Chapter 374: Old Monsters, New Bets

The officereeked of aged leather, top-shelf bourbon that had probably outlived several presidencies, and the unmistakable musk of aseventy-three-year-oldman who'd just printed more money in one night than most tenured professors would see in their entire sad, grant-chasing careers.

Vice Principal Ashworth had commandeeredherchair—the one usually reserved for trembling freshmen and groveling adjuncts—and was now counting his winnings with the unhinged glee of a toddler who'd found Mommy's secret chocolate stash and decided the diet could wait until tomorrow.

Bundle. Afterbundle.

After glorious, crinkling bundle.

His gnarled fingers danced across the bills with surprising speed, thumbing edges, sniffing them like fine cigars, stacking them into tidy green skyscrapers on the mahogany desk.

White hair haloed inlamplight.

Face split by a grin so shameless it looked surgically attached. He washumming. Some off-key Sinatra number from a black-and-white era most kids had only seen in history class. Completely unbothered.

Utterly delighted with his own depravity.

She watched from behind her own desk, fingers steepled so hard the knuckles went white, one eyelid twitching like it was trying to Morse-codeget the fuck out.

"You're shameless," she said.

Ashworth licked his thumb with theatrical slowness. Flipped another stack."Mmm."

"You bet on astudent. Yourstudent. In a public athletic event."

"Mmhmm."

"You're theVice Principalof this institution." Her voice climbed into the stratosphere. "You're supposed to set an example."

He finally looked up. Eyes twinkling with seven decades of accumulatedfuck-youenergy.

"And what example would that be, Dravenna?"He lifted a fat bundle to his nose, inhaled like it was cocaine cut with nostalgia, then sighed the sigh ofthe truly content."The example of a man who spots genius, grabs it by the throat, and rides it all the way to the bank?"

He planted a loud, wet kiss on the stack.

Actuallykissedit.

"I've never missed an opportunity in my life," he murmured fondly to the money, as though it might blush. "And I sure as hell wasn't starting tonight."

"You know gambling is terrible for you." Dravenna's tone dropped into the danger zone. "At yourage. Your heart. That sad, senile, cholesterol-cloggedold-man ticker—"

Ashworthcackled.

Not chuckled. Not laughed. Full-onwitch-in-the-woods, kids-in-the-ovencackle. He slapped his knee so hard the sound cracked like gunfire.

"My senile old-man ticker," he wheezed, wiping a tear. "Oh, that'srich. You know what's really bad for old men, sweetheart? Boredom. Playing it safe. Rotting in a La-Z-Boy having never once felt the pulse of something reckless and right."

He spread his arms wide, embracing the money towers like a dragon showing off his hoard to a particularlyjudgmental princess.

"This? This ismedicine. My cardiologist says reduce stress—so here I am, reducing stress by beingabsolutely fucking correctabout something beautiful." He grabbed a stack, fannedhimself with it like a southern belle at a debutante ball gone wrong.

"We spend our whole damn lives building walls. Collecting reasons not to. Then we get old and realize the walls were tissue paper, the reasons were just fear in asensiblecardigan, and the only thing that actually matters is whether you had the stones to bet on the dragon."

He went back to counting. Humming even louder now, deliberately off-key, like he knew it was driving her insane.

Dravenna stared at him for a long, dangerous beat.

Then shook her head. A reluctant, traitorous smile cracked the ice.

"You always do this," she muttered. "You always make the dumbestshit sound likescripture."

"It's a gift."

"It'sinsufferable."

"Also true." He finished a pile, started the next. Then paused. Looked up with eyes that had suddenly sharpened to razor points. "Speaking of insufferable. And shameless. Andworld-class hypocrites..."

Dravenna's smile evaporated.

"Don't."

"Three point five million."

"Don't."

"That's the whisper on the wind, darling. One-point-five mil. From a one million wager. On the exact same kid you're currently moralizing about."

Dead silence.

Dravenna's jaw could have sliced diamonds.

"How can you sit there judgingme—" Ashworth pressed a hand to his chest, mock-wounded "—when you tripled my take? The only difference is I had the basic humandecencyto celebrate my sin in the open. You slunk around like a dragon stuffing gold bars under her bed, pretending your scales were still spotless—"

"I didn'tslunk—"

"Youslunkmagnificently. Olympic slunking. Gold medal. World record. They should retire the category—no one will ever slunk that hard again."

Dravenna's gaze shot to the ceiling.

Fascinating ceiling. Look at that crown molding. Those elegant plaster details. Trulyspellbindingarchitectural drama happening up there.

She started to whistle.

Softly. Tunelessly. The whistle of a woman who had, in the last three seconds, become profoundly deaf to everything below eye level.

Ashworth's laugh hit like a small earthquake. Windows rattled. A money tower toppled in slow, green-motion glory.

"There she is!" He slapped the desk again. "There's theDragoness! Can't even meet my eyes!"

The whistling got louder. More defiant.

"Stillwhistling! She'sstillwhistling! Thousandsof years on this earth and I've never witnessed a worse poker face—"

"Are youdone?" Dravenna's eyes snapped back down—molten gold and straight-up homicide.

"Not even close." He leaned back, abandoning the cash entirely. "I've been thinking. About what tonight really means. Legacy. Fathers. Sons."

"What it means is aseventeen-year-oldboy walked on goddamn air and the entire world lost its collective mind—"

"How do you thinkSeiryūwould feel?"

The name landed like a thrown knife. Clean. Deep. Right between the ribs.

Ashworth's voice had gone quiet. Almost tender.

"If he knew we believed in his boy this much. That we were willing to dropmillionson him. That we watched his sonflyand thought—" His eyes shimmered, just for a second. "—that'shis. ARyujin Tiamatblood. And he's fuckingmagnificent."

Silence stretched. Thick. Heavy.

Dravenna's face changed. The irritation drained away, leaving something older. Rawer. Vulnerable.

Then it slammed shut again. Hard.

"That's enough, old man." Her voice was a low hiss now. "You don't get to say his name like that. Not with that sanctimonious glow. Not when you just bet on your deaddisciple'sson like he was a thoroughbred at Belmont."

Ashworth didn't flinch.

"At least I didn't call him into my office and nearlyfuck him."

The words detonated.

Dravenna's face went scarlet—fury, shame, memory all colliding in real time.

Her beautiful face wasn't just pink or even flushed at that. It was... Red. Crimson.

The screaming red of fire trucks and fresh arterial spray, blooming from her cheeks down her throat, up to the tips of her ears until the single most feared woman in Paradise looked like she'd been caught mid-masturbation with the entire Legacy council watching.

Ashworth just smiled. Small. Knowing. The smile of a man who'd already cashed the winning ticket and was now savoring the slow, luxurious burn of watching the loser realize the game was rigged from the start.

Shesputtered.

Actually fucking sputtered. The Dragoness. The Dean. The woman who could make billionaires cry with a single arched eyebrow.

"That—you—howdo you even—"

"I am your former master, sweetheart. Your face alone tells everything."

"I didn't—it wasn't—" She shot to her feet. Dropped back into the chair. Shot up again. Sent her pen holder crashing to the floor in a clatter of Montblancs and shame.

"Fuck."

Ashworth watched the performance with the serene, almost spiritual satisfaction of a man who'd achieved nirvana by way of pure, unfiltered chaos.

"I bet he nearly bent you over this very desk."

"THAT—" Dravenna's voice cracked like thin ice under a tank. "That was theprophecy. I hadno control. Thebond—thepull—when he walked in here after all these years and I finallysawhim—"

She threw both hands skyward, knocking over a crystal decanter that mercifully didn't break. "And have youlookedat him? He'sirresistible! The way he moves, the way he smells, the sheeraudacityof his entire existence—"

"The prophecy," Ashworth echoed. Flat. Dry. Deadly calm.

"YES."

"The prophecy you hadno controlover."

"YES."

"The prophecy—" He let the words hang like a guillotine blade. Let her squirm in the silence. "—that youprophesizedyourself?"

The room wenttomb-quiet.

Devastating.

Damning even.

"Shameless." Ashworth shook his head slowly, almost fondly. "ShamelessDragoness. Standing there preaching fate and destiny and cosmicinevitabilitywhen you sat down a decade ago, looked at afour-year-oldboy, and decidedthat one will be mine. Then built an entiremystical scaffoldingaround your obsession just to make it sound noble."

Dravenna's mouth opened. Closed. Opened. Closed.

A very beautiful, very mortified goldfish drowning in air.

"He's mymate."

The words detonated—fierce, feral, almost pleading.

"He's been mymatesince he was only month old. Since I first held him and my bloodsang. Since the dragon inside me looked at that tiny, perfect boy androared mine."Her voice cracked now—not with shame, but with something older, hungrier, more dangerous.

"I've never loved anyone the way I love him. Never waited for anyone the way I've waited for him. Seventeen years, yes, not fourteen, Ashworth. Then years of watching from shadows. Protecting without touching until the stupidAngelsbind me beforeSeiryūdied. And I was reduced to starving for what I couldn't touch or claim."