I need to change the topic of conversation again. Something that will distract me from this puddle I’m becoming. “So why exactly do you know how to braid hair so well?” I ask as I take a seat beside him again, my body turned toward him.
Instant regret fills me. I don’t want to hear about the past girls he’s taken to bed, whose hair he braided afterwards.
But he hangs his head.
Oh no.
“Um.” It takes a moment, but he meets my eyes again. His are filled with sorrow. “I had a little sister too. Five years younger than me. She died six years ago.”
“She was only twelve?” I whisper.
He nods and looks away.
“Same mysterious cause?”
He nods again. Slowly.
“What was her name?” I ask gently.
He turns his head toward me. “Taela,” he answers with a smile that holds a thousand happy memories. Yet there’s sadness in his eyes.
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
Silence falls over the room for a moment. The reality of how horribly his people are suffering truly sinks in, and my drive to do anything within my power to change it is at an all-time high.
“So why has no one seen a dragon shifter in their dragon form? You won’t do it?”
“We will,” he says quietly, averting his gaze. “At home.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s…” He rubs a thumb over his brow, scratching at it for a moment. “It’s a bit difficult. Being robbed of that natural instinct. It’s become a very… vulnerable state to be in in front of outsiders. We don’t care for it.”
He glances at me, and I see the pain and the vulnerability in his eyes at the admission. But I also see strength and resolve there.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I say in almost a whisper. And then I look down, mindlessly playing with a piece of my purple nightgown, crumbling under the intensity of his eyes on mine.
I can still feel his eyes on me. A heated moment of silence seems to fall between us for a moment. Or maybe that’s just my own version of events.
“So what happens when you… try to flap your wings?”
“A pain like nothing you’ve ever felt before and never will. Like ten thousand knives stabbing your wings at once. If you can manage it for more than a blink, it will knock you out. No one has ever lasted longer than that.”
My hands are cupped over my mouth by the time he’s done. I shake my head in disbelief. “And you guys… still try?”
“Yes.”
I stare at him, speechless.
“Anyway. Raef might seem completely unserious, but his determination knows no bounds. He’s tried more than anyone.”
I shake my head again in disbelief.
He eyes me, his gaze finally trailing lower to my nightgown. “Are you keeping it somewhere safe?”
I pull the long chain from my nightdress that holds the vial, hanging just below my breasts. It’s always on me.
He holds his hand out, as if to make me put it away. “Don’t show anyone that. Or tell anyone.”
