Never wake a Dragon (on hold)

3. part I - a round of cards

Adeem shifted beneath the glow of a solitary light bulb and flexed the cards in his hand. Three cards and a stupid game. How Nev had managed to convince him to play was beyond comprehension. He placed a nine in the pile and picked a new card from the deck. Nev countered with a knight.

"So, are we going to talk about it?" Nev asked, leaning on his elbow. The vampire appeared bored, or perhaps tired. It had been a long night. If Nev hadn't been so freakishly active at night, the guy would probably have dozed off a long time ago. He should have kicked the vampire out of the apartment to get some sleep, but the thought of being alone with his thoughts had killed that urge. He could catch up on sleep later.

"Talk about what?" The wooden chair squeaked beneath him. Despite the modern design of the kitchen, he had a few stray items from decades past—the chairs from the 50s, the copper appliances, the brass towel rack. He returned his focus to the cards.

Nev placed two kings on the table. "You're not stupid. You'll figure it out."

"Right." He hadn't decided if he wanted to talk it out or if he should heed the dragon's command to say nothing. If he took the job and told Nev about it, Nev's position with the Nighters might come in handy to gain information. But, Adeem wasn't sure if it was a good idea to be quite so open about treachery. Nev was a terrible liar and would likely cave after a couple of probing questions. Perhaps it was better to see how it all played out before he told anyone else. He placed a ten and turned the pile and began a new one with one of his lower cards.

"Your apartment is seriously cold, you know." The vampire, who were ill-equipped to keep any sort of warmth, leaned over and snatched the spare blanket from one of the other chairs. "But let's stick to the topic."

"You changed it."

"Fine. But come on. Tell me what happened. You ran away like your powers were back even though we both know they couldn't have been. Right?" Nev frowned and bit into his lip piercing. "Right? Your powers weren't back? I sure hope I didn't bite you in vain. Vein." Nev chuckled. "Get it? Vein."

He rolled his eyes but couldn't help the faint smile. Nev couldn't keep track of a line of questioning for long. It was almost cute. "I get it. It was an awful joke. But no, my powers weren't back," he said. It was better if Nev didn't know how close it had been.

Nev removed the pile with another ten. "I'm pretty sure everyone who could sense your mood was pissing themselves. Saw a few vampires move away and everything. And, Astrid swore like a sailor when you met the secretary by the door."

"Well, nothing happened. It's all good. We're both here." Reassuring Nev had become second nature to him. "You talked to Vincent, you had some blood. All in all, I think it went okay. I mean, no one died."

"True. But that dragon..." Nev shuddered and tucked the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "Do you reckon why they assigned him here? I didn't know they allowed dragons into positions of power."

Shaking his head, Adeem placed the last card he had on hand. "Beats me. I've never heard of a dragon Guardian before. Don't know what to think yet. I mean, we don't know who he is—we only know what we've heard about dragons throughout the years."

"Yeah, but that's bad enough. Controlling, power-hungry beasts who don't care about anyone but themselves." Nev almost spat out the words, clearly unhinged about the whole affair. It was a reasonable reaction.

He thought about it, wondering if Kyung was a bomb waiting to go off, or if there was something else. Was there anything to doubt? Could he even think of cooperating with the dragon? History urged him to see reason, but most of that history had been written by the Council, and why would he trust them implicitly when he knew they lied about almost everything they could get away with. "Well, that's what we've heard, but what do we know exactly? It's been a long time. They fell asleep before I was born."