The door opened. “I can control my bloody dragon.”
She smiled at his petulant tone. “Do you want to bet on it?”
Gregor’s pupils flashed, but soon became round again and stayed that way. “Do you want to waste time betting or do you want to d
iscuss what I found?”
Sid sat up. “Tell me what you discovered.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up. “I like it when you’re eager.” For a brief second, she expected him to make a joke about being eager when naked, but he merely cleared his throat and continued, “My first question is how much do you know about the science concerning the dual personalities of dragon-shifters?”
“The basics. The human and dragon halves tend to use slightly different areas of the brain for certain tasks, but I’m not an expert. Not only is surgery my specialty, but not much in-depth study has been done on our dual personalities due to lack of funds and resources.”
Gregor pulled up a chair next to her bed. “Well, I’ve been dabbling for years, whenever I have the chance. While my focus has been on children and emerging dragon personalities, since our dragon halves are silent for the first six or seven years, most of the brain activity patterns seem to follow the same areas into adults. At least, for those few I’ve monitored.”
“And?”
Gregor opened his tablet and brought up a chart. He pointed to an intense spike in the middle. “This is when you experienced the greatest amount of pain.” He brought up another chart. “The pattern almost exactly matches a female fighting the mate-claim frenzy here.” And another one. “And this is a child arguing with their dragon for the first time and the dragon tried to take control.”
Sid flipped between the three images. The spikes were almost identical.
Yet she wasn’t about to get her hopes up just yet. “It could just be similar brain activity. It doesn’t mean I have a dragon.”
“Ah, but I knew you’d say that. I’ve gone through every record I can find, and the pattern matches strong emotions between the human and dragon halves.”
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t give us a solution.”
“But it means we can try to bring out your dragon.”
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that,” Sid answered.
“Stop it, Cassidy. This means your dragon is probably still a part of you, albeit separate. I think all of the dragon-slumber shots given to you as a teenager had an adverse side effect.”
She had thought that as well until she’d dug further into the research. “That’s great and all, but no other cases have been documented.”
Gregor raised his brows. “Do you think it would be? After all, what doctor wants to admit their mistake? Unlike the humans, dragon-shifter doctors don’t have to report to an overarching authority or abide by any set of common practices.”
“Which is bloody dangerous, in my opinion.”
“Aye, I agree with you. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that you still have your dragon, Cassidy, and I plan to find a way to bring her out.”
~~~
Gregor nearly missed the brief flicker of hope in Cassidy’s eyes before it vanished. His doctor was more than a wee bit skeptical.
His beast spoke up. I still say we should participate in the mate-claim frenzy. That will bring out her dragon.
No, I’m not about to return her lost half only to take her life in nine months’ time.
His dragon huffed. She will be fine.
That’s what you said about Bridget and the bairn.
Cassidy’s voice brought Gregor out of his head. “Let’s say you succeed in bringing out my dragon, then what? Being trapped for over two decades would make the beast insane. I’m not sure I can fix that.”
“You can and you will.”
As they stared into each other’s eyes, Gregor silently vowed to bring hope and happiness back to Cassidy’s eyes.