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He arched a black brow at me as he took the water glass and set it aside. "By some definition, I suppose. How are you feeling? Bitey, still? I'll call the others. But not until I know you're able to keep your fangs to yourself. You've been a bit… rabid. Especially with Ruya and the Alphas."

I took that all in, then sat with it. How was I feeling? I couldn't even begin to fathom how to answer that. I was a vampire. I thought. And I had apparently attacked my friends. The man I loved.

"Is it real?" I asked stupidly. Then I waved a hand limply to indicate myself. "This isn't just some bad dream? I'm really a… a…?"

"Vampire?" Yukio supplied helpfully. "Leech? Fang-banger? Blood sucker? It sure seems that way."

I sighed, my shoulders sagging. "Of course. Thank you."

His sigh echoed my own. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Why did they make me babysit? I'm terrible at this emotional crap." He looked down his slightly upturned nose at me, his dark blue eyes unflinching. "You're a vampire. But you're not dead. Which is an improvement over a couple hours ago. Suck it up."

I swallowed hard, trying not to start crying, or something equally embarrassing. "Yes, of course."

That earned me another sigh. "Don't fucking cry. I'll go get the others. They are way better at this shit than I am."

"Thank you, Yukio," I whispered. "And thanks for this. For sitting with me. For… trying."

He marched over and grabbed my half-empty water glass and disappeared out the door, muttering something about how the water was warm and it needed ice, and something about tea and rare steak.

I sat alone in my bed, staring down at my hands. They didn't look like the hands of a monster. Someone must have washed me. Last I recalled, I was covered in blood. From Acacia and her guards feasting on me from what felt like a million cuts inflicted with the sorcerer's athame and the vampires' brutal fangs, while I screamed for mercy. From someone forcing my jaws open so the vampire queen could drizzle her blood into my mouth. From attacking Sadavir, and drinking from the dragon alpha who barely tolerated us in her court as it was.

My hands shook. They looked so bland and normal. Human hands with long fingers and square nails. I squinted when I realized that only the oldest of scars remained. The skin on my arms was too pale and just a little too smooth. Not human.

I ran my tongue around my mouth and found the sharp points of my fangs. Putting my hands over my face, I sobbed silently. It was all too much to comprehend. I hated vampires. Loathed Acacia. And now I was one of them. And worse than that… I was hers.

Ah, you're finally sane enough to follow commands, her voice said in my head, like needles poking into my free will, filling my sense of myself with holes. I shuddered. That's right. You belong to me, she purred. You always will. You should have known better than to run away. But you're more useful to me where you are now. And less likely to die or run off again now.

"Fuck you. Get out of my head!" My voice was rough and broken, carrying an edge of panic that I hated.

I knew how vampires worked. I had been a slave who looked after the twisted vampire queen's menagerie long enough to know what was happening. There was no way to undo the damage she had done. Not only was I now a vampire myself, but I was hers, bound more firmly to her as my maker than I ever had been as a human with blood ties.

"What do you want?" I whispered to the empty room. "I won't hurt Sadavir. Or the others." I would kill myself before she could make me do them harm.

Her laughter echoed inside my head, bright and childlike, but full of malice. I've got bigger targets than the mentally impaired snake. You are my messenger, she said smugly. And my spy. And you can't escape me. Power flowed through our cursed bond, and I was unable to stop it as it settled into me. I command you not to kill yourself or in any way endanger our master-servant bond, Acacia's voice whispered in my head, carrying the weight of the magic that corrupted my soul.

I hissed in dismay, felt the weight of the command, the compulsion. As her creation, I wouldn't be able to disobey her commands. I wouldn't be able to find a way out of this nightmare.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about the terms and conditions of your continued survival—and that of those disgusting unaligned trash you've been living with….

Chapter 30

Robin

My head was killing me. Ice-pick-sharp stabs of pain lanced through my brain every now and then with annoying intensity. The headaches were getting more frequent, and they seemed to worsen with overuse of my magic and… stress. Undignified, that a dragon shifter of my lineage should suffer stress headaches. Pathetic.

And I wanted to smack the idiot naga and his human for making it all worse.

I rubbed my forehead, stood taller, smoothed my hands over my favorite wide-legged trousers and yanked my jacket straight. I didn't have time for this shit. Didn't have time for weakness, and I certainly didn't have time to cater to strays or play stupid games with Acacia.

And yet, here we were.

My coming of age was looming. The clock was ticking. I had no idea what would happen if I didn't get my birthright back by then. The stories and histories of my people were largely destroyed when the emperor committed his genocide. And the little information I had been able to carefully glean from other sources was conflicting. Dragon clans in other parts of the world were not only few and far between, but they all had slightly different customs and magic. The only certainty was that the outcome if I didn't get the rest of my magic back soon wouldn't be good.

I took a deep breath. I was the alpha ruler of this fucking court. I had a duty to the people who depended on me and who had given me their allegiance, and to those who temporarily sheltered here. And more than that, I had a duty to the rest of the paranormal world, to all the outcasts and unaligned paranorms who suffered under the rule of the syndicate. I would just have to suck it up and carry on.

I ignored the jab of bright pain behind my right eye and opened the bedroom door.

Josh was dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed, with Ruya and the annoying naga nearby. Cicely gave me a soft smile in greeting and signed a jaunty, "Good afternoon, princess."

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