Page 24

My grip tightened around the phone.

For all the distance between us, my father was still one of the very few people who understood what I was. More importantly, he understood why Melanie couldn't be dismissed as nothing more than an overenthusiastic fan who'd crossed several very obvious legal boundaries.

“She thought there was something between us.”

“Was there?”

“No.”

“Did you encourage her at all?”

The question irritated me even though I understood why he'd asked it. “I spoke to her, Papa. I probably smiled at her, and I might've bought her a drink recently, but I certainly never slept with her, never invited her to my apartment and never told her there was anything between us.”

My father was silent for a moment, and when he finally sighed, I knew exactly where his thoughts had gone.

“Another one.”

Two words, and every defensive answer I'd been preparing disappeared.

“Apparently.”

“You've had too many of these, Maxim, and there seem to be more as you've gotten older.”

That was true too, although fame complicated the calculation. I'd been playing professional hockey long enough that strangers knowing my name wasn't unusual, and being captain had only increased the attention. There was no way to tell how much of someone's reaction came from celebrity and how much came from the thing under my skin that I couldn't switch off.

“I don't know which part is me anymore,” I admitted. “Or hockey. Or being lifebound. She could've done exactly the same thing if I were human.”

“Yes.”

“But you don't think she did.”

My father took long enough to answer that I wished I hadn't asked.

“I think you've seen this pattern too many times to pretend your nature never plays a part.”

The words shouldn't have hurt. They weren't anything he hadn't told me before.

I turned away from the window. “So what am I supposed to do? Stop talking to people? Stop smiling at them? Because apparently buying someone a drink might be enough to make them think they're entitled to climb into my apartment, and I'd appreciate some practical guidance.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Maxim. Your nature may intensify what is already there, but it doesn't remove another person's responsibility for what they do.”

I rubbed my forehead. That distinction was easy enough to understand in theory and considerably harder when I was the common denominator in every story.

“She broke into your home because she chose to break into your home,” Papa continued. “Being attracted to you did not make that decision for her.”

“You don't know that.”

His silence lasted only a second.

“No. I don't.”

And there it was.

The uncertainty that had shaped most of my adult life.

My father had taught me what he knew about lifebound dragons after Mama died, but neither of us had ever pretended his knowledge was complete. Lifebound dragons were rare enough that most of what he knew had come from family stories, warnings passed down through generations, and what he'd witnessed himself.

Unfortunately, what he'd witnessed had been enough.