Thousands of people were streaming from the field where the wedding had taken place now, heading back to the booths and stages. The festival had been a huge success.
Cadence rubbed her arm and sighed. Her dress had lace sleeves to hide the marks on her arm where she’d been having blood drawn every day. Apparently maintaining a fresh coating over the eggs was vital to the process that would increase their chances of survival.
Orion leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Should we skip the reception and go straight back to the castle for our own private celebration?”
Cadence snorted. “I do like the way you think, but we can’t do that to our guests, I’m afraid.”
“But we could just sneak behind the stage, strip out of our wedding clothes, fly off, and then come right back. We wouldn’t miss much.” His hot breath on her ear made her shudder with desire.
“They’d notice,” she protested.
“Do you think I care?”
She glanced at the crowd, then shook her head. “Nope. And neither do I,” she declared, and they headed behind the stage.
* * * * *
Cadence struggled to quell her nerves as she and Orion walked into the clinic, accompanied by twenty of his clan members.
The hatchlings were due to be removed in two days.
For some reason, she’d been feeling overwhelmingly anxious for the last few days, though, until she’d finally told Orion that she couldn’t wait. They needed to go to the clinic now. She’d offered to go alone so that she wouldn’t have to pull him away from family business, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’d gathered up the clan members and off they’d flown.
The guards had looked startled when they’d walked up, and they’d called someone on their radios before allowing them all inside. That made sense, Cadence told herself. Even though they recognized the Garrisons, they still needed to maintain security.
Something is wrong.
She glanced at the guards. Half of them in the white uniforms of the ice dragons, the other half in red uniforms. Something felt off about them, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. She recognized most of them from the last time she’d been here, so what was the problem?
She saw Orion follow her gaze, and he frowned slightly, too. Was he just picking up on her mood? Surely he’d tell her if something was wrong?
She strode forward to stare directly up at the video camera by the front door.
“Hello, this is Cadence Garrison, of the Garrison clan. I am here to see my dragonlings. I insist that you let me in at once!” she said loudly.
“Just one moment,” the crackly voice over the speaker answered her. “I need to call Dr. Kowalski.”
She glanced back and saw Orion and Nikolai murmuring to each other.
Everything must be all right, she told herself.
Orion had half a dozen men stationed in the incubator room, watching over her dragonlings at all times. She’d asked him not to call and tell them that they were on the way. She couldn’t say why she’d done that, but Orion had gone along with it. He had been perfectly patient and reasonable about all of her crazy requests.
The receptionist frowned as they walked in. Dr. Kowalski was standing next to her by the reception desk, and Dr. Hamill strode through the door. There were several security guards in the room with them.
“Mrs. Garrison,” Dr. Kowalski said. “How lovely to see you. We weren’t expecting you for two days yet, though. We run strictly on schedule here. We’re really not ready for you, I’m afraid.”
“I need to see my dragonlings,” Cadence said firmly. “And I am going to stay here with them until they hatch.”
Dr. Kowalski shook her head. “I’m sorry. You can certainly observe them on the video monitor all you like, but—”
As Orion let out a low growl and Cadence sucked in an angry breath, Dr. Hamill held up his hands. “Now, doctor, these people are paying a lot of money for our services. It will be fine.” He beamed at Cadence. Then he glanced at Orion. “I’m afraid that we can only allow the mother back into the incubation room, but your men are there right now, so she’ll be in good hands.”
“I need to walk back with her as far as the room, and then I need to see my men,” Orion said.
A flicker of a frown crossed Dr. Hamill’s face. “Well, that will be all right, but I can’t have all these men come with you. I’m sorry, but we haven’t run a background check on them yet, and we have strict security protocols to adhere to.”
“That will be fine,” Orion said
“I don’t like it.” Nikolai scowled at him, shaking his head.
“I’ll be right out, as soon as I talk to our men in the incubation room,” Orion assured him.