Chapter 589 Adorable? Delete That Thought.

DRAKENFELL – INFIRMARY ROYAL CHAMBERS

The ceiling was spinning.

Slowly. Lazily. The kind of spin that said the world hadn’t fully committed to being stationary yet and was keeping its options open.

A weight pressed against her chest. Small. Warm. Scaled.

Serena’s eyes focused enough to identify the weight as Onyx, who was lying on her sternum with his chin tucked between his front paws, gold eyes closed, tail wrapped around her forearm with the possessive grip of a creature who had claimed this woman as furniture and was deeply committed to the arrangement.

She blinked. Blinked again. The ceiling stopped spinning and downgraded to a gentle wobble, which was progress.

The room came into focus in pieces.

Infirmary. Drakenfell. Sconces dimmed to almost nothing. The light filtering through the window was the pale grey-gold of a sun that hadn’t fully decided to rise yet, hovering at the horizon like it needed coffee before committing to the day.

She turned her head to the right.

Dexmon was in the chair closest to her bed, his chin dropped to his chest, arms crossed, head tilted at an angle that was going to produce a complaint from his neck that his neck would hold against him for a week. His bandages were visible beneath his shirt collar. His jaw was slack. He looked younger when he slept, the cocky edge softened into something that almost resembled peace, and the almost was doing a lot of heavy lifting because even unconscious Dexmon Drakenfell looked like a man whose dreams involved strategy and territory disputes.

She turned her head to the left.

Fin was on the bed. His face was turned towards her. His position told the story of a man who had been sitting on the edge, holding her hand, and had lost the war against exhaustion in stages. His legs were still off the side, boots planted on the floor, his torso twisted at the waist where his upper body had collapsed flat against the mattress.

One arm was extended towards where her hand had been, fingers curled loosely around empty space because she had shifted in her sleep and the shift had stolen the contact his body had been anchoring itself to.

Serena swallowed the lump that formed in the back of her throat. Fin had been so upset in that chamber and she understood why. It didn’t matter that the ancestors said it was prophecy. What mattered was her mate was hurting because of her.

Fin out of anyone was the last person she wanted to hurt. He was a good man and had been her rock. And the thought of him hurting at all, let alone because of her, made her heart break. She didn’t know if he wanted to even see her again or be in a relationship with her at all. He hadn’t said a word to her before she passed out and that wasn’t Fin. He always communicated. That part sat in her chest and waited for her to understand what she’d almost cost him.

Her eyes burned and she blinked twice, but a tear slipped away before she could stop it.

She lifted her head to see Gav in a chair at the foot of the bed, and Gavriel’s relationship with the chair had devolved into something that defied anatomy. His legs were extended, crossed at the ankle, his arms folded across his chest wraps, his head tipped back so far that his throat was fully exposed. His mouth was slightly open. Fresh wraps peeked from beneath his collar. He looked like a man whose body had surrendered to unconsciousness mid-argument and whose unconsciousness was winning by a landslide.

All three of them looked like absolute hell. Exhausted, uncomfortable, and stubborn enough to have stayed in those positions for hours rather than leave the room and find actual beds.

The I.V. in her arm caught her attention. Clear tubing, white liquid, dripping at a steady rate into her vein. Dehydration. She recognized the treatment from the last artifact retrieval after she’d pushed too hard. And the time before that. Her medical history with Alaric should have a punch card.

She moved Onyx first.

Carefully. Both hands beneath his small body and lifted him gently.

Onyx’s eyes opened.

The displeasure was immediate, comprehensive, and communicated through every available channel. She placed him on the warm spot she’d vacated.

Onyx shot her a glare burning as hot as a thousand suns. Betrayal. Indignation.

His wings tightened against his body. His chirp was low, pointed, carrying the unmistakable frequency of a creature whose sleeping arrangement had been disrupted without consent and whose consent was retroactively denied.

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

He circled once on the warm spot and collapsed into it with the resigned acceptance of a dragon who had been given a consolation prize and found it barely adequate.

Serena unhooked the I.V. from her arm the way other women unclipped jewelry. Routine. She had removed her own medical equipment enough times that Alaric stopped commenting.

She stood in the center of the room, looking at them.

They looked adorable.

She would never say that word aloud. Fin would rather eat the pillow. Dexmon would launch it across the room. Gavriel would accept the compliment and then weaponize it for the rest of the week. All three outcomes were unacceptable.

She kept it internal.

The cooling cabinet was across the room. She crossed to it, opened it, pulled a tonic, and drank the entire thing in four long swallows. Cold. Bitter. The kind of bitter that tasted like recovery and made every cell in her body sigh with relief.

She felt better. The dizziness receded. Her vision cleared. Her lungs pulled air without the rattling protest that had been their default for days.

The bathing chamber was ten steps away. She made it in eight, closed the door quietly, and let the water wash away fever and volcano residue and the accumulated grime of nearly dying.

When she came back out, hair damp, wearing her silk pajamas and slippers, all three were still asleep.

Every single one of them had been stabbed in the last forty-eight hours and not one of them had the self-preservation instincts to find a horizontal surface. They had beds. Real beds.

Instead, they chose violence against their own vertebrae.

Absolutely not.

Not while she was conscious and had access to pillows.

She was going to fix it before they could stop her.