Rowan being one of them.
My father was silent for a moment. “I heard a rumor she shouted at you,” he muttered finally.
I resisted the urge to groan. That was the last thing I wanted my father to know. Under his strict rule, I should have assaulted Rowan and thrown her off the grounds for her insolence.
“We had a heated discussion, and I encouraged it.” I wasn’t going to tell him Rowan had given me a dressing down.
Even though her words had pissed me off, I couldn’t deny there was a kernel of truth to them. After I had left her, I walked around the horde lands and the den, and it struck me just how much everything had fallen into disrepair.
Many of the cabins needed serious refurbishment. The quality of life for our horde members was nothing like it used to be. Mystomach sank when I realized, in part, why that was. After Emmeline went missing, we seemed to have lost our ability to care. We tried, but our efforts weren’t enough. One Alpha who was present could run a horde, and yet, between my three clanmates and me, we had been failing.
As for the poorly maintained architecture, most of our budget had gone toward Jenkins and his rare moments of effectiveness. We had decided to put as much funding as we could into the health of our people.
The idea that we had fucked up so monumentally and invested our money into an inadequate healer, while everything else fell to the wayside, made my head spin.
Even though a small part of me knew that was the case, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Admitting it was a weakness, and Alphas weren’t supposed to be weak.
I was going to help the horde, and I was going to do it my way. I didn’t need to listen to Rowan’s shouting to do that.
My feelings for her, or inability to look away from her when she entered a room, had nothing to do with her healing abilities.
I couldn’t let her cloud my judgment.
Rowan
Another long day, another group of dragons helped.
The days in my clinic were starting to blur into one, but the work was rewarding.
After finishing for the day, I stumbled to the kitchen in search of food.
“Rowan!” Ma greeted me warmly, pulling me in for a hug. I leaned into the embrace for a moment, relishing it. It was nice having a maternal figure in my life again, and as I had no clue how long it would last, I had decided to enjoy it while I could.
“Hey, how’s everything going here?”
“Perfect, as always,” Nina said from where she was kneading dough.
I wandered over to her. “Do you need a hand?” As I spoke, someone else entered the kitchen, but I didn’t turn to see who.
Nina nodded. “Actually, yeah. Can you grab the?—”
Her words were cut off as Bastian stormed up to me, grabbing me by the arm and turning me, nostrils flaring as he glowered at me, a rolling wave of unruly thunder.
“Off,” he growled.
“Off?” I repeated, my brows scrunching together. What did he want off? What were we talking about?
Bastian snarled at my shirt. I looked down, scanning the fabric as my heart leaped into my throat. Had I accidentally covered myself in food? Had I picked one with a rude slogan? It was entirely possible, considering I loved a good graphic tee from a gas station. Still, Mr. High-and-Mighty here was acting a bit too growly for it to be something that simple.
And then I realized what I was wearing.
Griffin’s T-shirt.
I had been in a rush this morning, and since Ma still had a lot of my clothes because she’d ever so kindly insisted on washing them, I’d just grabbed a shirt out of Griff’s closet to save time.
“Oh.” I looked between Bastian and the shirt again, shrugging. “Deal with it. I couldn’t find anything else to wear. Ma’s washing my stuff.”
The Ma in question was also nearby, in the kitchen, where Bastian had cornered me. I held his stare without flinching as I tried to go about my business, turning back to Nina. It was a shirt, for fuck’s sake; he could relax.
