Page 33 of Dragon's Captive

Blood. I'm bleeding.

The world fragments after that—snippets of consciousness floating in a sea of pain and fear. I'm vaguely aware of being transferred from Kairyx's forelegs to some kind of conveyance, of rapid movement through stone corridors far more clinical than Drake's Peak's ornate passages. Voices speak over and around me, using medical terminology that sounds like another language even when I recognize individual words.

"Hybrid adaptation rejection."

"Genetic synchronization failure."

"Accelerated placental abruption."

"Draconic mineral deficiency."

I surface from the haze when they attempt to separate me from Kairyx, some rational part of their medical protocol requiring the father's absence during examination. But his growl—low, primal, vibrating through the stone beneath us—makes even the most senior healer step back, hands raised in placation.

"Commander, please," a human female in healer's garb attempts, her tone suggesting this isn't her first encounter with protective alpha behavior. "We need space to work."

"I stay," he responds, voice barely recognizable through partially transformed vocal cords. No argument, no negotiation. Simple fact.

They don't press the issue. Perhaps they recognize the futility, or perhaps the woman who seems to lead them understands something fundamental about our situation that transcends medical protocol.

Time slips again as they work on me—hands moving over my abdomen with professional efficiency, instruments I don't recognize measuring things I can't name. Injections that burn like liquid fire through my veins before spreading numbingrelief in their wake. Throughout it all, Kairyx remains a constant presence, his massive form shifted back to something closer to humanoid, though still far more draconic than the appearance he usually maintains around humans.

Slowly, the pain recedes. Not completely—there remains a deep ache, a wrongness I can feel in my core—but the acute crisis appears to be passing. The tension in the room shifts from emergency response to cautious assessment.

"The fetuses have stabilized," the lead healer finally announces, her expression guarded as she studies some readout I can't see from my position. "But this was a warning we cannot ignore. Her body lacks critical elements the hybrid offspring require for proper development."

"Fix it," Kairyx demands, the words more growl than speech.

The healer—a woman perhaps in her fifties, with steel-gray hair and the confidence of someone who has seen too much to be easily intimidated—meets his gaze directly. "Commander, it's not that simple. Human physiology isn't designed to carry draconic young. Her system is trying, adapting remarkably well considering, but the mineral composition of dragon embryos requires elements not naturally present in human biochemistry."

As they discuss my condition over my prone form, speaking about me rather than to me, I should feel objectified, reduced once again to breeding vessel. Instead, I find myself reaching for Kairyx's hand, fingers closing around scaled digits with desperate strength. The action surprises us both.

"Don't let them die," I whisper, the plea emerging unbidden from somewhere beyond conscious thought. The words shock me the moment they materialize—not because they're untrue, but because they're painfully, undeniably genuine.

Kairyx's golden eyes shift to mine, pupils dilating from draconic slits to something almost human in their roundness.His massive hand engulfs mine, careful of claws that could rend flesh with casual ease.

"They are our future," he responds, voice dropping to a register too low for the healers to hear. "The first of my bloodline to take root successfully." His grip tightens fractionally, scales warm against my cold skin. "But your survival matters equally."

The pronoun hangs between us, weighted with implications neither of us is prepared to face.Ourfuture. Not his offspring, not my burden, but something shared between us. Acknowledgment of joint stake in what began as simple biological claiming but has evolved into something neither anticipated.

I should correct him. Should reassert the boundaries between captor and captive, between forced claiming and chosen connection. But the words stick in my throat, held back by the undeniable truth that somewhere in these weeks of captivity, these lives growing within me have become more than just the physical evidence of my biological subjugation.

The healer's voice cuts through the moment, dragging us back to immediate concerns. "We need to begin mineral supplementation immediately. Intravenous for now, then oral once her system stabilizes. She'll need regular monitoring—weekly at minimum. The pregnancy can continue, but not without significant intervention."

Kairyx nods, still holding my hand as if it's something precious rather than just another part of his claimed property. "Whatever is required. Spare no resource."

As medical staff bustle around us preparing various treatments, I find myself studying his face—the sharp angles softened by evident concern, the predatory features transformed by something that looks disturbingly like fear. Not for himself, never that, but for the lives he clearly already considers his legacy, his future, his bloodline continued.

And perhaps, though I can hardly bear to acknowledge it even in the privacy of my own thoughts, for me.

"How did you know?" I ask, voice barely above a whisper. "How did you reach me so quickly in the library?"

Something shifts in his expression—discomfort, perhaps, at being caught in what might be interpreted as sentiment. "Dragon senses. I detected the change in your scent the moment the complication began. The distress hormones, the altered blood chemistry."

The explanation is physiological, logical, devoid of emotional content. Yet it doesn't explain the speed of his response, the desperation evident in his flight through blizzard conditions, the way he refused to release me even when medical protocol demanded it.

For the first time since my capture, I find myself contemplating the possibility that what exists between us might transcend the simplistic categories of captor and captive, alpha and omega, conqueror and conquered. That something more complex and terrifying might be taking root alongside the twins growing in my womb.

The thought should horrify me. Instead, as the healers work to save the lives within me—lives I never wanted but now cannot bear to lose—I find my fingers tightening around Kairyx's in wordless acknowledgment of truth neither of us is ready to name.

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