Holding back a chuckle, I eyed the door. Nix crossed his arms, biting his lip as he no doubt tried to think of some reasonable solution to the situation.
“You can’t stay in there forever, healer,” I grumbled.
Nix pushed past me, speaking to the door again. “How can we assure you that you’re safe? That we won’t touch you?”
“I want a cell phone. I need to make a call,” she demanded.
Most humans would have been trembling in fear in her situation. Yet, somehow, Rowan managed to maintain her composure, speaking through the bathroom door as if she were comfortably seated at a negotiation table.
Scoffing at her, I rolled my eyes. “To who?”
No one she could contact would be a credible threat to me. I was merely curious about who she felt would actually help her out right now.
“Horde Alpha Greir, Horde Alpha Horrik, or Horde Alpha Luca,” she rattled off casually, name-dropping some of the most important Alphas in the country. My eyes widened, brows up to my hairline now. I glanced at Nix, who grinned back, shaking his head.
“And why would you be calling them?” My assumption that there was no one she could call who might be a potential threat was apparently very wrong.Crafty little thing, aren’t you?
“I’m friends with those hordes, with half of the Montana and Alaska hordes, too. I’ve healed for nearly all of them. I want them to know where I am. That way, if I don’t check in with them, they’ll rain ever-loving hell down on your doorstep.Thatwould make me feel safe.”
I could hear the proud smile in her voice. If she truly did have working relationships with that many hordes, she had every reason to be confident in her work, even if that was annoying as hell.
“We know Luca. I’ll call him—but please, you need to come out of the bathroom,” Nix bargained with her.
“Is it just you, or is your feral friend there?” Rowan countered.
Nix stifled a laugh and looked at me. “He can go outside.”
Dropping my chin, I glared at him, a low growl rumbling out of my chest. “No, I will not.”
“Ugh. Then he will wait on the other side of the room, all right?” Nix gritted out, shooting daggers at me before hissing, “You're making this way more difficult than it has to be, Orsen.”
“I am anAlphaof this horde, not some feral animal.”
“Could have fooled me,” Rowan mumbled to herself.
Her comment wasn’t lost on me; I could hear everything going on behind that door, including the way she scoffed and shifted the weight between her feet—another familiar Emmeline move.
“And Orsen’s going to behave like an Alpha this time.”
I nearly snarled at Nix, the need to punch him tingling up my spine like it had before I’d laid into Griffin. I needed a damn drink at this rate, but there was no getting Rowan out of the bathroom without giving up a bit of something. At least it was just a cell phone.
“For fuck’s sake, fine. I’ll go over there. Just make your damn call.”
Nix smiled as I rolled my eyes. “Excellent. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Rowan
There was no way I could hide in the bathroom all night. Unfortunately. While the two dragons had been negotiating with me, I’d been rummaging through every single drawer in there. Unfortunately, the bathroom was full of pretty standard stuff. My hunt had only produced a few bars of soap and a hairbrush initially.
Hardly something I could fight with.
It wasn’t until I started pulling apart the medicine cabinet that I managed to find a razor blade, which I had promptly cut my finger on, under a dusty bottle of deodorant. Clutching that little scrap of metal like a lifeline, I approached the door.I had always known there was a chance that my past would come back to bite me in the ass, and this might just have been that moment.
A huge part of me wanted to stay in the room, with the door locked, for as long as I could; the walls gave me the illusion of safety, even though, deep down, I knew I was in a highly precarious position. Pissed-off dragons didn’t tend to think with their heads—not that anyone pissed off did—and I wasn’t about to risk my well-being. Unfortunately, I needed to face the dragons sooner or later,and judging by the feral one’s less-than-stellar behavior, waiting them out wasn’t an option.
I sighed. “Okay, I’m coming out.”
With the small blade concealed in my hand, I opened the door a crack, glancing into the room cautiously. I half-expected the dragons to be right there. Orsen—or Gropey Asshole, as I called him in my head—was sitting on the bed, staring at me with his chin resting on one hand. Nix was next to him, arms crossed. He was rocking a mean glower, but it seemed to be directed at the other Alpha, not at me, which was actually sort of reassuring. At least Nix knew his friend had been a royal ass and a half.
