Chapter 23

23

I’m going to need more Tiger Balm.

Simon rubbed a kink in his neck and stretched. “Stop hogging my pillow.” He flung his arm out to scoot Lilis closer.

And met empty mattress.

The silence of the apartment rushed in. No breathing near him, no rustling in the bathroom or kitchen. He was alone.

“Lilis!”

He growled and leapt out of bed, knocking most of the contents of his nightstand to the floor. Something metallic slid ominously into the penlight graveyard under his bed, and Simon swore. “Screw you too, penlight.”

But it stopped moving more quickly than his other flashlights, and Simon bent to discover the knife he’d pulled out of Lilis.

And definitely fuck you too, knife. He didn’t want to fucking touch it, but he absolutely refused to keep it in his home. He picked it up by its wooden handle with two fingers, eyeing the tool that almost ended Lilis’ life.

The curved rings of wood that comprised the handle shimmered, seeming to change positions like slow-moving lava. The blade itself reflected the light with razor precision, twisting in ways that were almost certainly designed to cause as much damage coming out as going in.

The fact that it had been poisoned only made it worse.

“Poisoned.” Something about that didn’t make sense. What had Lilis said when he’d found her?

I can’t heal with this in .

She’d been absolutely certain that the knife held poison. And the other dragon asshole had said he could smell poison on her.

Another dragon…

She’d fought another dragon right before she’d saved Simon from the helicopter. And she’d said the other dragon had poisoned her, too. Had that been Longwei? If so, why didn’t he mention poison when helping Simon heal her?

Simon turned the knife over. First, she’s poisoned by a dragon, then by a knife that doesn’t have poison on it.

What if neither were true? What if she were getting poisoned some other way?

Simon’s breathing sped up. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt from under his bed, throwing them on in a rush.

If Lilis has gone off on another suicidal mission to fight this guy, and she doesn’t know the poison isn’t coming from the knife…

He moved faster, plopping into his chair to throw on his shoes, and then?—

A folded sheet of paper next to the bowl housing his ren shen plant caught his eye. Someone had written his name in scratchy handwriting. He opened it to find more of the uneven writing:

Needed a few minutes alone in my lair. I promise I won’t do anything without you. I can’t thank you enough, but I hope this is a start. For your classes and better breakfasts.

Relief turned Simon’s entire body to putty. She hadn’t disappeared on another stupid mission. She was finally beginning to trust him.

Maybe he could get some studying done for the patho exam he was probably going to fail in less than six days while he waited for her to get back.

But sitting on top of his pathophysiology textbook was the small leather scrapbook his mother had given him only days before their accident.

Simon reached for it, struggling to remember why he would have taken it out of his desk drawer. When had he been looking at it last? He opened it to the first page, to the single photo of himself and his parents, a loving, intact family that he had never been able to move past.

But for the first time, he was tempted to know more. To remember and relive more. Maybe it was knowing this wasn’t the only time he’d lived his life, the only time he may have lost loved ones.

“Soon,” he promised the book. Maybe when Lilis got back, he’d show her the people he’d loved in this lifetime.

He pulled open his desk drawer to return the scrapbook.

Dollar bills burst out as if from an overstuffed backpack, falling under the desk, the chair, and somehow floating several feet away from him.

What the hell?

Realization dawned. The note. “Lilis.”

Simon pinched the bridge of his nose and snort-laughed, picturing Lilis shoving the money in like a stripper at a bachelorette party. “All right, Lilis, you wanna play? Just wait ‘til you get back.” He smiled, picturing the striptease he could do for her, and started retrieving the bills.

His jaw nearly hit the floor when he saw the number on one of them.

Not a stripper. An escort.

An extremely well-paid escort.

They were all hundred-dollar bills.

“Fuck, Lilis. Seriously? ”

Simon’s door slammed open, bouncing off the wall, and a completely naked Longwei filled the doorway, arms at his sides and glaring at Simon.

Simon threw up his hands and shoved a handful of bills back into the overstuffed drawer. “Listen, you Game of Thrones reject, I’m too tired to explain life to you again. Lilis isn’t interested. Move on.”

“I came here for you , not her.”

“Ugh, it’s too early for this many stripper jokes. I’m going back to bed. Get out.”

Simon tried to push the asshole dragon back through his door, but Longwei stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve got a problem.” He moved one of his arms away from his body, revealing a deep gash dripping blood down his side. He let out a dark chuckle and sank to his knees. “I found your friend.”