get back. I can give you all the necessary information once we return to the surgery."
As Emily wheeled her toward the students standing in front of the school, Ivy took a few deep breaths. Her time with the children could tell her a lot about the weeks, months, or even years she'd spend on Stonefire. And considering she'd mated Zain, she had a feeling Stonefire would be her future for some time to come.
The only question was whether she'd always be seen as an enemy, or could she try to make amends and fit in?
Trying not to think of how far she'd come in nearly two weeks, Ivy did her best to hide her fear at the flashing dragon eyes among half the children, and forced a smile.
Chapter Eleven
Zain glided back toward Stonefire, wishing he had another village or farm to visit.
His dragon grunted. Stop coming up with excuses. We mated Ivy today, and instead of getting to know her, you're doing everything you can to stay away from her.
Persuading the Dragon (Stonefire British Dragons Book 12) Page 9
