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“How…” She frowned, closing the locket. “How do you know all of this?”

“Because my family used to protect the covens. We were the guard dogs.”

What the hell? “What was in it for you?”

“We got to feed on blessed ashes, and cursed ashes, and our power was fed as payment for our loyalty.” He gestured to the locket. “If there were more of us left, they would be headed here, drawn to that.”

“I’ve never heard of any of the dragons having anything to do with witches.”

“I’m not like Damon, or Vyr, or Dark Kane, or Rowan, or any of them. My dragon is smaller and obsessed with treasure, and that treasure is ingrained in me from generations of my ancestors consuming ashes that were blessed by witch’s power. Blessed, or cursed. However you want to look at it.”

Chills rippled up her arms. “Tawk? Why are you in Sister’s Edge?”

“Because of you and Samuel.”

Truth. Chills, chills, chills.

“You might not practice, but you still give off power. It feeds me. That locket is feeding me as we speak. I am stronger around you.”

“Like a parasite?”

He huffed a laugh, but he just seemed kind of tired. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, Jess. I don’t want to lose the taste of your power, so my dragon would keep you safe.”

“Safe like when Connor broke the glass door and it cut me? Like when I was in that house scrambling to get out before it fell down on me? Or the times I was reprimanded and cut down in front of the Crew? The times I was belittled and told I was nothing? You suck at your job, Tawk. You’ve taken from me and given nothing in return.”

His mouth ticked up into an empty smile and he dropped his gaze to the coffee table. “You have to leave Kade.”

“Wonderful epiphany. What would I do without your sound advice?” she uttered sarcastically.

“I’m serious. I’m here at no benefit to myself. I’m going against Derek’s orders. You are supposed to be shunned until you come back begging for forgiveness, but I think you won’t do that until it’s too late.”

“Too late,” she repeated softly. She didn’t understand.

“After Kade is dead and you have nothing left, and you need a safe place to numb out, the way your mother spent her days numbing out.” Tawk looked up, and his eyes were full of emotion for the first time that she’d ever seen, in all the years she’d known him. “Kade is my friend.”

“You left Kade to hang out to dry,” she gritted out angrily. “If he’s your friend, where were you when Sister’s Edge was testifying against him? Huh? Where were you?”

Tawk shook his head. “I have no good answer.”

“Where were you when they were accusing him of killing Tanner. You were all friends as kids, right? You and Seth and Tanner, and you just let it happen.”

“I’m not arguing that I’m a good person, Jess. If you think that’s what this is, you’re wrong. I have simple needs, and I care about very little outside of those.”

“Eating my power.”

He nodded once.

“Manipulating me into thinking you give a shit about Kade and this curse.”

“I do. I do care. Do you know what happened to your father?” Tawk snapped his fingers. “It happens like that. The men the Heichman’s fall in love with just drop and there is no life in them. They’re gone in a snap, and so no. I don’t want to imagine that happening to Kade.”

“Because I wouldn’t be okay,” she said, the answer hitting her like lightning.

Tawk inhaled deeply and dropped his gaze again, and she knew she’d called it right.

“You can’t feed on power if I numb everything out, like my mother. And like her mother. And like her mother. Samuel can’t feed you like my power does, right?”

He shook his head. “Samuel barely feeds me at all.”