“It’s how I go about it. I know going in that there’s almost no chance I’ll succeed, I just try anyway. You’re impractical. I’m quixotic.”
“The kind of person who would, say, haul a dragon down a trellis and use a stolen Porsche to drive him into a hidden valley.”
The humor left Jillian’s face.
“I was terrified,” she said quietly. “You lost so much blood in the car, and your pulse wasn’t strong and your skin was cold. But you kept babbling like you were running a fever. Dr. Mendoza said you were—that dragons’ fevers go in reverse. But I didn’t know what to do. I just cranked the heat up for him.”
“That’s probably all you could have done,” Dr. Mendoza interjected.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Theo said to Jillian. He couldn’t imagine what he would have been like in her shoes—if he had had to let her come close to death right next to him, with no real way of helping her except to keep driving, and with no real idea of where he was going or what to do when he got there. And not even any medical understanding of what was happening to her body. “I remember hearing you talk to me even after I couldn’t answer anymore.”
He had dreamed of her. She had walked into the darkness where he was curled up in dragon-form and laid her hand against his scales. Beneath her touch, the guilty red and gold had all faded away. He’d become a kind of nothing color, unsure of what he was, and then she’d said, No. You can keep your own skin. It doesn’t mean anything except for that it’s yours, and color had blushed back into him. All the same old patterns. But now they had a new meaning, one he and Jillian had made for themselves.
Treasure, he had said to her in the dream, somehow able to speak to her with his dragon’s tongue. You are my treasure.
If he’d only remembered that dream earlier, he would have saved himself a lot of internal debate and confusion. He would have to find a new realization to come to so he didn’t keep repeating himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“All will be forgiven if you do what Dr. Mendoza tells you,” Jillian said. “Stay warm, keep your bandages dry, don’t shift.”
“I know you’re eager to,” Dr. Mendoza said. Her voice was sympathetic, but her flinty gaze said that there was absolutely no point trying to argue with her about this. “But whether they’re scarred or not, from what Jillian has said, your wings should heal well enough for you to fly again if you just leave them alone for a while. I’ve mixed up a draught for you to take that should interact a little with the hoard-space and help you to heal.”
Theo doubted the draught would taste even a tenth as good as the dragonfire, so he took another lingering drink as if to store up the flavor in his mouth.
“This is heavenly,” Jillian said, following his lead.
Dr. Mendoza shrugged. “It’s a California variation. This side of the Atlantic, you can’t get the proper Brandusan kind, so the fruit is never right. It’s acceptable.”
Theo chuckled at this reflexive snobbery, pulling one of the stitches in his side. Dr. Mendoza raised her eyebrows at him like she knew why he’d laughed and wanted him to know it was his own fault. But whatever she started to say in response was interrupted by the door creaking open.
A tall, pale blonde girl stepped lightly into the room. He knew those pixie-like features.
“Cousin Izzie?”
The girl scowled. “Isabelle. No one’s called me Izzie in years.”
“I beg your pardon,” Theo said. He tried to keep any amusement out of his voice. “You know how long I’ve been away. I’m not used to you being grown up. Jillian, this is my little cousin Isabelle Benoit. Isabelle, this is my mate, Jillian.”
Isabelle swept into a curtsy that looked graceful despite the lilac nightgown she was wearing. “I’m honored to meet my cousin’s mate.”
“Don’t worry,” Jillian said. “I won’t call you his ‘little’ cousin.”
“Thank you,” Isabelle said, glaring at him. “At least someone in this room understands dignity.”
“Oh, don’t whine, Isabelle,” Dr. Mendoza said. “Help yourself to a small glass of dragonfire. Though why I’m wasting good brandy on a seventeen year-old is beyond me. Miss Marcus may be human, but at least she has a respectable palate.”
“Marcus?” Isabelle said. Something Theo couldn’t decipher showed in her face, but the Benoit side of the family had always been even more tightly controlled than the St. Vincents. Whatever the expression had been, it was gone in a moment. She poured herself about half an inch more dragonfire than Theo personally thought appropriate. “Jillian Marcus and Theodore St. Vincent. I don’t know that we’ve had a mated pair since you left, cousin. Though this might not count.”
Theo knew what she meant—Jillian was human—but he was in no mood to tolerate it.
“It counts,” he said firmly.
“People may not think so.”
“Do you?” Jillian asked. Her head was tilted slightly. When she talked to Isabelle, she sounded a little different than she did otherwise: this must be her work voice, her “talking to snotty teenagers” voice. Understanding, good-humored, and just a little dangerous.
Isabelle met her eyes. “Should I have decided yet? I won’t be rushed.”