Dragon Witch ✔️

40 - Recovery

Something dripped on my lips. Flowed into my mouth. Sweet. Energizing. A drop hit the corner of my mouth. I licked it. Swallowed.

"Look, she's moving," Piper's voice said. "Thank goodness. I wasn't sure that would work."

"What do you mean you weren't sure?" Kyton asked.

She huffed. "Well, it's not like I'm a changeling expert. Eva's magic didn't do anything for her, and Lilly-" She sighed, and her voice trembled. "She looked dead. I thought she might be. Not even fairy blood could fix that."

A hand stroked my cheek. It was soft, fae-like, but it had to be Piper's. Why would Kyton want to be near me after knowing what I was? The dripping increased its speed. I licked my lips before my brain caught up with my appetite.

It was his blood. I was drinking Kyton's blood.

Eyes flying open, I scrambled back. Kyton was crouched at the edge of my bedroom balcony, close to my side. His hand was dripping blue blood. He held it out to me.

I shook my head, still backing away. "Not thirsty." My chest ached, and every movement made my back twinge like I was yanking on fresh scars. My scales were a dull gray. I would survive tonight without drinking more magic. And I couldn't drink more, not with Kyton watching me.

His eyes drilled into me, accusing and harsh. He'd saved me because of his contract. As soon as he got Grandma to break the contract, we would be natural enemies again. There was no reason to make him hate me any more than he already did.

But he smelled so good... This would be the last time I had a fairy offering me blood. Shouldn't I take it while I had the chance? No, I couldn't. He'd saved my life, more than once. I owed him. I couldn't take advantage of him while he was bound by contract to keep me alive. He wanted me dead. Saving me must've been torture for him.

Piper cleared her throat. She was sitting in front of the balcony doors, the tranq rifle across her lap. She patted the end of my tail.

"Lilly, you need to drink more than that. You lost a lot of blood."

I shook my head, keeping my eyes on her. Looking at Kyton would've been too painful.

"I can't drink. He-" Swallowing, I just shook my head. Kyton hated me too much for words. I couldn't bear to try and tell Piper that.

"What, don't I taste good enough for you?" Kyton asked. He almost said it jokingly, but there was an edge of steel in his voice. "You can't afford to be picky right now. Drink." He moved to crouch at my side and shoved his hand in my face.

I held my breath. Too late. I wanted--no, needed--more blood. Before I could stop myself, Kyton's hand was in my mouth. He flinched, but he didn't pull away as I sucked on the cut in his palm. I scrunched my eyes shut, not wanting to see what I was doing.

"How long did you know you were a changeling?" he asked.

"Don't ask her questions while she's feeding," Piper said. "She knew before she went to the hospital and gave you the changeling potion, obviously. If I had to guess, she didn't have any idea until a month ago. That would've been when she first started changing. You probably know more than me. She would've started changing after she first drank fairy blood."

"What?" He nudged my shoulder. "Is that right?"

I nodded a little.

"Hmm. If you hadn't--you know--when you saved me from the dragon, would you ever have changed...?"

"No one knows," Piper said, her voice gaining an excited air. "Lilly's a first in a lot of ways. She was raised by humans, not fairies, and she's really old for a changeling. Most fledge into a dragon before they're fifteen. They can look older, though, in their changeling form. They grow fast. As far as we know, they don't start changing unless they drink fairy blood, but that can't be entirely true."

I could hear her scooting closer and setting aside the rifle. "If that were true, then changelings would never transform. If they're acting like humans or fairies or whatever their host family is, they wouldn't normally drink blood. So their instincts have to pop up before that. It could be natural, connected to age. In that case, Lilly would just be an outlier. Or-"

She giggled. "-it could be some kind of biological response to exposure to fairy magic over time. Lilly'd never been around a fairy before she met you. But in that case, she wouldn't have wanted to drink your blood right away. So maybe, it's actually a combination of age and exposure. She's so old, maybe all she needed was one little interaction, and boom, her instincts woke up."

I opened my eyes to give her the stink-eye, and I stopped sucking on Kyton's hand.

"I'm not that old."

She shrugged. "For a human, yeah, but changelings mature faster. Some of them get to stage three before they're ten."

It was hard to imagine a ten-year-old hunting or killing a fairy. The idea made me shudder. How could she talk about something like that so casually, as if it was nothing more than a prepubesent mood swing.

"When will she-" Kyton let out a small cough. "Piper, do you know-"

She squirmed, apparently guessing her meaning quicker than I did. "No, I don't. No one knows."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

When I glanced Kyton's way, he lifted his non-bloody hand to my shoulder. "It doesn't matter." His lips pressed into a thin line, and he looked down at his hand. "You're looking better. Do you need more?"

My scales were shining silver again. I'd gotten more magic than I needed, more than I deserved. I shook my head. He nodded at Piper, who tossed him a roll of bandages. He started wrapping his hand.

I crossed my arms over my tattered, blood-stained shirt. What had he been asking Piper about? Something about me, obviously. What would he want to know about-

Of course. He wanted to know when I would fledge. Either he wanted to know because he thought I would be more dangerous then, or more likely it was because he needed dragon blood for his dad. But Piper didn't know when I would fledge, and neither did I. My blood was the only reason Kyton would want to keep me around. If I couldn't give him that, he would want to get rid of me.

"We can wake up my grandma now," I said. "If she sees me like this, she'll dissolve your contract."

Kyton threw his hands up. "It's not my fault you ran into the forest with a dragon on the loose. I got you back alive, didn't I?"

"Wh-what? Don't you want to dissolve the contract?"

"Why would I want to do that?" He swallowed and lowered his voice. "Even if you can be a pain, you know I need the money for my dad."

"But-" He couldn't seriously be willing to protect a changeling, even for wads of cash. "I'm a--you know." I gestured at my bare, clawed feet and serpentine tail.

"I noticed." His lips twitched into an almost-smile. "I lied about the loophole. My contract is to protect 'Lilly Hemlock, biological granddaughter of Silvestre and Ambrose Hemlock.' Only, you're not their biological granddaughter. That voids the contract."

I straightened. "Then-" He'd known about a loophole, and he still saved my life?

Piper elbowed me in the ribs. "Yeah, lucky, he still likes you, even with scales."

He couldn't like me, not really.

"I'm sorry, Ky, but I don't know when I'll fledge. It could be years before I could give you dragon blood." I shook my head. "You don't have to pretend to like me."

"I'm not. Even if you're a changeling, you're a decent person. You didn't have to save my dad, but you tried to give him the time he needed anyway." He paused, and I ran his statement over in my head.

"'Tried?' Didn't it work?"

"The first potion worked. The second one-" He rubbed the back of his neck. "Let's just say if you don't fledge in the next couple of weeks, I'll have to go dragon hunting."

"Don't worry about that. I'll get the blood, one way or another." I just hoped my second run-in with the dragon would go better than the first.