RISE OF THE FORSAKEN DRAGON HEIR

THE DOCTOR OR THE DRAGON?

That response amused Tristan even more.

“I could insult you all day and there would still be nothing you could do about it.”

Then his smile faded.

A strange stiffness appeared between his shoulders.

Tristan rolled his neck. “What the hell?”

One of the staff members frowned. “What's wrong?”

Tristan reached behind himself. “My back feels strange.”

He straightened, but the stiffness spread downward along his spine. He tried moving his shoulders again.

They responded slowly.

Tristan's expression changed. “What is this?”

David watched him without saying anything.

Tristan tried to summon his Emerald Dragon Essence.

A faint green glow appeared around his hands.

Then vanished.

He stared at them.

“No.”

He tried again.

Nothing.

The stiffness reached the base of his neck while the supernatural pathways surrounding his spine began shutting down one after another.

Tristan's breathing quickened.

“Why can't I feel my Dragon?”

The staff members who had been laughing earlier became silent.

Tristan forced his Essence again. A weak green light flickered beneath his skin before dying almost immediately.

His face turned pale.

“What is happening to my back?”

David remained still, but the Primordial Dragon within him was already responding to his will.

He had focused a small amount of Dragon authority directly on Tristan's Emerald Essence, suppressing the pathways that allowed the power to move through his body.

It required almost no visible effort.

Each time Tristan tried to summon his Dragon Essence, David increased the pressure slightly. The Emerald energy would rise from Tristan's Dragon Core, reach the pathways surrounding his spine, then collapse before spreading through the rest of his body.

Tristan had no idea what was happening to him.

He tried forcing more Essence through his body, which only made the stiffness worse. His fingers began to tremble as another weak green glow appeared around his palms and disappeared.

“What is wrong with me?” Tristan muttered, twisting his shoulders again. “Why isn't my Essence responding?”

David watched him struggle. “I thought you were very confident a moment ago.”

Tristan looked sharply at him. “Shut up. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Then keep trying.”

Tristan clenched his teeth and pushed harder against the invisible suppression. His Emerald Essence failed again, and this time a cold numbness climbed from his back toward his neck.

His eyes widened.

Something was definitely wrong.

And David was standing there far too calmly.

For the first time, Tristan looked at him with something other than arrogance.

Suspicion.

“What... what is happening to—”

“Dr. Myles!”

A woman's urgent voice cut through the corridor.

David turned.

Senior Nurse Evelyn Hart was hurrying toward him. Her face was tense, and she was breathing heavily as though she had run across half the hospital.

“We need you in the emergency cardiac suite immediately,” she said.

David's attention shifted completely. “What happened?”

Evelyn stopped in front of him. “Acute cardiac collapse. His pressure is falling, and the attending team has been unable to stabilize him.”

David's expression became serious. “Who is the patient?”

Evelyn hesitated for only a second.

“Elder Reginald Sterling.”

David immediately recognized the name.

Reginald Sterling was Alistair Sterling's younger brother and one of the most respected elders in the Sterling family.

He had spent decades overseeing the family's medical empire and rarely appeared in public.

Within the Sterling Medical Complex, his authority was second only to Alistair's. If his condition was truly critical, there was no time to waste.

Behind them, Tristan tried once more to summon his Emerald Dragon Essence.

Nothing happened.

Evelyn looked directly at David. “Dr. Myles, if we don't intervene now, Elder Reginald may not survive.”

David did not waste another second.

“Take me to him.”

Evelyn immediately turned and hurried down the corridor.

David followed beside her.

Neither of them looked back.

Behind them, Tristan remained standing near the wall, one hand pressed against his lower back as he struggled to understand what had just happened to him.

The numbness was beginning to disappear.

He moved his fingers.

They responded normally.

Then his shoulders.

The stiffness that had locked his upper body moments earlier was slowly loosening.

Tristan immediately reached inward for his Emerald Dragon Essence.

For several frightening seconds, he felt nothing.

Then something stirred inside his Dragon Core.

A faint green light appeared beneath the skin of his right hand.

Tristan stared at it.

He summoned more.

This time, the green light remained.

His Essence moved through his pathways again, weakly at first, then with increasing strength.

Tristan released a long breath.

It was back.

But the relief lasted only a moment.

His eyes moved toward the corridor where David and Evelyn had disappeared.

Something about what had happened disturbed him.

He had never experienced anything like it before.

Dragon Essence did not simply disappear.

Yet every time he had attempted to summon his power, it had felt as though something had been standing between him and his own Dragon Core.

Tristan remembered David's calm expression.

Then keep trying.

His jaw tightened.

Impossible.

David Myles was mundane.

He had no Dragon Essence.

There was no reason Tristan should even consider the possibility that David had caused what happened.

Yet another thought quickly replaced his suspicion.

Why had Evelyn come looking for David?

Tristan frowned.

“Is Elder Reginald Sterling in trouble?”

One of the staff members beside him who understood he was not himself a few minutes ago nodded nervously. “Yes.”

“And she complained directly to doctor Myles instead of me?”

The staff member hesitated. “Dr. Myles is a cardiologist.”

Tristan slowly turned toward him.

“So?”

The man immediately became uncomfortable.

“He is one of the cardiologists currently attached to the complex. If Elder Reginald is suffering an acute cardiac collapse, then—”

“Then what?”

The staff member stopped speaking.

Tristan's expression darkened.

He understood the explanation perfectly.

That only made him angrier.

David was a professionally trained cardiologist. He had spent years studying the heart, cardiovascular disease, emergency intervention, and the procedures required to stabilize critically ill patients.

Tristan had not.

His Emerald Dragon possessed extraordinary regenerative abilities. He could accelerate tissue repair, stimulate damaged cells, and under the right circumstances restore tissues that ordinary medicine could never recover.

But regeneration was not the same thing as diagnosis.

Tristan could heal damaged cells.

That did not mean he understood every mechanism capable of causing a human heart to fail.

David did.

And Tristan hated that distinction.

He looked down the corridor again.

A mundane doctor he hated had been summoned while a Dragon Wielder stood only meters away.

Worse, Evelyn had barely acknowledged him.

After everything that had just happened in front of David, Tristan could not tolerate another humiliation.

He pushed himself away from the wall.

“Where are you going?” one of the staff members asked.

Tristan ignored him.

He began walking toward the emergency cardiac suite were David and the nurse were headed.

His steps were slightly unsteady at first, but his strength returned with each one.

The Emerald Dragon Essence circulated more freely through his body now.

By the time he reached the end of the corridor, his confidence and arrogance had begun returning with it.

There was no reason David should receive the glory for saving a member of the Sterling family.

Not while Tristan was there.