Chapter 547

Nina

Waiting by Enzo’s bedside seemed to feel like an eternity, with each minute ticking past seeming to drag on forever. But, with mine and Jessica’s help, along with his own healing, he was soon starting to show signs of waking up by the time the sun rose.

It wasn’t until well after the sun made its ascent into the sky, however, that his eyes finally flickered open.

For a long moment, we just looked at each other, taking each other in. I wondered during those moments if he was truly free from Mila’s thrall now; but when I looked into his soft brown eyes and felt the gentle caress of his thumb stroking across my knuckles, I knew that my husband had returned.

“Enzo,” I breathed, lurching forward onto the pallet where he lay on the floor. I practically threw myself on top of him and began peppering his face and neck with kisses, reveling in the feeling of his hands on me.

When I didn’t feel him returning the kisses, though, I pulled back with a furrowed brow—only to find that he was blinking up at me, lips slightly parted, pointing at his throat.

“W-Water,” he croaked, his voice drier and cracked than a desert on the hottest day of the year.

I gasped and quickly stood, crossing over to the nearby fresh water basin. Dunking a cup into the water, I returned and kneeled beside him, helping him to sit up. As he sipped the water with a shaky hand, I could see some color slowly coming back into his eyes and lips.

“Sorry,” I chuckled. “I guess I got a little caught up in the moment.”

Enzo met my eyes with that signature smirk on his face; I think he would have laughed along with me, but the parched state of his throat thoroughly prohibited any such thing.

“How long?” he finally muttered after a few more sips. When he noticed my furrowed brow, he clarified in a soft voice: “How long has it been?”

I felt my shoulders sag. “Days,” I said. “How did you get here, anyway? All on your own, in… that condition?”

Enzo sighed, then coughed and took another sip. For a long time, that was how it went; a few words here, a few words there. But I didn’t mind. Here, in the peace and quiet of the medical tent, I felt as if I had all the time in the world to wait to hear his story.

As we sat there, the curtain opened and Jessica stepped in. She looked a little more rested after a few hours of sleep, and shot us both a smile as she approached.

“Look who’s up,” she said, crouching beside the pallet to inspect Enzo’s injuries. “You look as good as new.”

He smirked. “I still feel like I’ve been cooked alive. But I’m much better now thanks to you two.”

Jessica and I exchanged glances. “Don’t thank us,” she finally said. “If it weren’t for the medics here, we would have had no idea how to treat your wounds.”

I nodded in agreement. “Medical school didn’t exactly prepare us for treating injuries in jungles in other realms,” I added.

Enzo looked back and forth between the two of us, his eyes taking on that bemused look that he always had when my friends and I interacted. And for a moment, just a moment, things felt normal. Or at least, whatever ‘normal’ even meant anymore.

“Well,” Jessica said, standing. “I’ll let you two get back to it. Try not to make too much noise; there are children around.”

I blushed a deep shade of red, and with that, Jessica left.

Once we were alone again, however, the last thing on our minds was sex; I still had to know how Enzo had made it here. And just as importantly, I needed to know…

“Did you see my father?”

At the mention of my father, Enzo’s face went even more ashen than it had been when he appeared out of the woods. He was silent for several moments, opening and closing his mouth a few times as though unsure of how to begin.

“You can tell me,” I finally choked out. “I just want to know if he…”

“He was alive, last I saw him,” he cut me off, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “But… there was so much happening, Nina.”

Despite the hope in his words, I could see the true emotion in his eyes: uncertainty. Hot tears began to prick at the backs of my eyes, and I quickly looked down at our entwined hands to bolster myself.

“Tell me everything you remember,” I whispered.

…

By the time Enzo was finished telling me the story of how he survived the fires, what happened to Mila and my father, and how he got here, I felt as if a part of me had been hollowed out from the inside.

“So he… he really went after her?” I asked. “Just like that?”

Enzo nodded. “I’m sorry, Nina; all I know is that they went westward. What happened after that, I…”

His voice trailed off, but I knew the implications. He may not have survived. In fact, the chances were incredibly slim. “We have to find him,” I said suddenly. “We can’t just—”

“No.” Enzo’s voice was firm, his grip on my hand even firmer. “No, Nina. We can’t go after them.”

I frowned, feeling defeated. “Why not?” I asked. “He’s my father. He’s the bloody Alpha King. We have to find him.”

“And we will. But not right now. Not on our own. And not…” His eyes flickered down to my pregnant belly, which had been growing more and more by the day lately and was now a pleasantly pronounced little bump beneath my shirt. “...Not with you in this condition.”

I grit my teeth, the more stubborn side of me—the side I had inherited from my father, the same crazy bastard who went chasing after a dragon—wanting to refuse. But I knew that Enzo was right. I couldn’t go running into the fray.

“Listen,” Enzo said, reaching up to tuck a strand behind my ear. “I know you, Nina. I know you want to be the heroine, that you want to do whatever you can to ensure the most valiant outcome. But there are other ways to achieve that.”

Tears blurred my vision. I quickly blinked them away, staring down at my lap.

“I’m sorry, Nina,” he said softly. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings—”

“No. It’s okay.” I quickly wiped the wetness from my cheeks, then placed my hand over my belly. “Sometimes, I forget that I can still do my part without jumping right into the fray. And that… that chasing down a Dragon Queen and an Alpha King isn’t the only way to protect the people I care about.”

There was a long pause as I sat there, staring down at my belly. Selena’s words whirled through my mind, just as they had been ever since that strange dream. And there, in the corner of the tent, my bag seemed to be looking at me—containing the journal inside.

“I have to tell you something,” I said. “Something that pertains to keeping those we love… Safe.”

Enzo cocked his head, listening intently as I slowly recounted everything—the dreams, the journal, the moonstone, the warnings from my dead twin sister. I told him everything, even if it hurt, even if it scared both of us.

Because this wasn’t just about us anymore. It was about our baby, too.

When I was finished, Enzo just stared at me incredulously. A million different emotions seemed to flicker through his brown eyes—worry, anger, hurt, betrayal—but he didn’t say a single word for a long time. And for a long time, I thought he might refuse, that he might denounce this ritual and tell me that it was insane, or that it was all in my head, or that it was too dangerous.

But he didn’t say any of those things.

Instead, he took my hand and pressed my fingers to his lips.

“If you want to do this ritual,” he whispered softly, his eyes meeting mine, “then I’ll support you.”