Dragon Blood

Chapter 55

A month went by.

While the dragonkin and other ancients that had been saved from the facility were transported either to the compound hospital or to one run by the Counsel, Rhia had refused to go anywhere but back to Nolan's house in Los Angeles. She refused to go anywhere near a medical facility and the only doctor she let near her was Nolan himself, but not to treat her like a patient. She was done being poked and prodded and stared at.

She couldn't even be in the house when they got there, finding the walls too confined, and she kept imagining them closing in around her. Sleep wasn't even a consideration the first few nights. When she did doze off, it was for no more than twenty minutes at a time before the nightmares had her waking in a screaming fit, losing control of her magic and setting his and the neighbouring houses on fire more than once. Dragonkin specialists had to be called to set protection spells around the entire block, make repairs to the electrical grid, and make assurances that any damages could be covered.

Rhia spent most of the first week curled up on a lawn chair, wearing one of Nolan's shirts and surrounding herself with his scent. He stayed with her as much as he could, holding her in his arms, speaking in a low, calm voice, and telling her the happier stories of his past. When he wasn't with her directly, he made sure she wouldn't have to do more than turn her head to find him again. Her anxiety of being away from him was at a ten, and he didn't want to make it worse.

He was determined to work around it and refused to leave the house. He would take a hundred phone calls if he had to and had invited several Counsel members to his home so he wouldn't need to leave. At one point, every elven representative was in his kitchen, including Zesstra, where they had been too distracted by the realization the Rhia was a pure-blooded dragon to be angry about anything the dark elf princess had done. Arkil had been surprisingly respectful of her space and did not insist on a proper introduction.

When Rhia did finally start coming into the house, Nolan made sure to keep every window big enough for her to crawl through wide open. When the panic set in, he wanted her to be able to get to the open air and see the sky. The first couple nights when the nightmares came, she would escape to her chair outside instead of coming back to the bed.

She broke down several times in his arms, worried that she was being too much of a burden on him. All the things she had done to be strong for him, and she couldn't even withstand a few nightmares? Of course, he never once agreed with her emotional ramblings. He loved her. All of her. The good, the bad, the hysterical... what kind of person would he be if he left her with this dumpster fire of a situation.

Not the kind of man he had ever aspired to be. Not the kind of man she needed or deserved.

His efforts to make things start to feel normal again were thwarted by internet. The truth was out. There were ten dragons, and one of them had been mistaken as a human for almost thirty years. The once fringe group of conspiracy theorists who would constantly claim that there couldn't be just three, became overnight celebrities. Their platforms exploded with activity, hundreds of thousands of people tuning in to listen to what they had to say. A lot of them were genuinely crazy, but the ones that were able to pull themselves into something that resembled a respectful appearance, went on television to talk to news hosts and drone on and on about how they knew they were right the whole time.

There was no chance in keeping Rhia's name out of any news, the papers, or off the internet. And once it was out there, the stalking began. It stared with Facebook, then moved to Twitter and her Instagram. Her mother had been taken into protective custody by the Counsel to keep the paparazzi and half-starved news hacks away from her. The dragonkin security team around the neighborhood were working overtime to keep them away from his house when it was discovered that she wasn't even on the compound. They'd even had to chase them off the water when the boats started appearing.