Chapter 14 #2
I let that settle. It should have sounded insane.
Even a week ago, it would have sounded insane.
But I'd spent months watching this man's body do things that defied every medical text I'd ever studied, and I'd just watched him transform into a creature made of winter and grief and terrible beauty, and when I'd put my hands on him, the cold had parted around me like I was made of something it couldn't touch.
"So what does that make me?" I asked. The question came out lighter than I intended—half clinical, half something else.
"Am I dragon-adjacent? Do I have some kind of genetic predisposition to cold resistance? Because I have to tell you, Taz, my family is ordinary. My father sells insurance when he isn’t spouting scripture.
My mother runs a book club she uses primarily as a vehicle for passive aggression.
The most remarkable thing about my bloodline is that my great-uncle once won a pie-eating contest at a county fair. "
The laugh that escaped Taz was startled and raw, like it had been punched out of him. "I don't think it's genetic."
"Then what? Some kind of... compatibility?
Like blood typing but for mythical creatures?
" I was doing the thing I did when I was overwhelmed—deflecting into humor, wrapping terror in clinical language until it felt manageable.
I knew I was doing it. I couldn't stop. "Because if there's a lab test for this, I'd love to run it. 'Dragon Compatibility Panel, STAT.'"
"Cinder." He was trying not to smile. I could see it—the way his mouth kept twitching, the way some of the devastation in his expression was being crowded out by something warmer. Something that looked dangerously like adoration.
"I'm serious. From a research perspective, this is fascinating. The selective thermal immunity alone would warrant a paper. 'Localized Cryoprotection in Human Subjects Exposed to Draconic Ice Generation: A Case Study of One Very Confused Nurse.'"
"You're spiraling."
"I'm processing. There's a difference." I signaled and changed lanes, checking over my shoulder because both windows were gone, even though there was nothing behind us but empty highway. "I process verbally. You've met me."
"I have." His voice was soft now, that low register that made my chest do complicated things. "And you're deflecting because you want to ask something and you're afraid of the answer."
Damn him. Damn him and his quiet observation and his ability to see through every wall I built.
I drove in silence for half a mile, gathering courage like it was something I could scoop up off the floor of the truck.
"The connection," I said finally. "The one between dragons and certain people. Does it have a name?"
The flush on his neck deepened. Even in the near-dark, I could see it spreading—creeping up past his collar, climbing his jaw, reaching his ears. Taranis Rees, who had just transformed into an apex predator capable of freezing a mountain solid, was blushing like a teenager asked to prom.
I waited. He didn't continue.
"You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"I want to." He turned back to me, and the look on his face—God.
Open and terrified and hopeful and ashamed all at once, like he was offering me something he'd convinced himself no one would ever want.
"But if I say it now, like this, after everything that just happened—after I lost control and nearly destroyed the truck and scared you half to death—it'll feel like pressure.
And I promised myself I would never pressure you. "
My grip on the steering wheel tightened. Not from fear. From something so tender it almost hurt.
"You didn't scare me," I said.
"Cinder—"
"You didn't." I said it firmly, the way I said things in trauma bays when people needed to hear the truth and believe it.
"Shocked the fuck out of me, yes. Rearranged my entire understanding of reality, definitely.
But scared?" I shook my head. "The only thing that scared me tonight was Gavin. Not you. Never you."
“Are we sure it was him?”
I glanced over at him. “Unless you have someone wanting to target you?”
Taz shook his head.
"We need to report Gavin… the incident," I said, reluctantly admitting to myself I didn't actually see the driver.
I also said it because if I didn't change the subject, I was going to pull over and climb into his lap and we'd never make it home.
"What he did tonight—that's attempted vehicular assault. That's not a window opened
or a text message. That's a felony."
"Agreed." His voice had steadied, something harder settling into it. The protector. The dragon, even in human form, already calculating threats. "And this time, we document everything. The damage to the truck. The timeline. The texts you deleted—"
"I know. I know I shouldn't have deleted them."
"We'll get the records from your carrier. Ignatius has people who can help with that." He paused. "If you'll let me involve him."
"Does he know what you are?"
Taz paused, and I got it. “Not your secret to tell?”
"He’s a man who will make Gavin wish he'd never been born."
I considered this. The old instinct—handle it alone, don't burden anyone, don't owe anyone—rose up like bile.
But I was sitting in a truck with no windows, driving home from watching my boyfriend turn into a mythical creature, and my ex had just tried to run us off a cliff.
The time for handling things alone had officially passed.
"Yeah," I said. "Involve him."
Taz exhaled like he'd been holding his breath since I started driving. His hand found my knee—cold, careful, asking permission with the lightness of his touch. I covered it with my own and held on.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, but it was the good kind now.
The kind that meant we'd said enough and the rest could wait. His thumb traced slow circles against my knee, and I watched the city grow larger through the cracked windshield, and somewhere between the highway and his apartment building, I let myself think about what I’d just seen and honestly wondered if the car had succeeded in driving us off the road and I was unconscious somewhere or even dead. Could you dream if you were dead?
I parked in front of his building and killed the engine. Neither of us moved.
“I think I should call Ignatius first,” Taz said hesitantly.
"Okay," I said. "Let's go inside."
We made it up the stairs without speaking, Taz's hand hovering at the small of my back—not touching, just there, a promise of contact if I needed it.
The hallway was quiet, the kind of late-evening hush that meant most of his neighbors were either asleep or pretending to be.
He unlocked his door with steady hands, which was more than I could say for mine, and held it open while I stepped through.
The apartment wrapped around me like a familiar coat. I'd only been here once, but my body already recognized it—the leather-and-coffee smell, the warmth of the radiator clicking on, the particular quality of silence that belonged to a man who'd spent decades learning to be alone.
I dropped onto the couch while Taz locked the door. He pulled out his phone, hesitated, then sat beside me. Close enough that our shoulders touched. The cold of him seeped through my sleeve, and I didn't move away.
"Ignatius is going to have questions," he said.
"I imagine he'll have several."
Taz almost smiled at that, then dialed. He put it on speaker without me asking—a small gesture that said more about trust than any declaration could.
Ignatius answered on the first ring. "Taranis. Is everything okay?"
"Something happened."
The shift in Ignatius's voice was instantaneous—from mild irritation to the quiet, controlled sharpness of someone accustomed to managing crises across centuries. "Tell me."
Taz told him. All of it. Gavin—we suspected—on the road, the sedan, the impact, the way he'd lost control and shifted in front of me.
He kept his voice even, clinical almost, but his free hand found mine on the couch cushion and gripped hard enough that I felt the cold in every joint.
When he finished, the silence on the other end lasted long enough that I started to wonder if the call had dropped.
Then Ignatius said, very calmly, "Is Cinder with you?"
"I'm here," I said.
"Are you injured?"
"No. Neither of us are."
Another pause. "And you saw."
It wasn't a question. I answered it anyway. "I saw everything."
"I see." A breath. Not a sigh—something more deliberate, the controlled exhale of someone recalibrating. "Taranis, bring Cinder to my home tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock. Doryu will be here as well."
"There's more," Taz said. "Gavin has been stalking Cinder. We're pretty sure he broke into his apartment. Texts, threats, showing up at his workplace. We want to file a police report."
"No." The word was immediate. Absolute. Delivered with the kind of authority that didn't invite debate. "Do not contact the police."
I stiffened. "With respect—"
"Cinder." Ignatius's tone softened fractionally, but the steel beneath it didn't budge.
"I understand your instinct. It's the right instinct for a human in a human situation.
But this is no longer a human situation.
Taranis shifted on a public road. There may be witnesses or evidence—structural damage to the road surface that cannot be explained by weather.
If police investigate Gavin's actions, they investigate the scene.
And that will raise questions none of us can afford to answer. "
The logic was impeccable. I hated it.
"So he just gets away with it?" My voice came out sharper than I intended.
"I didn't say that." Something in Ignatius's voice shifted—darker, older, carrying the weight of someone who had dealt with threats to his kind for longer than I could fathom.
"I said don't call the police. I will handle Gavin.
Personally. And I assure you, Cinder, when I handle something, it stays handled. "
Handled? I wasn't sure I dared ask. Taz's grip on my hand tightened.
"Tomorrow," Ignatius continued, his voice returning to its usual measured cadence. "Ten o'clock. Get some sleep if you can. Both of you." A pause, and then, almost gently, "And Cinder?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For not running."
The line went dead.