THE DRAGON BLOOD SON-IN-LAW

The wineglass slipped from Caedmon Sterling's fingers and broke against the marble.

There was a hushed silence among the fifty people in the dining room, all turning towards the sound of breaking crystal. And for three seconds, nobody dared to move.

Then Caedmon was looking at the pieces on the floor and smiling.

"Clean it up."

His eyes locked on Adrian Vale.

He was dressed in a black suit that had been tailored three years ago and mended twice since. Around him the Sterling family glittered in diamonds and watches worth more than an apartment, in silks that marked the names of houses not unlike the ones Adrian had only seen though a store-front glass.

He regarded the crystal debris, then Caedmon.

"I'll have someone to clean it up."

Caedmon's smile disappeared. "You misunderstood." He nudged a piece of glass with his shoe. "I said you."

A few people laughed.

Adrian said nothing.

Seraphine Sterling's knuckles had gone white on her fork at the head of the table. "Caedmon."

Her brother didn't look away from Adrian. "What?"

"Enough."

"It's my birthday."

"That doesn't mean you have the right to--"

"He's been married to you for three years." Caedmon frowned. "Surely that's long enough to learn his place."

There was a hush over the room as business men that had spent the evening trading deals around acquisitions that could cost hundreds of millions now regarded a broken glass as something of paramount importance. As they watched Adrian. Waiting.

Adrian dropped to a knee, intending to pick up the nearest shard of glass-

Caedmon's shoe shot out before him. A loud crack reverberated through the room as the piece of crystal broke against leather.

"Use your hands."

More laughter, casual and easy, the sound of people feasting at a banquet.

Seraphine shot up from her chair. "Caedmon, stop--"

"Adrian."

It wasn't a shout, but more a statement, though none were inclined to argue. Virelle Sterling, her silver hair drawn back in a careful french braid with hands that had spent a lifetime learning how to hold glass carefully, one resting slightly beside a wine-glass that had seen no use tonight, sat at the long table's center.

"Kneel."

Adrian straightened slowly. "Mother."

"Kneel."

It wasn't shouted, but somehow the word seemed to hang a second in the air before it landed with a sharper impact than it perhaps might have.

he looked around the table, taking in the long faces of the ones that had once offered him words of sympathy. Not from Orren, his arms crossed where he sat with the rest of the Sterling family at the table's end. Not from the aunts and cousins feigning interest in their dinner plates. Not from the staff that lined the other walls with an expression they were all too practiced in.

No, only the look of disapproval belonged to Seraphine. "Mother, this is unnecessary."

Virelle didn't seem to hear the words. "For three years, my family has fed him." Her voice stayed level as she continued, eyes never leaving Adrian. "Sheltered him. Given him a name."

"That's enough."

"And what has he given us in return."

Nothing. That was the answer she wanted to give out and it was one that the entire table was prepared to provide. It was what Adrian would provide if he'd ever expected a warm welcome at the Sterling estate after marrying into the family.

Adrian lowered himself to one knee, the floor beneath his knee warmer than it should have been, and let their words echo through his head.

Three years of insult and abuse. Three years of having those around him calling him useless, yet still living without a worry because they were born with everything handed to them. Three years of having others sit in this very room, taking the same seat Adrian had only because he was forced to by circumstance, only to be reminded again and again over three years that he only sat here because Seraphine was his wife.

They didn't respect kind words. Adrian had long since learned that. Only consequences earned you respect, something Adrian had never really had the chance to dole out himself.

His hand shook against the dark marble where he knelt. Not in anger, but something else. Something was rising from deep inside him, making his ribs tight in a way he didn't often remember. His heart gave a stuttering beat, then another.

The floor vibrated beneath the mansion and the chandeliers above sent glass crashing onto the table and sheets of wine flowing down the white table cloth. Someone cried out near the doors to the room as Adrian shot his hand out against the marble to steady himself and a crack appeared, splitting the width of the floor beneath him. He barely caught the sound of Orren barking for everyone to be calm as a wave of people surged backwards, security filing in from the side corridor as they all grabbed holsters and yelled for the exits.

"Get up!" Seraphine's hand shot out, catching Adrian's shoulder.

He didn't move, staring down at the widening crack in the floor and the strange red glow beneath it. The floor vibrated again and he could hear something beneath the stone, and it sounded like a heartbeat, slow and huge, in time with--

Adrian blinked, expecting to see the lights in the room still blinking, but instead they were all off, plunging the room into darkness. A voice echoed up through his skull, not through his ears, but inside his very bones.

You were suppose to stay asleep.

His heart turned to ice in his chest. He looked around, taking in the faces around the room, but none seemed to hear the voice, or if they had, they didn't show it.

"Who's there?"

Seraphine's hand tightened in his shoulder. "Adrian, what's wrong with you-"

The marble cracked beneath him and he fell.

He landed heavily on his backside, the ground older beneath him than he'd ever realized, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Up above he could see the broken ceiling and faces looking down on him, the same people who'd looked at him the same way for the last three years.

Then his eyes caught two large ones, the size of dinner plates opening in the darkness beneath the room. Red. Watching. Aware.

Something massive unfolded its body from the hole, far too large to fit inside the room, its plated skin sliding against the stone, claws digging furrows into the floor it walked through.

Gunshots rang out from above, only to spark off the creature's hide and fall harmlessly at Adrian's feet.

It ignored bullets, and focused its gaze on him. Slowly, the creature lowered its head to meet his line of sight.

Recognition. If he had to give the creature human characteristics, it wasn't anger that filled its large maw, as much as something akin to sadness.

It spoke, a deep, guttural voice reverberating through the room like the sound of an immense door being unfastened.

"Dravaryn."

Adrian's heart stopped in his chest. It meant nothing to him. His body screamed in response to the name however, seizing up in a way it seldom did in his twenty-eight years.

Letters burned in the air before his eyes, not for the benefit of anyone else, but for his alone.

[Bloodline suppression detected.]

His body burned with a strange feeling that Adrian couldn't place. Then,

[Suppression duration: 3 years.]

His heart stuttered, taking another long slow beat.

[Suppression mechanism forcibly broken.]

His head snapped up at that piece of information, eyes finding Virelle who stood over the broken floor.

It was the first time Adrian had seen her seem afraid, not so much surprised by him, but afraid in the way one might be of something they expect to happen eventually.

Seraphine saw it too. "Mother?"

Virelle said nothing. Her hands were clenched in fists as Orren shot forward with a hand full of her arm. "Get everyone out. Now."

Caedmon's smile had vanished. "Father--"

"NOW."

The creature roared, sending cascades of dust from the ceiling. It lunged and the room was filled with the sound of Seraphine's scream.

Adrian shoved his hand up unconsciously and a wave of heat burst from it, throwing the creature back hard against the far wall, making it crack.

A hush fell over the room at that and Adrian regarded his hand in surprise, a thin line of gold having burned into his palm in a vaguely ring like shape before he was distracted.

What was it that he could do-?

A sound like tearing sound paper stopped him short and the creature's throat opened as a black mark blossomed across it like spilled ink in water. The creature's eyes rounded like blown glass and it collapsed in a heap of smoking plates and claw.

Someone had killed the monster. Someone in this room had just ended the life of the only being able to tell him what he was.

Adrian's vision swam and suddenly there were burning words in the air again.

[Emergency Quest Activated.]

[Identify the person that silenced the Dravaryn Guardian.]

His heart was slowing to something steadier, calmer, the feeling of panic easing out of his veins. It wasn't about his father, or anyone else's father that he was suddenly feeling strangely nostalgic about. Someone had known exactly what was sleeping inside of him and had made sure to keep it that way.

[Reward: First Dragon Blood Awakening.]

Then one last line, stark against the black of the world around him.

[Warning: One member of the Sterling family is classified as a hostile bloodline.]

His eyes slowly swept up over the ring of faces looking down on him in the broken room. Orren. Caedmon. Virelle.

Seraphine, his wife, the woman who had just screamed his name and instinctively reached for him. The system had chosen one of them to be the one.

[HOSTILE BLOODLINE DETECTED.]

VIRELLE STERLING.

Across the broken room, Virelle was staring right at him, and she didn't seem at all surprised at what she had just witnessed.

She knew. She had always known.

"Adrian," she said, her voice wobbling for the first time Adrian could recall. "You were never meant to wake up."

Adrian climbed to his feet in the remains of the room where he had so often knelt before.

For three years he had bent the other way when they told him to. For three years he had apologized for things he hadn't done. For three years the people around him made mistakes and blamed him, and mistook his silence for agreement.

He looked at the woman who had told him to kneel ten minutes ago and this time, he didn't.

"Then," he said quietly, "You should have killed me three years ago."

Virelle's face went white because Adrian's eyes weren't his anymore.

And deep beneath the city of Veyrith, something ancient had just opened its eyes with him.