My stomach roiled. I felt dirty suddenly. As if those scientists were still in my brain somewhere, poking around. Seeing things they had no business seeing, secrets and memories that were mine alone.
I needed a shower. Something to wash the clinging taint of the scientists, the lab and the Elder Wyrm from my skin. The bathroom, I remembered, was down the hall, past several bedrooms like this one: small and quaint, with wooden floors and checkered blue-and-white curtains. It was quite bare, only holding a dresser and a pair of beds, as if it hadn’t been lived in for a long while. If ever.
Throwing back the covers, I rose and found a set of clothes on the dresser, trying not to grimace as I pulled them on. The flowery, yellow-and-green sundress wasn’t something I’d normally wear, but it would have to do. Everything I owned, the very clothes on my back, had been taken away by Talon.
Including my Viper suit.
“Dammit,” I sighed, feeling a brief, unreasonable stab of loss. Not the worst thing Talon had taken from me by any means, but it was a blow nonetheless. The Viper suit had been the last thing I’d owned that was mine. Now I had nothing.
No, that’s not true, I told myself. You still have your memories...most of them, anyway. All your skills, everything you’ve learned, the friendships and connections you’ve made in the past sixteen years. Talon tried to take those, as well, remember? They truly tried to take everything. If Garret and Riley hadn’t gotten there in time, there’d be nothing left but a body. An empty vessel, just like the clones.
“Perspective check, Ember,” I told myself softly. I was still alive, with most of my memories intact. Riley and Garret were all right, and somehow, impossibly, we had all escaped from Talon. We were safe.
For the moment.
I shivered again. Riley’s warning came back to me, dark whispers of the storm on the horizon. Talon was coming. The Night of Fang and Fire, the final purge to completely destroy the Order of St. George, Riley’s underground and all of Talon’s enemies, was drawing close. Garret was right; we couldn’t sit here, doing nothing, waiting for Talon to appear on our doorstep. We had to do something.
Abandoning my plans for a shower, I opened the door, stepped into the hall...
...and walked right into Garret.
He grunted as I gave a small yelp of surprise and staggered back, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Garret. Sorry, I didn’t see you.” He stared at me solemnly over the threshold, and I cocked my head with a frown. “Why are you lurking outside my door?”
“I was waiting for you.” He gave me a concerned look, as if that should be obvious. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed, feeling abruptly self-conscious under that metallic gaze. “Yeah,” I answered, turning away to walk back into the room. “I’m fine.” Fine as anyone can be when they discover that they’re really a clone created in a lab to house the memories of the Elder Wyrm. “Where’s Riley?” I asked, hearing Garret enter the room and close the door behind him. “Did Wes ever get here? What are we planning to do now—”
Garret’s arms closed around me from behind, pulling me against him. My heart jumped, and my stomach flip-flopped, as the soldier leaned in, pressing his forehead to my neck.
“Garret?”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and his voice was choked. “Just give me a second.” He shuddered, and his arms tightened around me. “I almost lost you yesterday,” he whispered. “It didn’t really hit me until later, but we almost didn’t make it. If Mist hadn’t gotten us out when she did, if she had waited any longer...”
I reached up and squeezed his arm, trying not to imagine what would’ve happened if the procedure had gone as planned. “I’m okay,” I whispered. “It’s over now.”
He shook his head. “When I saw you strapped to that table,” he muttered, “and that scientist told us what they were doing, it took everything I had not to kill him and every human in that room. If they had succeeded, if they had really taken all your memories so that the Elder Wyrm could move into your body...” His hands, pressed against my stomach, became fists. “It would’ve killed me,” he murmured. “To know that you’re alive, but you’re not...you anymore—I can’t think of anything that would be worse.”
I swallowed. “And you don’t care that I’m just a vessel?” I asked hesitantly. “A thing created in a lab?”
“Ember.” Garret released me and gently turned me to face him. His gaze was intense, worried, but not angry or repulsed. “Do you care that my parents were part of Talon?” he asked, making me frown. “That they were servants of the organization, working for the Elder Wyrm?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Of course I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because that doesn’t reflect on you, Garret. You’re not responsible for what your parents did in the past...oh.”
He raised an eyebrow, knowing I had just proven his point. “But that’s different,” I argued. “You had normal parents. You weren’t created in a laboratory, like some creepy Frankenstein monster.”
Garret stepped closer, his gaze holding mine. “If I was, would you think any less of me?”
“I...no.”
“And what if I wasn’t entirely human anymore? What if I had some sort of strange blood that turned me into something unnatural? Would that affect anything between us?”
I sighed. “No, and I’m starting to realize how unnatural our relationship really is.”
He chuckled, looking thoughtful. “Vessel is a good term,” he said softly as I blinked in confusion. “I get now why they’re called that.”
“Really? I don’t.”
He sobered. “The Order believes that our bodies are just shells, containers for the soul. It’s what’s inside that’s important—our memories, our consciousness, what makes us who we are. That’s what I was afraid of losing, Ember. You, not your body. Outer appearances aren’t important. Though you are beautiful, you know that, right?” I think I blushed, and he smiled, leaning closer. “I didn’t fall in love with how you looked,” he murmured as his hand rose, gently brushing my cheek. “I fell in love with you.”
My eyes watered, and everything inside me melted into molten goo. “You are getting entirely too good at making a dragon cry,” I said, and kissed him.
His arms slid around me, drawing me close as a soft exhale escaped him. I closed my eyes, letting the horror, stress and fear of the past few days fade away, momentarily forgotten. Garret’s kisses were gentle, unhurried, though they were laced with passion and relief. Heat flickered between us, and for the very first time, there were no feelings of reluctance. No anger, disgust or snarling protests from the dragon. No confusion or doubt. Just acceptance. And something so powerful it felt like my insides were going to erupt into flame and consume me from within.
I am in love with this human, I thought, and it felt completely right.