I remember every fucking second.
“Sorry, doc. Couldn’t tell you.” Lystad’s mouth settles into a hard line. He knows I’m full of shit. In the months after the High Council dumped me here, I haven’t said more than a few sentences during our mandatory weekly sessions. I only agreed, using the loosest definition of the word, when the Council guaranteed my father wouldn’t interfere. I was particularly pleased with that little “fuck you” to dear old dad: not only had the first moratus dragon in recorded history slipped through his grasp by his own doing, the High Council neutered his authority as King of the Shifter Council to get me back under thumb.
“You’re as well aware as I am, Mr. Mondragon, that if you don’t begin to show progress in our sessions, the Council will have no choice but to?—”
“Burn,” my dragon interrupts with a bone-rattling sibilance, wiping the smug arrogance right off the rat bastard’s pale face. I chuckle even as his presence fades into the back of my mind and my voice becomes my own once again.
“How’s that for progress, doc?” He stammers, scared shitless.
Nice, I mentally high-five.
Nowcan we eat him?
He probably just pissed himself, so no. His rumble of distaste makes my lip curl, which only serves to make the pathetic asshole in front of me tremble further.
“I—well. Yes, I suppose we can consider this a step in the right direction.”
“Fantastic. Goodbye.” I stand without ceremony, grabbing my backpack and hightailing it out of his sterile office. His stuttering protests are cut short when the door slams shut behind me. People jump out of my way as I stalk through the hallways and out of the admin building. No one tries to stop me, and a few even turn tail in the opposite direction.
In theory, I’m also supposed to have a faculty advisor—another part of the deal to ensure my cooperation—who’s supposed to be teaching me how to control my shifting. But after observing me shift for the first time, he promptly fucked off and I haven’t seen him since. He’ll send me emails occasionally with reading assignments for my minimum “self-directed study” hours to leave a paper trail.
Which is how I hijacked a corner of the library, despite that prickly asshole librarian’s many objections. Now so long as I don’t light any more fires, he leaves me alone. So does everyone else, for the most part. Every now and then someone will get curious about the moratus dragon.
The fallen prince.
They are quickly disabused of that notion.
Except last week. When she—Nyx—followed me through the stacks without hesitation, completely guileless. If Killian’s to be believed, she’s as much a novelty as I am around here, except I’m at the top of the hierarchy and she’s barely scraping the bottom of the barrel.
No powers yet, at least.
Left behind by the magical world.
Dumped here by the High Council.
All she needs are some horrifying scars and we’d be peas in a fucking pod.
The dragon rebukes me sharply at the thought of her having scars. She shouldn’t have scars. Scars mean pain. And pain means someone hurt her.
Knock it off.A petulant rumble rolls through my chest as he stifles a response.
I swear I can still taste the remnants of her scent in the air: embarrassment when I refused to let her sit with me. Anger and frustration when Killian cornered her. And fuck me sideways, her arousal from Killian’s little performance in the stacks only moments earlier. I’ve caught traces of her scent around campus in the last week, but by the time I can pinpoint it, it’s stale and fading. She doesn’t go to the Great Hall. She doesn’t linger in the hallways between classes. Neither does she hang out in the common room in Mercury. She’s a fucking ghost, haunting me and making my dragon even more of a pain in the ass to deal with.
For a few, blissful moments, she looked at me like I wasn’t… me.
And then I ruined it.
Fucking hell this is pathetic.
I groan, settling my large body into the worn armchair and my backpack on the table next to it. Tilting my head back, I try to ground myself like Dr. Dickhead always preaches. Despite my efforts, my dragon won’t settle.
Soon, I realize why.
Her scent is tainted, acrid and bitter. It precipitates her harried footsteps through the stacks until I get the full brunt of her roiling emotions: anger, shame.
Fear.
And—magic. Only the barest hint.
