Erik leaned over him, expression unreadable. “Neither should you.”
“I told you…” Vector clenched his teeth. “To finish me.”
Erik’s gaze hardened. “I don’t take orders from dead men.”
Vector snarled, but it lacked strength.
Kael yanked the IVs from his arms, pressing a steadying hand to Vector’s chest. “Can you walk?”
Vector’s teeth bared. “I can fight.”
“Not what I asked.”
The door burst open behind them.
A nurse gasped. “What—who are you? Get away from him!”
“Move,” Erik snapped.
Talon stepped between them, cutting off the exit.
The alarms began to blare.
“We’re out of time,” Kael said, dragging Vector upright.
The room tilted. Vector’s body threatened to collapse, but they kept him standing.
A doctor shouted from the hallway. “Security?—!”
Lorien moved before the man could finish, his fist slamming into the doctor’s temple.
The man crumpled.
“Unnecessary,” Erik muttered.
“Expedient,” Lorien corrected.
The vampire actually rolled his eyes like a human teenager. “Brutes. I will take care of this. Just get him out of here.”
Vector hated everything about this moment, about what he’d become.
Hated the way his body gave out, how he had no choice but to let them drag him forward.Dragon!He called out inside his mind.
Dragon’s response was cold silence, as if he were already dead.
Dammit. He was so weak he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. There was nothing he could do to stop Erik and his clan from hauling him around, half-naked, through the human hospital. He couldn’t even summon the magic to clothe himself. Erik and his guardians could kill him. Lock him up. Ransom him back to his family.
Or, worse, they could take him back to King Erik’s estate and force him to heal…the human way. Slowly. Punish him for forcing their hands, for trying to force them to execute him.
Fuck. He should have waited for the elf. One quick stab to his dragon’s heart and he would have been gone from this world.
But dragon had been too strong, too determined to fight. To survive. To live. Not like he was now.
Somehow his dragon wasgone.Vector had never heard of such a thing happening to a member of the Draquonir species. Ever. The elves, if they heard of it now, would probably wantto make him their newest experiment, lock him deep in an underground cave and torment him with summoning spells and death magic. Fuck that. He’d take his chances with the humans before he allowed those ancient elven mages to get their hands on him.
Vector hadn’t believed anything could be worse than losing control of the dragon, becoming a monster, a mindless killer. He’d been wrong. Losing the dragon completely was worse. Without dragon, without his magic, he was…nothing. Weak. Pathetic. Vulnerable.
Practicallyhuman.
