“We do, to varying degrees,” I said. I was using at least two of them already to interpret his true desires. Not only did my dragon nature give me the ability to read his aura for secrets about his state of mind, but I had the innate ability to hear the truth in people’s spoken words—a trait I’d inherited from my turul side.
“My grandma’s sick. The doctors don’t have a clue what it is, but it started the same day the message came. It has to be linked. There must be something you can do.”
“I can try,” I said with a nod.
Swallowing a knot of helplessness, I stood. While I did have some abilities, those I was born with were woefully inadequate to do fuck-all for his grandmother. I hadn’t spent the last three weeks in hospitals for my health, after all, or for the health of the victims I’d observed. Bodhi’s grandma was not the first to fall prey to some mysterious creature that only seemed interested in members of the bloodline, and chances were that Bodhi himself would eventually become a target. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
But I could sure as hell try, and him inviting me to actually see his grandmother was the first break I’d had since this all began.
He grabbed both our trays and dumped the remnants of our midnight lunches in the trash, stacked the trays on top, then held the door open for me to follow.
“It’s this way,” he said, leading the way across a courtyard through another set of doors with an elevator on the other side. I could’ve found the way in my sleep.
When his grandmother had arrived, I was already here, having just watched a man fall into a coma as his soul fell to the beasts that had come for the bloodline. Before him, all the victims had died before I could see what had happened to them, but over the last few weeks they seemed to last longer, though I was beginning to lose hope that I’d be able to figure out how to actually heal them.
The two most recent victims were afflicted by a weakening of spirit that drained their will until they were nothing but feeble husks. The doctors had conducted every test imaginable, but they couldn’t see what I could.
I braced myself when we exited the elevator by the fifth-floor nurses’ station. The beasts were there, lurking in the shadows.
I glared at the creatures I’d taken to calling “soul hounds” as we passed through the door into Bodhi’s grandmother’s room. They were pair of shimmering, violet mirages that vanished when I looked directly at them, and inexplicably perked up whenever I arrived. One had a silver blaze down its face and the other had glowing, booted paws.
Both shadowy heads followed my passage. It was as if they were just biding their time until the woman died, but I’d be damned if I was going to let that happen.
The hounds spent their evenings pacing between the two victims, their foxlike ruffs shimmering with pale cascades of power from the energy they drained. Everything I’d tried to get them to leave only seemed to encourage them.
At least it wasn’t a constant thing. They’d arrive in the dead of night when the hospital was quietest, their dim glows gradually brightening as they absorbed power from the souls of the afflicted, and they’d leave at daybreak. I had no idea where they went. They seemed completely disinterested in the normal humans who staffed the hospital; the only people they cared about were the pair whose life forces reached out with a shimmering magical tether to each of the hounds.
What would happen if and when one of the victims died, I had no idea—I’d only felt the prior deaths, not witnessed them—but I suspected they would move onto someone else in the bloodline, judging from how they sniffed around the family members who came and went, including Bodhi and a woman who I believed was his mother.
Bodhi’s grandmother would be the first I’d actually see in person. I’d tried and failed on several occasions to talk my way in before.
The night nurse eyeballed me as I strolled by, and I gave her an exaggeratedly sweet smile when Bodhi opened his grandmother’s door and motioned for me to enter. Hopefully I could learn something new from actually examining one of the victims.
Fate’s Fools Series
Fate’s Fools
Fool’s Folly
Fool’s Paradise
Fool’s Errand
Nobody’s Fool
About Ophelia Bell
Ophelia Bell loves a good bad-boy and especially strong women in her stories. Women who aren’t apologetic about enjoying sex and bad boys who don’t mind being with a woman who’s in charge, at least on the surface, because pretty much anything goes in the bedroom.
Ophelia grew up on a rural farm in North Carolina and now lives in Los Angeles with her own tattooed bad-boy husband and six attention-whoring cats.
Subscribe to Ophelia’s newsletter to get updates directly in your inbox by clicking here. If newsletters aren’t your thing, you can find her on social media.
Also by Ophelia Bell
Sleeping Dragons Series
Animus
Tabula Rasa
Gemini
Shadows
Nexus
Ascend
Sleeping Dragons Omnibus
* * *
Rising Dragons Series
Night Fire
Breath of Destiny
Breath of Memory
Breath of Innocence
Breath of Desire
Breath of Love
Breath of Flame and Shadow
Breath of Fate
Sisters of Flame
Rising Dragons Omnibus
* * *
Dragon’s Melody (a standalone dragon novel)
* * *
Immortal Dragons Series
Dragon Betrayed
Dragon Blues
Dragon Void
Dragon Splendor
Dragon Rebel
Dragon Guardian
Dragon Blessed
Dragon Equinox
Dragon Avenged
Immortal Dragons Box Sets:
Immortal Dragons: Books 1, 2, & 3 + Prequel
Immortal Dragons: Books 4-6 + Epilogue
* * *
Black Mountain Bears
Clawed
Bitten
Nailed
Stonetree Trilogy
* * *
Fate’s Fools Series
Fate’s Fools
Fool’s Folly
Fool’s Paradise
Fool’s Errand
Nobody’s Fool
Eye of the Hurricane
Fool’s Bargain
* * *
Aurora Champions Series
(Set in Milly Taiden’s “Paranormal Dating Agency” world)
The Way to a Bear’s Heart
Hot Wings
Triple Talons
Midnight Star
* * *
Standalone Erotic Tales
After You
Out of the Cold