“Drink,” I said, pressing the bottle into his hand. He did, swallowing slowly, his throat working. Watching the simple act of him putting water into his body made something in my chest unclench. He’d been running on fumes and fire for too long.
“More?” I asked.
He shook his head and passed the bottle back, fingers brushing mine. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” I set it down and ducked into the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth, wet it. “Can I?”
He tilted his head, confused.
“Just—” I touched the damp cloth to the side of his neck, just below the jaw.
He sucked in a breath.
“Too cold?” I froze.
He blinked once, then shut his eyes, exhaling. “No,” he whispered. “Feels…nice.”
I let the cool cloth trace along his skin, up over his temple, across his forehead. He leaned into it, the way he’d leaned into my hand at the clinic when everything was burning. Not much. Just a fraction. But it was enough.
“You’re still warm,” I said quietly. “But it’s…different.”
He opened his eyes halfway. “Different how?”
“Not scary,” I said before I could dress it up. “Not—out of control. Just…you but turned up a little.”
A line eased between his brows. For the first time since he’d woken in the white room, he didn’t look like he was constantly bracing for an alarm.
“Phoenix,” he said slowly, “earlier—at the clinic—did I…hurt anyone?”
The rookie flashed in my mind. The forged report. Wells’s smug face.
I lowered the cloth and cupped his cheek with my free hand, making him look at me. “No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
“You don’t know that,” he murmured. “There was that rookie, and the ice—”
“The rookie slipped because a Grizzly defenseman clipped his skate after you'd already left,” I cut in gently. “I saw the game footage Ignatius pulled. The report was fake, Cole. Your father lied, and the player barely has a bruise.” I grinned. "The Dragons won. Max scored in the last fifteen seconds."
His eyes searched mine, like he was looking for cracks. “You’re sure.”
“Positive.” I swallowed. “Ignatius showed me. You didn’t do that. That’s on them.”
His shoulders sagged. A breath left him like a punctured tire. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find out none of this is real,” he admitted. “That I’m still on that table.”
I set the cloth aside and slid both hands up to frame his face. His skin was hot under my palms, but it didn’t burn, and I knew it would never burn me.
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re here. With me. In Ignatius’s ridiculous guest room with a bed the size of a small country.”
He huffed a weak laugh.
“Lie down,” I said, softer. “You look like if I blow on you, you’ll tip over.”
He hesitated.“What if I—if it—” His hand twitched toward his chest, where the dragon lived. “What if it starts again while I’m asleep?”
“I’ll be here,” I said. “If anything feels wrong, I’ll wake you. Or I’ll yell for Ignatius or Doryu and his overqualified legal team. Between the three of us we can probably take one dragon.”
He gave me a flat look. I grinned.
“You know what I mean,” I amended. “You won’t be alone with it.”
