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“Jeez, I can’t believe what we’re about to do,” I said, lowering the music.
Damien looked at me, slowing down under a red light. “We’ll be in and out, hopefully with the cure in hand.”
“We don’t even know what the cure is, though. What are we even looking for?”
“I have a feeling it will be whatever Marmont has hidden deepest. It might even be the only thing in his hoard—that could be why the Huntress didn’t specify.”
“Can that happen? Can dragons just have one thing they collect?”
“If it’s valuable enough.”
I shrugged, looking out the window at the skinny palm trees and colorful boutique shops that sold clothes more expensive than the car we drove in. “That kind of defeats the purpose of a ‘collection’ if you ask me. That’s more of a ‘possession,’ I think.”
Damien chuckled. I couldn’t help but recall that time I’d almost stumbled into his own hoard and his reaction to my mistake. Sure, his intensity when he grabbed my arm scared the shit out of me, but stronger than that was the growing seed of curiosity planted in my chest.
What was in there? And when would Damien trust me enough to show me?
I couldn’t dwell on it. It wasn’t like Damien owed me anything. We were simply friends—very, very, very good friends—on a mission to save his entire species (along with my life). That didn’t make us anything more or anything less than just good friends.
…Right?
“The vampires seem to have calmed down a bit,” Damien said as he continued the drive, his hands relaxed around the black leather steering wheel.
“They have. But to be fair, there haven’t been many chances for them to try something. Not when I’ve got my big bad dragon bo—buddy as a bodyguard.”
Whoa. Was I seriously just about to call Damien my boyfriend?
“You know, I’ve been thinking more about their motives. And I can’t help but wonder why they seem to want to capture you.”
My stomach dropped, but I tried to keep my expression neutral. I didn’t want to show Damien just how scared this topic made me. Since he had met me that fateful day in the Magic Box, I had come a pretty long way. I knew how to throw a punch and swing a sword without mortally wounding myself, and I no longer ran out of breath after fifteen minutes of strenuous physical activity, but I wasn’t delusional either. I was still being hunted, and I wasn’t even entirely sure why.
“Could they want to keep you alive forever?” Damien asked, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
“Huh?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry as ash.
“The vampires—they don’t seem to want to kill you, and why would they if they know that breaks the curse? But if you can never die…”
My eyes went wide. I cleared my throat, but the ash still coated my tongue. “They want to turn me into a vampire? So the curse can last forever? Holy shit.”
“It’s a theory, Robby.”
Another thought lurched to the forefront of my brain. “Then, what if… what if I die and then get turned? That can happen, right?”
Everyone knew there were two ways of turning a human into a vampire. Either before death by drinking their blood or after death by getting a fang-filled hickey. I didn’t want either of those options.
Damien chewed his lower lip, silent for a moment. The traffic was building up ahead of us, red brake lights engaged all down the boulevard. “If a vampire bites you in the moments after you die, yes. But we don’t know if that would break the curse and bring it back when you get resurrected. We also don’t know if your death really does break the curse. We’re going off an ancient poem that could have been written by someone who found some special herb on the ground and decided to smoke it.” Damien shook his head, looking straight ahead, the bustling gayborhood turning busier and busier as the sun fell further down the horizon, slipping behind the tall glass and stone neon jungle that made up most of the Harmony District. There was a restaurant made to look like a purple pump, a long line to get in already forming and crashing into a line of harness wearing burly men waiting to get into the club next door.
“It’s too much risk,” Damien said, sounding like he wanted to put a button on this. “Let’s just find this cure and hope it ends the curse.”
My stomach twisted into knots.
Fuck, I really hope we find this cure.
I swallowed down my nerves and tried to distract myself with the bevy of sights and lights in the city of angels. A bright pink-and-blue neon sign caught my attention. Dizzy’s Donuts, a famous landmark on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. They were said to have the best donuts in the country, using a special ingredient in their mix that no one had been able to figure out yet. The contrast between the invitingly kitschy shop and the gathering darkness was stark.
