AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That was an old wives’ tale.
I paced from one side of my room to the other, fighting the urge to sweep everything off my dresser as I passed it. I’d destroyed the place when I was shut in here and then felt like a fool, so I preferred not to have to feel that way again—or have to clean it up. I was confident my mates would not have someone else do it, not this time.
I was wearing a groove in the rug, but I didn’t care about that. I was ready to pack up and get out again. Maybe fly away, if I had the strength—I knew I didn’t. My steps slowed as the burst of adrenalin that carried me here waned away, leaving me limp and barely able to make the few steps to sit down on the edge of the bed and flop back to lie with my legs dangling off the edge.
They had been so caring lately, but they absolutely took the doctor’s side, all of them, as if I didn’t have the brains to recognize a heap of nonsense. If I had been sexually active, he probably would have said that was the cause of my fever.
My exertion wasn’t helping, and the sweat I’d produced was chilling on my skin, leaving me shivering, teeth chattering, and utterly miserable. Beyond what the healer said, I knew I couldn’t go on like this forever, or even much longer. And then what? I die, and none of the issues that I had recently been made aware of changed.
Lessers would continue to be badly treated, they would lose the ability to fly, and the gap between lessers and higher-ups would continue to widen. And the mountain…I still wasn’t sure it was connected, but it seemed likely.
I couldn’t have been in my room more than a few minutes before my three mates came charging in and formed a half circle in front of me.
“Guys, I don’t think I’m up for this now. Could we maybe talk tomorrow?” When I didn’t want to flame anyone who showed up in front of me. “Or the day after?” The chills had ended and I was starting to heat up again. “I don’t feel well. And as much as I am sure you are fabulous lovers, I don’t believe that lack of taking advantage of that is making me feel this way.
To my horror, my chills were evolving into a whole new kind of shaking, and at first, I thought it was the mountains again but a glance around showed nobody and nothing moving but me. The trembling got harder and harder, my arms and legs flapping until I recognized it as a reaction to the whole doctor scenario.
“The healer says you need to rest, Freya,” Jude pleaded. “That’s all.”
“He gave us some tea for you, to help you calm down.” Soren waved a flask. “Please will you drink it?”
Nico wasn’t saying anything.
I clenched my fists, trying to fight the reaction. Trying to settle down and speak more clearly, but the fever and upset weren’t letting me. Where was the calm ordinary, practical me I’d always known?
Soren tried to press the flask to my lips, but I pressed them closed tight and shook my head.
“You need the medicine, mate,” Jude said. “You need to rest.”
I needed a lot of things, but drugs were not one of them. When Soren moved the flask away, I burst out, “No, I do not need to rest. We need to fix everything that’s wrong around here. You want me to be your mates? Then help me to help our people. Don’t you see what the high council is doing? Don’t you see what is happening to the lessers?”
But no matter what I said they wouldn’t listen. They kept trying to get me to drink that tea, and I could see they believed what the doctor said and thought my talk of his claiming that I needed sex was just something I believed, maybe caused by the fever or something. Finally, I ordered them out and sagged into the mattress to fall asleep sad and lonely and wishing I could go back to the time before I saw all these problems.
Because this sucked.
Chapter Nineteen
I moped around for the rest of the afternoon after my mates finally gave up the fight to have me drink their special tea. That jerk of a supposed healer probably gave them something to make me loosen up or go full-on horny to make the penis healing happen.
Ridiculous. I wouldn’t accept a plastic-coated bandage from him if I was bleeding out.
Truth was, it didn’t take tea or anything else to make me want my mates. I wanted them, more and more by the second, but there were bigger things on my mind and issues to settle before that could happen.
I’d put my hand on the doorknob to my bedroom to get out of there for some food when I saw a lesser come in. Her head was down and she was worse for the wear judging by her sunken eyes and frail build. She wore rags, and I was tempted to run into my closet and give her all of my overpriced clothing, but most of it was sheer and would entice more uninvited interest than actually helping her.
She looked up at me as she placed a bronze enveloped with a burgundy wax seal on the entryway table.
“Thank you,” I told her before she left, but my voice only made her scurry out faster, although she turned before closing the door and pointed to the envelope. She was telling me something.
I had to open that envelope, even if it meant getting into trouble with my royal mates.
Scanning the room, they were nowhere in sight, and so I picked the envelope open and read the contents as quickly as possible. It was a notice from the high council. They were aware of the lesser revolution and were putting the royal dragons on high alert.
It said they would not put up with a resistance and would rather have no lessers than to have rebellious ones.
Shit.
I had to warn Hilda. She could warn the others. I’d be damned if my kind were killed just for demanding better treatment and, gods forbid, rights.
