Happy Friday readers! There is only one week left until the release of The Dragon's Assassin, so make sure to grab your copy! I'm very excited, and I hope that you all enjoy getting to know our favorite blond Dragon Lord a little bit better.
Life has been a little crazy lately and cutting into the limited writing time that I have, but, fortunately, I still managed to get this next chapter ready for Needing Cassidy for you. Happy Easter to those who celebrate, and happy reading!

CHAPTER 21
“Cassidy,” the urgent tones broke into a dream where she was trying to weed the hivasa rows but the energy field kept changing so she couldn’t get to them. “Cassidy,” the voice called, louder, urgent.
Cassidy opened her eyes, blinking at the dark room, trying to get her bearings. It was impossible to tell what time it was but it had to be late.
She groaned, sitting up carefully on the narrow cot that had become her bed during quarantine. “Emily?”
“I...there’s something wrong. You need to come see.”
The words settled like a cold knife into her stomach. What was going on? She untangled herself from the blanket, shoving as much of her hair as she could into a pony-tail.
“What’s going on?” she demanded as she slipped out the door into the dimly lit hallway. Emily shook her head stopping Cassidy short. The woman’s face was pale and sweaty, her lips an alarming shade of blue.
“Emily, I think we need to alert Tor,” she tried for casual, but real fear was stomping on her nerves.
Emily shook her head again. “He’s busy, I don’t think things are going very well.”
They moved down the hallway together. Cassidy had taken one of the exam rooms nearest the lab, hoping that she wouldn’t disturb anyone if she needed to go back and forth.
Light from Becky’s door and low muttering drew them forward until Cassidy stood at the threshold, her heart pounding against her ribs. Becky lay on the bed, pale and unmoving. The medical machine Tor had been working on her first day in the building crowded the space, long tubes and wires going to the woman. A small measure of relief found her when she realized they were moving slightly with Becky’s shallow breaths.
Gorth and Tor stood at her bedside, discussing something, but it was the cold, angry look Tor shot her that scared her the most.
“What is it?” she demanded. "What's going on?"
“It’s incompetence, that’s what. Days you cost us because you couldn’t follow a simple procedure.”
Cassidy blinked, hurt at his harsh tone, but she was still confused. “I don’t understand.”
“The tests, Cassidy. They were contaminated. Whatever this is it’s not Sirinchea, and it’s getting worse.”
Cassidy glanced at Gorth, but he refused to meet her eyes. Sweat gathered on his brow as well, his hands shaking as he looked down at Becky.
“But I did them properly,” she protested. She knew she did. She had been meticulous about it.
“I’ll need to clear her lungs,” Tor muttered to Gorth, “it will give her a few more hours, but the procedure is not pretty...”
“I’ll stay,” the bigger Livarian insisted before Tor had even finished talking.
“I’ll get prepared,” Tor nodded, turning from the room and brushing by Cassidy without a second glance.
Gorth’s face was one of defeat, watching the very still, almost death-like woman on the bed before him. Cassidy’s fought back tears. This was somehow her fault. Why had she thought she was capable of any of this? She hadn’t gone to medical school, hell, the closest thing she had to medical education was the one time she’d done the CPR course at school. She swallowed but the lump in her throat was not going away.
Gorth looked at her, his devastation the last straw. The sob that escaped her was not feminine, nor soft.
“I didn’t mean to,” she told him, her voice catching.
“You didn’t do this,” Gorth gestured to Becky. “I know you tried, Cassidy.”
She had tried. She’d tried so damned hard. Guilt and something terrible, something darker, welled up inside her. She fought against it, the little voice telling her she was stupid, telling her she was useless, but it just whispered louder.
“I’m going to fix this,” she promised. Gorth’s back was already turned, if he heard her he didn’t give any sign. She backed away from the door. Emily had disappeared, the hallway looking somehow more haunted and sinister than it ever had.
She worked her way toward the lab, unable to do anything else, her hands shaking from the night’s revelations. Fortunately, whatever Tor was doing he was not there. She slipped inside and turned on the lights, closing the door behind her.
She leaned back against the cool, stone-like material, her throat and eyes burning. What if
she had ruined everything? What if her arrogance had killed Becky? The doubts and fears just kept coming, faster and harder until she slid to the ground beneath the weight of them. Dropping her head into her arms she sobbed.
***
There were no windows in the lab, so there was no way to tell how long she had been in there. Hours and hours. She hadn’t left the room and she had no idea how Becky, or any of the others were doing. When she’d finally picked herself up off the floor she’d pulled out all of the tests running them through the mag-lens again, searching for an answer, hoping, maybe Tor had been wrong.
But he wasn’t. It was obvious in the way that every single sample was overrun by the Sirinchea, even the tests that shouldn’t have shown any results yet.
She rubbed her eyes, exhaustion and her cry fest leaving them heavy and itchy. There had to be something she could do to fix this mess. Anything really. She’d gone through every single sample and the results were all the same.
She frowned at the mag-lens, as if it was the machine’s fault. Then something struck her. She stood rapidly, crossing the lab to the shelves where her orchard samples had been stored. She grabbed the rich medium sample, the one that had been overrun and placed it into the mag-lens.
The screen filled with little red dots immediately, so she tapped at the side for analysis.
Sirinchea.
Her brows knit together. There was no way the trees had contracted that, it wasn’t infectious to plants. On a whim she grabbed an empty sample container, switching it into the mag-lens.
And there it was.
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t messed up the procedures, it was the containers. Somehow they’d been contaminated before they had even started any tests.
The urge to storm out of the lab and shove the results into Tor’s face was nearly impossible to ignore. He’d called her incompetent. The ass. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that even if this mess wasn’t her fault they still didn’t have any answers, and Becky was still in trouble.
She started by separating the sample containers, putting every single one through the lens. The contaminated ones she placed well to the side, going through quite a few before finally coming across some that were clean. It must have been the newest batch she had brought in that had been contaminated, because all the containers after that were clean as well.
She finished the last one, she sat on the stool, her arms resting on the counter, frowning at the piles she had created. She needed to talk to Tor about getting more samples from Becky so the tests could be redone, but she balked at the confrontation. Her eyelids drooped, and she rested her forehead on her arms. Would it even make a difference? Becky’s condition had worsened dramatically, would the tests come back in time to help at all?
It was those thoughts circling through her mind that followed her into slumber.
It’s a good thing we have that ten years later epilogue in Keeping Mia, otherwise I’d be really worried about Becky!