Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,33

as it is. And these dragons? They’re violent and cruel. And they’re out to destroy mankind.” He looked at Caleb and gave a small shrug. “And if it’s kill or be killed? Well, I know what choice I’ll make every time.”

Caleb opened his mouth to answer, then sighed, staring down at the ground. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, his brother did have a point. The Dracken had been working to try to tame dragons and bring them into the fold for years now. And while the pure-blooded dragons—the ones directly descended from Emberlyn herself—gladly bonded with guardians and accepted man’s hospitality, those with genetically altered genes—the hybrids, as they were called—always ended up turning on them by the time they hit puberty. No matter what the Dracken tried to do.

To make matters worse, the hybrids matured faster. They laid more eggs. They grew stronger and larger than their pure dragon brothers and sisters. And according to the Dracken census, if something wasn’t done soon, they would rise to dominance. And the true dragons—the ones with the powers to save mankind—would die out all together.

Which would happen even quicker if the Council kept refusing to differentiate when it came to their kill orders. Despite what the Dracken had tried to show with their research studies, the Council—and most of the stupid sheep below—insisted that the only good dragon was a dead dragon.

And now, here were five more dead dragons.

Connor was right about one thing. This couldn’t go on much longer. Something had to be done.

But what?

Chapter Thirteen

Present Day—One Month Later

Scarlet slipped out of bed quietly, so as not to wake the others, then headed out of the dorm and through the terminal, making her way to Caleb’s sickroom. Stepping inside, she closed the door behind her, then approached his bed. For a moment, she just stood, watching him lie there, as if he were a corpse. His pallor was still deathly pale. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head. She looked down at the small vial she clutched in her hands.

Would this really work?

She’d been biding her time for nearly a month now, waiting for one of the baby dragons to grow large enough to harvest the healing blood from their soft scale. Each day, she’d wake up petrified that someone had discovered the maintenance shack at the far end of the property where she’d stashed her brood. But no one ever had. Nor had anyone voiced concern about how much food she was “eating” each night for dinner or where she disappeared to afterward. She supposed they were all too wrapped up in their great dragon social media experiment to pay her any mind.

From what she could tell, Emmy was becoming quite a superstar online, with thousands of fans flocking to her daily broadcasts. Scarlet wondered what the dragon herself thought of the show—was she enjoying her newfound fame, or was she still depressed? She’d considered checking up on her once but then decided against it. After all, the last thing she needed was for Emmy to overhear a stray thought in her head and learn she hadn’t exactly followed orders.

At times, she’d wondered if she should leave the camp, taking Zoe and Zavier with her. But where would she go? How would she find food? And most importantly, how could she walk away and leave Caleb behind?

She looked down at him now. It was funny; she’d only known him a few short days before he’d entered this Nether coma, yet she felt closer to him than anyone else here. Maybe it was from the time she’d spent as a prisoner in the government lab. She’d thought a lot about Caleb back then, while stuck in her dark cell for endless hours with nothing to do. In fact, some days, when things got really bad, the memory of his lips brushing against her own, his hands tangled in her hair, was all she had left to help her get out of bed. To keep surviving—to not let them break her. Somehow, just knowing he was out there, waiting for her to come back to him—needing her to come back—gave her the strength to keep holding on until she could.

And now, here she was—the only person on Earth with the power to wake the sleeping prince.

On impulse, she leaned over his bedside, pressing her lips softly against his mouth, a silly attempt to wake him on her own. But of course, that was just