“Of course I care.” My grip on his arm tightens. “Whatever the circumstances of how we ended up connected, weareconnected. I can feel you in there, underneath everything else. So yeah. I care. Which means you don’t get to pretend this doesn’t affect me.”
For a long moment, he just looks at me. That mask he wears so carefully has cracked, and underneath it, I see a vulnerability I didn’t think he was capable of.
“The serum helps,” he says finally.
I guess that’s technically an answer.
“Helps with what?”
He doesn’t elaborate immediately. Instead, he pulls himself into a sitting position, using the desk for support.
“Dragons and siphons,” he says quietly. “We have one thing in common.”
I wait.
“Both feed on energy.” He wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture is surprisingly human. “Dragons can feed from anything. Magic. Emotion. Life force.” He pauses. “But most choose blood.”
I look at the empty vial in my hand. The thick crimson residue coating the inside of the glass.
“So this is...”
“Blood,” he confirms. “Fae blood, specifically. It helps the better side of my nature win out.” His dark eyes meet mine. “Ethically obtained. If you were wondering.”
I was. The relief I feel at that answer is probably more intense than I should admit.
“I don’t understand.” I set the vial aside carefully. “You’re sick because you need blood, like a vampire? Then why don’t you just…”
“Notlike a vampire. I’m a dragon.” The words come out bitter. “A very old dragon. Eventually, all dragons succumb to their vices. Paranoia. Greed. Madness.” His jaw tightens. “Bloodlust. A vampire feeds because it has to. A dragon feeds because itwants.”
His silence contains even more disgust than his words, and they’re laced with plenty. I’ve heard him talk about every manner of supernatural creature in his classes, ones whose vicious natures repel even the most hardened practitioners, and yet he speaks about them with nothing but objectivity.
But when he speaks aboutdragons, it’s different.
Personal.
“To be a dragon is to exist in a perpetual, inevitable state of soul decay,” he finally continues. “Refusing to indulge slows the progress, but it cannot stop it entirely. Nothing can.”
I stare at him. Process what he’s telling me.
“So you’re starving yourself to death. Slowly.”
“An oversimplification, but not inaccurate.”
“Why?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Why would you do that to yourself? If drinking blood helps, if it makes you stronger,why?”
“Because of what I become when I give in.” His voice is quiet now. Almost gentle. “I told you once that dragons are selfish, greedy creatures. That we take what we want and hoard what we desire. That is not hyperbole, Ms. Cook. It is our nature. Our curse. We don’t age, and there are very few things in this world that can kill us, but we all fall prey to our own nature eventually. A fitting end.”
He looks at his hands. Long fingers, elegant despite the blood still staining them.
“Every dragon who has ever lived,” he continues. “My father lasted nearly a thousand years before the madness took him completely. Others fall faster. Some embrace it willingly.” He pauses. “I have spent eight centuries trying to be different. Trying to prove that what I am does not have to dictatewhoI am.”
The defeat in his tone is absolute. And heartbreaking.
“And the serum?”
“Keeps me functional. Keeps the hunger manageable.” His lips twist, but it isn’t quite a smile. “As a hybrid, I don’t need as much as a full-blooded dragon. But it is not a cure. There is no cure, only delay.”
I think about what he said in the garden. About his mother and being the last of his kind.
