“Oh.” She rubbed her right temple. “No wonder. I felt funny in here.”
What had happened to her wasn’t funny at all. It was miracle she had sustained a head trauma like that and lived. Humans were more resilient than he thought. Once, he saw a man on TV had taken a piece of metal rod through his skull and survived. It was a medical miracle. Or the grim reaper wasn’t inclined to harvest his soul yet. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” She paused. “Yes. I’m famished. But I have a lot of questions to ask you. What’s my maiden name?”
“Smith.” According to her medical bracelet, her name was Eva Smith. She was also diabetic. But Liam doubted she had diabetes anymore. When the blood magic brought her back to life, it would have also healed her from her any illness.
Liam studied her closely. He saw a great deal of improvement in her. At first he didn’t think the blood magic would work. He had been waiting in trepidation after he fed her his blood. He brought her to the house and bathed her in the tub while waiting for the blood magic to do its work. A great worry lifted off his shoulders when he saw her wounds knitting closed. Her bones reset. Her gashes and bruises mended. When she was breathing normally, Liam was relieved that she would be okay.
With the healing over, he faced a new dilemma. She would ask questions and Liam didn’t quite know how he would explain his secret to her. The moment he had her in his arms, he was filled with a surge of overbearing protection. What could she have done possibly that compelled someone to do terrible things to her? Random mugging? Revenge? Jealous boyfriend? She didn’t strike him as a person who was able to commit such a horrible act that someone wanted to hurt her. No—not that angelic face. She didn’t have rings on her so he safely assumed she wasn’t married. Somehow, he felt that the two of them were alike. He had been hurt by Natalie’s betrayal. And this woman… well, she was a victim of a heinous crime. He and Eva were connected. They were both wounded souls.
“Do I have family? Mother? Father? Sister? Brother?” she asked.
That, Liam didn’t know. Anderson Cod, his private investigator, was working on her case at the moment. “Eva.” He smiled. “I want you to take things slowly. You took a hard blow to the head.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry, love. Everything will come back to you eventually.”
“I suppose you’re right. It just jars me I can’t remember anything about us. I feel like we’re strangers.”
“It will pass,” Liam comforted her. “You just rest. I’ll ask Rosa to bring you food.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Liam. Liam Caderyn.”
“Liam,” she repeated it as if his name was a mantra. “So I’m Eva Caderyn?”
“Yes.” He had to admit that the name suited her very well. He liked it. He didn’t know her at all, but he loved everything about her. From her smooth silky skin to her curvaceous figure, ample and filled up all in the right places. Her face was innocent like a child. She was beautiful without any makeup. What kind of monster would want to harm a woman like her? He silently vowed that he would protect her. No one would ever hurt her while she was under his watch. “Are you hungry? What are you in the mood for?”
“Anything. I’m so hungry I could eat a cow. Hey, how do I know that?”
Liam chortled. Rosa had warned him when Eva woke up she would want to eat. Blood magic always incited ravenous appetites. He planted a light kiss on her forehead. “I’ll go tell Rosa. I’ll call Doctor Hall to come and check on you too.”
“Who’s Doctor Hall?”
“He’s our private physician.”
“We have a private physician?”
“We can afford one, love.”
“Oh. I suppose that’s nice. Thank you.”
“Not at all, love.”
He left Eva with her tea and found Rosa in the kitchen in the process of assembling a sandwich.
The housekeeper glanced from her cooking and asked, “What did you tell her?”
“About?”
“Who she was? About you?”
Liam made a face. Discomfort ambushed him when he was confronted by the matronly woman. Rosa had been in the Caderyn family since her twenties. She wasn’t a full-blooded dragon, but she had dragon blood in her. Rosa’s mother was a Halfling and married to a human. The bloodline weakened. Because of it, Rosa couldn’t shift. Only boys sired by a Halfling father and human mother retained their shifter ability. The blood remained strong on the patriarchal line.
“I told her I’m her husband,” he confessed.
“Husband?” Rosa parroted in a mocking tone. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’m afraid not. I panicked. I didn’t think she’d wake up that soon.”
“Blood magic has a powerful healing property, Mr. Caderyn. I’m surprised it took twenty-four hours to make her whole. Your mother needed only thirty minutes to recuperate from the bypass surgery after your father administered it.”
He ran his fingers on his head. “If I tell her the truth, she’ll leave. I can’t let her go. What if she turns into one of us?”
“Have you forgotten? One is born as a dragon. Not made. Your mother received blood magic from your father and it didn’t turn her into one.”
About twenty years ago, his father had incited the rite so his mother would be given long life. But five years later, his father had an unfortunate accident that had taken his life. His mother died within months from grief. Dragons mated for life. Liam didn’t know why his marriage with Natalie hadn’t worked out. Once bonded, dragons wouldn’t desire someone else. The more he thought about it, his marriage with Natalie had felt wrong from the beginning. He didn’t feel the bond—an attachment between husband and wife like a pair of soul mates should have. Perhaps that was what had turned his marriage into a shambles.
He had thought Natalie was a perfect match. She came from pure blood dragon lineage. Their passion was fierce, smoldering. The moment he laid eyes on her, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
But he had mistaken their strong attraction as a bond. A year into their marriage, the passion was gone, reducing them to a pair of strangers living in the same house, sharing the same bed. They had started fighting. Liam wanted to reconcile, but Natalie wasn’t interested. One morning, she told him it was over and served him divorce papers. She left him for his best friend whom she had been seeing for months behind his back. He felt like a fool. A cuckolded husband.