Ivormantis (6 page)

As they came upon the medical room, Meldamiriel couldn’t hold back the one question that had yet to leave her mind since she arrived last night. “How did Dominic get so injured?” she questioned quietly, looking down at her hands as she wrung them together like a wet rag.

“The dragons are not from this world. They live in another land called Dragonose, another realm in time. Blain was summoned by the king of Dragonose, King Thoran, because of a threat from the Raptorians. They’re the foulest creatures you’ll ever see. A group of them came and tried attacking us, but we held strong. I was able to work with a dragon named Naquadus and it was an incredible experience. We seemed to work as one and we were totally smoking out the enemy!” Meldamiriel giggled at Natasha’s excitement at remembering her victory battle. Natasha decided that now was not the best time to tell her best friend that she was now a dragon shifter. No, everything was still too up in the air with Meldamiriel right now. She was still scared of Dominic, even though she had helped his pain levels this morning. Natasha knew it was something she couldn’t keep from her forever, but surely a few days for things to calm down wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“A group of them ambushed Dominic, Blain tried to help but more took him down. By the time I got there, they had cut out Blain’s eye and broken Dominic’s wings. We were all worried he wouldn’t be able to shift back, but their medical technology is far superior than ours and the doctor took very good care of both of them. He was able to get Dominic to shift back into his human form. The drawback to that is he has to stay in his human form until his spine is completely healed, and that isn’t easy for him to swallow.”

Natasha looked around Meldamiriel and into the medical room. “There’s a doctor coming to help him recover. His first treatment is this evening. Hopefully we’ll be able to see some improvement within a few sessions, if not, he may have to learn to live without his dragon.”

Meldamiriel felt crushed at hearing those words. She couldn’t help her small gasp as she clutched her chest as she suddenly felt a heartbreaking sorrow wash over her. Why was there so much cruelty in the world they lived in? And why did all the hateful beings out there always go after the innocent?

“But why did they attack Dominic? He’s not a bad person…is he?”

“No, Melda, he’s not a bad person. But he is a warrior, and Raptorians are the type of creatures that will destroy anything that gets in their way; Dominic was one of our top fighters and they hit him hard.” Natasha could still see the worry in Meldamiriel’s eyes and knew she had to quickly find a way to ease the worry lines stretching across her friend’s forehead. She wanted her to find happiness, not sadness. “If you want, you can come in here and be with him while the doctor works on his back. It would mean a lot to Dominic for you to come, and Blain and I will be right there with you the whole time.”

Meldamiriel cast an unsure glance over her shoulder into the cold metal room and with a slow nod she looked back to her friend.

“I’ll think about it, though I’m not sure if I can handle dealing with that right now.”

Natasha nodded, completely understanding and feeling proud of the little elf for being brave enough to admit to her fears. Plus, there would be plenty of time to work on matchmaking Meldamiriel and Dominic while he healed from his injury.

Meldamiriel sat curled up in a tight ball in the big, comfy chair in the middle of her room. She was facing the window with the doors sealed closed behind her. Her nerves were already starting to unravel as she tried her best to lose herself in a book. She had hoped it would take her mind off Dominic who she knew was in the medical room, waiting for the doctor to arrive. Natasha had explained his spine had been injured so badly they had to wire it back together on a temporary basis. Now, the time had come to go in and fuse it back together. Whether or not he could shift back into his dragon form depended solely on the outcome of this procedure.

She had thought about meeting him in the medical room, to be near him during the surgery, but ended up backing out at the last minute because she let her fears get the best of her. Taking a deep breath, she turned the page in her book. All she was seeing was nothing more than just some annoying black dots littered all over the smooth cream sheet, no words with any meanings to them. Her mind was too far gone, stuck down the hall in the medical room with Dominic as the doctor worked to prepare him for his first rounds of treatment. Taking a deep breath, she settled herself back into her seat and looked a little more closely at the letters printed on the page.

“Marie drove down the highway, her mind lost in space as she fantasized about getting back home to her fiancé whom she would be saying
I do
to in less than a week…”
Meldamiriel felt sick at reading these words. Surely there had to be a better way to keep her mind off of things than reading this sappy crap. She sat staring out the window and tried to think of something that would occupy her mind to keep her distracted; her mind kept on wandering back to the medical room down the hall where she knew Dominic currently was.

“That’s it,” she grumbled to herself, slamming her book shut. There was no other way around this, she was just going to have to put her fears to rest and go down the hallway to the medical suite. She would know no peace until she saw with her own eyes how things were going.

She stuck her head out around the corner of her door, finding the hallway bare. The castle was quiet, too quiet for her comfort. She padded her small feet silently down the hall, listening closely for any signs for panic or distress, just the slightest sound to tell her to make a run back to the safety of her room. Nothing. There was no sound at all to be heard. Taking a deep breath, she rounded the corner in the direction she remembered the medical room to be and sure enough, she saw a door standing open and light beaming through. As she neared, she could even hear voices, although they were keeping the volume down very low. She picked out Dominic’s, Natasha’s, and Blain’s voices instantly. A fourth voice kept piping in occasionally, but she guessed that to be the doctor.

“Did she at least have a good day?” she heard Dominic ask. She hadn’t seen him since earlier that morning when he and Blain had been pulled aside from the guards that found the vampires that had been hunting her down.

Meldamiriel smiled, a warm sensation filling her heart at having someone who cared and was concerned for her. She wasn’t accustomed to that. Usually she only had Natasha to watch out and tend for her. This was new, and kind of nice, too.

“Yes, Dominic, she had a good day. That is the third time you’ve asked me that this hour. She’s doing fine, though she’s still adjusting and trying to get her bearings together,” Natasha stated, a smile in her voice.

“Will I be able to see her soon?” Dominic’s clear voice carried to her ears.

“If you’re feeling up to it, I’ll take you to see her later tonight after you’ve had time to recuperate a bit,” Blain stated.

“The hell with feeling up to it and recuperating! I want to see her tonight.”

Meldamiriel inched up to the door, hiding just around the corner and listening in on the conversation. She didn’t know if it was alright to come in after telling Natasha that she thought it would be best if she stayed up in her room during the procedure. But she could feel a small smile tugging at her lips after hearing Dominic’s words and the determination behind them. Butterflies started to flutter about in her stomach, in a good way though.

“Dominic, I know you’re dealing with the pull right now, but you also need to take your health into consideration. Meldamiriel needs you to be well almost as much as Ivormantis needs it. And with everything she’s gone through, taking things slow and keeping some distance might just be for the best, for her sake that is. You don’t want to take the chance of scaring her or pushing her away, do you?” Blain spoke calmly. Even though he knew the words would come out a bit rude, he needed to try to keep both his best friend and his dragon calm; he didn’t know how much Meldamiriel could take, and neither did his wife. All they could do was try to help the two of them along the best they could, keeping a not-able-to-shift dragon and his human calm and a running-for-her life elf feeling safe and learning to be loved.

Blain noticed Dominic’s eyes were no longer looking at him as he spoke, instead his sight seemed to be locked intently on something behind him. That, or he was just staring off into space and ignoring him. Either way, he questioned the man. “Dominic, are you listening to a word I’ve been saying…” Natasha jabbing her elbow deep into his side cut him off there. He opened his mouth to say something to her about it, but found her eyes also turned in the same direction as Dominic’s. He turned himself around to find Meldamiriel standing in the doorway. Her stance was one that screamed she was ready to bolt back out of the room if there were any signs of trouble.

“Meldamiriel,” Dominic breathed out, a wave of ease and comfort washing over his body at the sheer sight of his beautiful elf.

She smiled bashfully, blushing deeply as Dominic’s unfaltering gaze stayed upon her. She cast her eyes down to the floor as she nervously fidgeted and picked at her fingers. She tried desperately to come up with a plausible explanation as to why she was there.

“I…uh…I changed my mind. I thought I might come over for a little while,” she mumbled nervously, chewing on her lush bottom lip.

Dominic wished horribly that he could reach out to her and kiss all her worries away. Oh how he desired to suckle upon that badly abused lower lip of hers until the sting from her teeth gnawing at it was gone. Sadly, there were two things keeping him from doing just that. First, he didn’t dare make such a bold move and take the chance of frightening her away. And secondly, he was already heavily strapped into an odd-looking machine. His feet stood on metal bars, which came up the back of his legs to the sides of his arms. Thick leather straps had him firmly locked in place. He couldn’t move in his human form if he wanted to, even with the extra strength that came from being a shifter, while being so tightly strapped down as he was. He wanted so badly to be able to lift one of his hands up to Meldamiriel’s face, tenderly brushing the stray strands of hair out of the way that had fallen into her eyes. For the first time since he walked into the room Blain and Natasha had set up as a make-shift medical room, he hated being strapped down to this god-awful contraption. He knew it was not only for his safety, but also for everyone else in the room.

Quinn, his doctor, stepped up to him. “We’re ready to begin, if you are.”

Meldamiriel jumped slightly at the unexpected voice, but quickly regained control over herself. Natasha had explained to her earlier the doctor was also a dragon shifter and had made the trip from Dragonose for the sole purpose of tending to Dominic’s injuries. He was the only one who could help him heal. Natasha had also explained that she had dealt with this shifter doctor when Blain lost his eye, assuring Meldamiriel that he could be trusted, that she had nothing to fear from him.

“I’m sorry, but what is it exactly that you will be doing to Dominic?” Meldamiriel questioned, her voice soft, but there was firmness behind her words.

All eyes turned to her, surprised she had spoken up so boldly. Dominic was momentarily shocked she seemed concerned for him. Did he dare hope this meant that perhaps she was coming around? That maybe she wasn’t quite so afraid of him? A small groan escaped from deep inside him. God, he hoped so!

“We need to reset Dominic’s spine before it’s past the point of healing. Once we have it realigned and fused together, his torso will be heavily wrapped to help keep his back straight.”

He watched her closely for a moment. “Though I might suggest, little elf, if you do not have the stomach for gruesome sights, that you leave the room now. We can’t put him completely under due to the severity of his injuries, though I will inject him with a strong pain reliever. I have my doubts the pain shots will do much good. Unfortunately, this is one hell of a painful procedure.”

Meldamiriel’s eyes were wide and filled with tears as she glanced over to Dominic. He nodded in confirmation to every word the doctor said. She started to shake her head as she held his gaze, tears sliding down her cheeks as she slowly started to back away. She was leaving. Dominic knew it. He could hardly blame her, though. Hell, if he had a choice, he wouldn’t be here. It still saddened him that she was leaving, even though he knew deep down she was only leaving the room. She wasn’t walking out of his life.

Seeing Meldamiriel’s retreat, the doctor nodded to himself. “It’s time we begin,” he said, holding up a rather large needle and filling it with medication.

“Wait,” Meldamiriel said, as she held up her little hands in front of her, stopping the doctor in his tracks from injecting Dominic with the pain medicine. They both turned their eyes toward her, Dominic’s shining with hope. “Could you wait for one minute, please?”

Love, I would wait an entire lifetime for you,
Dominic thought.