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Instead of answering, he asked who had taught me about lifebound dragons.

I almost laughed. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Humor me.”

Something in his expression stopped me from telling him to go to hell.

“My father.”

Ignatius was silent.

“My mother knew some of it, but I was seventeen when she died. After that, my father was the only person who explained what I was capable of.”

Or warned me.

Looking back, there had probably been considerably more warning than explanation.

Ignatius regarded me for several seconds before asking, “Did your father ever explain what happens when a lifebound dragon finds his true mate?”

Every thought in my head stopped.

“What?”

My reaction seemed to answer his question.

My father's voice surfaced from a place I usually kept locked down. Warnings about attachment. About responsibility. About never assuming what anyone felt around me was entirely their own.

Then my mother's voice replaced his.

Ne pars pas. Maxim, s'il te plaît, ne pars pas.

I'd left anyway, and two days later she was dead.

I thought about Melanie breaking into my apartment, the photographs and everything that had followed. Different circumstances and different people, but each one had reinforced the lesson I'd spent fifteen years believing I understood.

Then I thought about Ash.

Vegas. The way he'd looked at me after his goal and the way he'd curled against me on my couch as though being there was the easiest thing in the world.

The question came out before I could decide whether I wanted the answer.

“Is Ash in danger from me?”

For the first time since the conversation began, there was no amusement whatsoever in Ignatius's expression.

“Not in the way you think.”

I stared at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you're asking me to give you a simple answer to something that isn't simple, and after hearing what your father taught you, I'm not prepared to make the same mistake.”

My frustration sharpened. “I'm not asking for a history lesson. I'm asking if I can hurt him.”

“I know what you're asking.”

“Then answer me.”

Ignatius held my gaze for several seconds, and I could see something shift behind his eyes. Not reluctance exactly. More like he was trying to work out how much he could tell me without making things worse.