Page 17 of Dragon Cursed
A wave of dizziness washed over her.She braced a hand against the mattress and blinked until the room steadied.
She smiled then.A slow, radiant smile that banished the morning chill.
The prophecy her grandmother had whispered to her on her deathbed — the sacred duty that had kept her heart lonely, that had made her wait so long — it was all about him.The moment she’d seen him, naked and furious in the forest clearing, her soul had recognized him.Her heart, the heart that had waited so long, was meant to be his.
He would be back.It was her destiny to fall in love with him.She knew it in her bones.And it was too late to worry about it because the little voice inside her head said she was already halfway there.
It was fate.Their incredible, earth-shattering connection — it could heal him.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.The room tilted again.She gripped the bedpost and waited it out.
"Too many orgasms," she murmured, and gave a soft laugh.
The weakness in her limbs must be the aftermath of such an intense, emotional night.
It must be.
She padded to the washstand and splashed cool water on her face.From the small blue bottle that lived on her windowsill — the one she’d refilled every new moon since she was sixteen — she poured a careful measure of the bitter green tincture and drank it down in one swallow.Pennyroyal, blue cohosh, and three other herbs her grandmother had taught her when her body first became a woman's.A daily safeguard.She’d never missed a morning, not even after a long night, and she didn’t miss this one.
A quick shower later, the hot water chasing away the last of the chill, and she felt almost human again.
Almost.
She dressed quickly and carefully packed the tincture she’d made, her movements humming with a new energy, a new purpose.The world outside her cottage seemed brighter.More vibrant.As she walked the short distance down into the heart of Cuanfirth, the familiar scent of the sea and the distant cry of gulls filled her with a sense of belonging she hadn’t realized she'd missed.
The villagers were still polite.Still a little distant.But their smiles seemed warmer today.
Or maybe it was just that, for the first time, she wasn’t looking to them for connection.
She had her dragon.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
Her first stopwas the O'Malley cottage.
Little Finn, no older than five, lay on a pallet by the hearth — listless, his dark curls plastered to his forehead with sweat, his small body burning with fever so hot Poppy could feel it from three feet away.His breath came in shallow, rattling gasps that made her stomach clench.
He was dying.
She could feel it.The same way she had felt the wounded forest, the same way she had sensed the dragon's sorrow — she felt the boy's life flickering like a candle in a draft, and her senses recoiled at how close to going out it was.
Aoife O'Malley sat beside her son, hollow-eyed, her hands twisted in her apron.She’d been Poppy's friend since they were both girls running barefoot on the beach.She didn’t look like that girl anymore.She looked like a woman who hadn’t slept in days.Like a woman who had been counting her son's breaths.
"Poppy."Her voice broke on the word."Oh, Poppy, please."
Poppy knelt beside the pallet and uncorked the small glass vial.The tincture inside glowed faintly with silver light that pulsed like a slow heartbeat.
"Three drops on his tongue.Now."Her own voice was steady, though her hands shook."Then three more every two hours through the day."
Poppy tilted the boy's head and administered the drops.The silver liquid touched his pale lips and vanished — absorbed instantly, like water into parched earth.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Finn's rattling breath caught.Eased.Deepened.
The flush of fever receded from his cheeks like a tide pulling back from the shore.The tight lines on his small face smoothed into the soft, peaceful expression of true sleep.His chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of a child who would live to see his mother in the morning.
Aoife sobbed in relief.
