Page 18 of Guardian's Dilemma

“I’ll have to disappoint you, then. You can’t see me dead, you can’t skin my hide, you can’t syphon off my blood…”

“Is that what you do to your victims?”

“Excuse me?”

“Syphon off their blood?”

“No. That’s whatridiredo to dragons.”

“We don’t.”

“Everyone knows you do.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re wearing our skin.”

I shuddered, not wanting to think about that. Whose skin had I been wearing?

He cocked his head again. “You really didn’t know.”

Again, it wasn’t a question. I shook my head anyway.

For a moment, he just stared at me and I got the impression that he was thinking. I took in his face, trying to spot a flaw in it, trying to see if itwasan illusion or whether he was just that handsome. It was possible. In human form, dragons looked like everyone else. Nearly. They held a power in their eyes that was unmistakable and they radiated a particular dark, tainted magic that made my skin prickle.

This one didn’t, though. His magic was the sunset-orange one, I was sure of it. Even muted by that silver shackle, the feel of it was familiar against my skin and I didn’t have my usual reaction to a dragon’s presence at all.

That made me wonder.

“Are you a dragon?”

He started. “What?”

“I said, are you a dragon?”

“Yes, that’s what I thought you said. It’s just an unexpected question. Why do you ask?”

“You don’t feel like a dragon.”

“I appreciate you might not want to hear this, but I am a dragon.”

“But not a pure dragon. A half-breed perhaps?”

Maybe I was goading him a bit, I don’t know. I wanted to know what he was, what kind of power he had. It was so unusual. Whatever it was, it was unique to him.

As expected, he drew himself up and looked down his nose at me. He looked regal and stunning.

“I am a pure dragon, withuasallineage for five generations on each side of my family.”

I hadn’t learned much there, since I already knew he was auasal. He had magic and was fair-skinned and light-eyed, so it stood to reason. Mostuasal, though, were blonde whereas Glimmer had fiery orange hair and a waterfall of freckles down his nose and across his cheeks. He was stunning and, annoyingly, I was less and less able to convince myself that it was an illusion just to mess with me. EvenIhadn’t known that I had a thing for red-heads, so I didn’t see how this random dragon could have found out about it just to use it against me.

“Why do you hate dragons so much?”

“Because they’re evil.”

“How do you know?”

“They murder people.”

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