“It was.”

My gaze lowered to my plate. “It has to be hard not having known your mother. I didn’t know my father, so…” I pressed my lips together. “Do you get to visit her?” I asked, assuming that she’d passed onto the Vale.

“No.”

I peeked over at him, thinking of my father. “Is there some kind of rule against that? Visiting loved ones who’ve passed on?”

“As the Primal of Death, I risk destroying the mortal’s soul if they’re in my presence for any extended period of time, at least for those who have passed through judgement. That is a balance to prevent the Primal of Death from creating his or her version of life. There is no exact rule against it for gods or other mortals, but it wouldn’t be wise. Visiting loved ones who have moved on can cause both the one living and the one who has passed to become stuck—to want what neither can have, whether that be to continue seeing their loved one or to return to the living. It can even cause them to leave the Vale, and that does not end well.”

I thought of the spirits in the Dark Elms. Those who had refused to enter the Shadowlands altogether. They never sounded happy. Just sad and lost. Would those who left the Vale become the Shades that Dav had spoken of? Either way, I wouldn’t want that for the father I’d never met. I wouldn’t want that for anyone.

Except Tavius.

I’d be fine with him finding that fate.

Ash leaned forward. I hadn’t heard him move. I didn’t see him move. It was as if I’d sensed that he’d moved closer, and that made no sense. But when I looked over at him, I’d been right. He lifted a hand, curling his fingers around the strands of hair that had fallen forward. He brushed them back over my shoulder. “The food is getting cold.”

I nodded as he sat back. I didn’t even know why. Feeling foolish, I watched him place nearly the same amount on his plate but he went far heavier on the bacon.

“So, you eat food?” I asked, my thoughts reluctantly traveling to the conversation I’d had with Aios.

His gaze flicked up. “Yes,” he said, drawing out the word. “I can’t survive on consuming the souls of the damned alone.”

I stared at him.

“I was kidding.” His lips twitched. “About the eating souls part.”

“I hope so,” I murmured. “I didn’t know if Primals needed to eat or…” I forced a shrug.

“We can go quite some time without food, far longer than a mortal.” He took a sip of whiskey. “But we would eventually become weak. And if we continue to weaken, we can become…something else.”

“What does that mean?”

His eyes met mine once more. “Eat, and I’ll tell you.”

I raised a brow. “Is this bribery?”

He lifted a shoulder as he helped himself to a piece of sausage. “Call it whatever you like, as long as it works.”

Being coerced into anything, even eating when I was, in fact, hungry, didn’t top my list of favorite things. Be that as it may, I helped myself to a forkful of eggs because curiosity was always far more potent. “Happy?” I asked around a mouthful.

One side of his lips curved. A piece of egg may have fallen from my mouth and quite possibly plopped onto my plate.

All the training I’d gone through was a waste. I was terrible at seduction.

But he smiled fully then, and I was surprised that more food didn’t fall from my mouth. The smile, the way it lit up his features and turned his eyes quicksilver, was breathtaking every time I saw it.

Ash chuckled. “Very.”

“Great.”

Grinning, he chewed a piece of sausage. “We can be weakened,” he said after swallowing, and my hand trembled. “Hunger. Injury,” he continued. “Among other things.”

I took a quick drink of the lemonade, having a very good idea of what the among other things was. “Then?”

“And then, when we become weak from something like starvation or hunger, we can become something more…primitive. Something primal.” He swallowed his food. “Whatever semblance of humanity we have? That veneer slips away, and what we are underneath becomes the only thing we can be.” Those thundercloud eyes held mine. “You don’t want to be around any of us if that happens.”

A chill skated down my spine. “That happens only to Primals?”

Thick lashes swept down, and Ash shook his head. “A Primal was once a god, liessa. A god of powerful bloodlines, but a god, nonetheless. What happens to a Primal can happen quicker with a god.”

“Oh,” I whispered, barely tasting the sweet and salty bacon. “But then you could feed, right? That would stop that from happening.”

“They could.”

Something about the way he said that caught my attention. “You could.”

“I could,” he confirmed, placing his fork beside his plate. “But I do not feed.”

I frowned. “Ever?”

“Not anymore.”

Confusion rose. “But what about when you’re weakened?”

His eyes lifted to mine. “I make sure that does not happen.”

What about when I’d stabbed him? Had that not weakened him at all? And why didn’t he feed? Neither of us spoke for quite some time, appearing to be focused on feeding ourselves.

When I wiped my fingers clean on the napkin, I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Were you a prisoner before?”

There was no response from Ash. His gaze was fixed ahead as he drew his thumb over the rim of his glass. “I have been many things.”

I twisted the napkin in my hands. “That’s not much of an answer.”

Ash turned his eyes toward me. “No, it’s not.”

Pushing down my frustration, I placed my fork beside my plate before I did something irrational with it. I wanted to know exactly what he’d meant, and it wasn’t just a sense of morbid curiosity. I understood that other Primals pushed one another’s limits, but how could one be held captive?

And I wanted to be wrong. Wanted that not to be what he’d meant. Thinking of him—of anyone—as a captive without due cause turned my stomach and made me empathize with him. And I couldn’t do that. “Wouldn’t this be easier if we actually got to know each other? Or would you rather we remain basic strangers?”

“I do not prefer for us to remain strangers. To be quite blunt, Sera, I would prefer that we were once again as close as we were at the lake.” His eyes met and held mine as the breath I’d inhaled went nowhere. Heat crept into my veins as he dragged the edges of his fangs over his lower lip. I wanted that, too. Because of my duty, of course. “I want that very much, but some things are not up for discussion, Seraphena. That is one of them.”

I looked away, my shoulders tensing as I started to press him. I tamped down that desire, though. Not only because knowing more about him could prove…well, dangerous to my duty, but also because there were things I believed weren’t up for discussion. My mother. Tavius. The night I’d drunk the sleeping draft. The truth of what it had been like for me at home. I could understand that some things were just too hard to talk about.

A soft mewling sound drew my attention. I leaned forward as a small, greenish-brown, oval-shaped head appeared over the edge of the table.

My mouth dropped as I stared at the tiny draken as it stretched its long, slender neck and yawned.

Ash looked over with a raised eyebrow. “Huh. I didn’t even know she was in here.”

I dropped my napkin. “What is her name?”

“Jadis. But she has recently taken a liking to being called Jade,” Ash told me as the draken flapped a wing onto the table and scanned the many dishes. “I’m surprised it took her this long. Usually, she wakes at the first scent of food.”

The female draken squawked as she placed her front claws on the table. They were tiny but already sharp enough that they rapped off the wood. Her wings were thin and nearly translucent, and I swore her eyes doubled in size as she got an eyeful of the remaining food.

“How old is she?”

“She turned four a few weeks ago. She’s the youngest. Reaver—the one that was with Lailah the other day—is ten years old,” he said, and she hauled herself onto the table. He sighed. “Jadis, you know better than to be on the table.”