A tall woman with mousy brown hair pulled into a ponytail walked toward her, the lab coat and stethoscope around her neck denoting her as a doctor.
When her pupils flashed to slits, Ivy stilled again. Another dragon-shifter.
She was more afraid of the dragon doctor than the muscled dragonman. Instinctively, Ivy knew that someone could cause far more long-lasting pain with drugs and medical science than with a physical beating.
After all, the Dragon Knights had been using drugs as their main focus in the last few years, experimenting on dragons when they could.
Drugs she'd helped formulate.
More information hovered just outside her reach. Had she killed someone related to these dragon-shifters? If that was so, then she had no bloody idea why they'd kept her alive. Weren't they supposed to be bloodthirsty when it came to revenge?
The dragon doctor spoke in the same Northern English accent as the man. "My name is Dr. Sid. And I can see from the terror in your eyes that you're afraid of me. Now, I can only imagine the stories you've heard over the years, ones that made you want to work with the bloody Dragon Knights. However, I uphold the same oath as any human doctor in that I do no harm. I'm part of the reason you're awake right now, and still alive. So I suggest calming down and answering me truthfully. Lies will only hurt you in the long run, and that will be your own damn fault."
Ivy nearly blinked at the dragonwoman's words. Would she truly try to help her if she were honest? Yes, the doctor had kept Ivy alive until now. Although she still had no idea for what purpose.
Trust wasn't something she'd give to any dragon-shifter, but if the doctor could help her get better, then Ivy would at least be honest concerning her health.
Because once she had all her memories and fully recovered her strength, she'd need to find some way to escape the dragons and head back to her home down south.
Dr. Sid studied her a second before asking, "Can you talk? Speak if you can, or else blink twice for no."
She tried to say she could, but her throat and mouth were dry, and all that came out was "Aaahhhh."
The dragonwoman reached into one of her pockets, extracted a small plastic bag filled with ice chips, and opened it. "Here, let's try this first."
Dr. Sid placed an ice chip at Ivy's lips. The coolness mixed with wetness made her realize how thirsty she was.
Seeing as the dragons hadn't killed her when unconscious, she parted her lips to accept the ice. As it melted down her throat, she nearly moaned.
After a few more, Dr. Sid stopped and asked, "How about now?"
She croaked, "I think I can."
While her voice was faint and somewhat scratchy to her own ears, it seemed to be enough for the doctor who asked, "Do you hurt anywhere?"
Shaking her head was easier, so Ivy did that. The doctor continued, "Can you wiggle a finger?"
Unsure, Ivy concentrated. She must've succeeded before the dragonwoman nodded. "Good. Now let's try other parts of your body. But don't be alarmed if you can't move much just yet. You've been in a coma for about a year, and your muscles have atrophied. It's going to take some intensive physical therapy to get you walking again, let alone for you to regain the ability to sit upright without help."
Ivy blinked. She'd been out over a year?
Just what the bloody hell had happened to her?
Not that she had much time to think about it. The dragon doctor pushed her to answer questions and try moving various parts of her body. But during the entire set of questions and tests, all Ivy wanted was for her memory to fully return.
It was bad enough she'd lost an entire year of her life—although granted, still being alive at the hands of dragon-shifters was better than dead—but she desperately wanted every memory back she'd possessed before setting foot on the dragons' lands.
Because only then could she really start to piece back together what had happened to her and plan the next steps of her future.
After a fucking year of waiting around for the female to wake up, Zain Kinsella hated the fact he had to wait some more.
He paced Dr. Sid's office, anxious for her to return. While it was Zain's job to get as much information out of Ivy Passmore as he could manage, he couldn't begin his task until her health was deemed out of the danger zone.
And given how she'd barely been able to move her head, she could be in that zone for quite a while yet.
His inner dragon spoke up. It's not as if she's able to run away any time soon considering her health and that the world at large thinks she’s dead.
That's not the point. While Nathan and Lucien have managed to interpret some of the data from the thumb drive we found on her, she could fill in the remaining gaps with passwords and how to break the encrypted files. Maybe then we'd have the information we need to finally defeat the Dragon Knights.