“Ugh, I love it when you say my name,” he crooned, smiling until he walked closer and noticed my less-than-thrilled expression. “Everything okay, sunshine?”
“Just how much have you been giving Jenkins to buy medications?” I asked, never looking away from the fridge.
“I’d say it was easily six figures in the last year. Greylen usually balances the books. He’s got more of a math brain than I do, so I’m not a hundred percent sure. Why?”
“This is an insane, and I do meaninsane,amount of medication. Half this stuff isn’t even for human medical issues, it’s random compounds and God knows what else.”
There were row after row of small glass bottles containing medications.
“He’ll bankrupt your horde before he makes this shit work for you guys,” I commented, reaching in and looking at the names on the bottles. “Some of this is for an emergency room, and there’s so much. A small horde doctor doesn’t need more thanten percent of this, I would say, and even that would be an overabundance of caution.”
“Why would Jenkins order medication he doesn’t need?” Nix frowned, picking up a vial and turning it this way and that in his fingers.
“He probably thinks he needs it; he’s a purist who seems to think that shifters don’t share DNA with animals. I wouldn’t use any of this on Griff, and I don’t think anything in here would help Rory.”
Going for the pill bottles, I started reading labels.Reprimazcaught my eye. It was a brand-name drug I’d seen before—it wasn’t relevant to the current patients, but I made a mental note to research it further later.
“What do you need?” Nix asked.
“Natural herbs and ingredients. Dragons heal great. They just need a little nudge. But this… ugh. There are some good things in the stores I saw earlier. Can we go look? Or maybe there’s an apothecary nearby? If not, I know some good people in other hordes who will happily send me some supplies.”
“There are a few dragons who like collecting herbs. We can talk to them.”
“Yeah, that could be helpful,” I admitted. “I want to make some willow bark tea for Rory. I need to speak to Ma, to see if she can help me with the brewing.”
“That womanadoresyou. She would happily move heaven and earth for you, so I’m sure you just need to ask.” Nix chuckled. This lightness was so different from my interactions with Orsen and Bastian. I would have said Greylen, too, but I hardly knew anything about him, except that he was apparently the numbers guy, the “logical” one.
I appreciated that Nix was being helpful, but this was giving me a headache. The situation with the meds still didn’t sit right with me, either. But what was I supposed to do about how Jenkins spent the budget? That wasn’t my place. Thiswasn’tmy home.
Sighing, I decided to focus on what Icoulddo something about. “Well, I don’t want heaven and earth, just some bone broth madewith specific herbs. That’ll help Rory heal and hopefully recover faster.”
I turned, closing the fridge with a frown, wondering how many of these drugs had already been given to the horde.
“Let’s go find Ma, then,” Nix replied simply, once again gesturing for me to lead the way, and I had no choice but to obey him.
Greylen
It was her.
There was no mistaking it. She was different, but still startlingly the same. Same wild mane of blonde waves. Same stubborn look in her eyes.
Emmeline was alive. Or, at least, this version of her was.
When Orsen had told us, I was sure he was playing a sick prank. Except, he wasn’t one to joke, so why would he say something so devastatingly cruel?
Moments from starting a rare fight between us, I’d stopped, taking a good look at him. His face had gone white, and there was a thousand-yard stare there that he couldn’t fake.
It was real.
Bastian had demanded to see her right away, but I’d held back. Retreating to my office, I’d used the cameras to watch her. I wasn’t proud of it. But I had to see Emmy again, and I didn’t want her to see me—not yet.
Now, she was in the garden, and I could see her, plain as day,inspecting the herbs growing there. She was nowhere near a healer when I knew her, but this Emmy—thisRowan—seemed to know her way around plants. It was the way she touched them that was the most familiar; the light caress of her fingers on the petals, the way she was so very gentle, delicate, and graceful. I remembered that.
I’d missed it.
The call in my veins was too hard to ignore. Every cell in my body wanted to go to her, and I was halfway down the hallway before I even realized I’d left my office. By the time I got to the door, stepping out into the fresh air, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but there was no stopping me.
Rowan was crouched in the herb garden, analyzing the plants. It was a pretty rudimentary garden mainly used for cooking, but in the back of my mind, I was already plotting how to expand it to make it exactly what she needed. When her hair fell in front of her face, she roughly tucked it back in a move that felt veryEmmeline. My chest squeezed, an indescribable, familiar pain flaring.
