22. Corin

22

Corin

Morning broke bright and shining over the water and, with it, the unsettling knowledge that he would have to leave his mate.

For a day. Maybe two. It depended on how poorly his conversation with his grandfather went.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him when he admitted his unease after they showered together. He appreciated that she nobly stopped herself from rolling her eyes as she said it. “If I get bored, I’ll needle some of your vacation staff for gossip. We’re putting up enough of them at work.”

“Somehow, that makes me feel even worse about this trip.”

“There won’t be any trouble.”

“You don’t think the person we’re after is only waiting for me to leave before they strike?”

“If they are, Apollo and Felicity will deal with them.” She pressed her finger against his lips before he could speak. “Or Arlo, or Harrison, or my landlady and her terrifying knitting circle. I’m sorry, Corin. You’ve done too good a job of convincing me I actually do belong here, and my new friends want me to stick around.”

His eyes narrowed to knife-like glints of glee. “I’m heartbroken.”

“You’d better find out what you need and hurry back, then.” Her lips pressed together, revealing the smallest amount of worry.

“Even if I cannot find a way around my duskfire’s destructive power—”

“You will.” She sounded determined, and made herself look determined. His heart melted. “You’re Corin Blackburn. And you’re a dragon. Whatever you want, you get.”

“Understood.” He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. “You are my queen, regardless. If I can’t find a way to conquer my duskfire—”

“I still love you.”

“And I love you. Always.”

He still felt uneasy. And when someone knocked at the door, a strange sense of foreboding lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.

Maya frowned. “Who could that be?” She began to pull on her clothes as, in the next room, Tomás woke up and squawked with excitement at the prospect of a new day to fill with mischief. “Can you get him up? I’ll see who’s at the door.”

He was too distracted by the sound of her light footsteps on the stairs, and then by Tomás dangling from the hoard-shelf at the top of his closet, to pay attention to whoever was outside.

And then it was too late.

A familiar voice echoed through the house. “Miss Flores! Is my son about? I’ve been all over town looking for him. My assistant said he was staying in that dull place on the hill, but the people there said he’s mostly been—ahh. There you are, Corin!”

Corin stood frozen at the top of the stairs, Tomás in his arms, staring down at his mother.

She beamed up at him, as fresh and energetic as though she’d just woken from the most refreshing sleep—not hauled herself with no notice from whatever retreat she’d been on to arrive at his door at the crack of dawn.

Not even his door. Maya’s door.

“Mother,” he said coolly.

“Son.” Her grin sharpened.

“NABANAS,” Tomás demanded, grabbing a handful of Corin’s hair and pulling on it.

“And here he is! Little Tomás. I thought I had better come and see how you all are getting on,” his mother declared shamelessly.

Maya rubbed her forehead. “Oh … thank you?”

“You’re welcome. Now. Is there any chance of a coffee? I swear, I thought country people rose early, but it’s a ghost town out there. Not even a single cafe open.”

“Hideaway doesn’t have any cafes,” Maya said absently. “I mean, there’s Tess’s place, but that’s more for ice-cream…”

Igraine Blackburn’s eyes opened wide. Slowly, she put her hand over them, like a general who had just heard all her troops were lost. “I had no idea things were so bad,” she whispered. “Brave girl. But that must mean you brew your own, yes? Corin—”

“ Mother. ”

Half-led by Tomás still yanking on his hair, he marched up to her. She raised her eyebrows at him, a challenging twinkle in her eye. “It’s lovely to see you,” he said, not even slightly growling. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I thought it would be better help to you in person,” she replied smoothly. “One phone call isn’t nearly enough to get through everything Miss Flores and I need to discuss.”

Her eyes flicked to Tomás, and the draconic brightness in them softened. Corin had been about to suggest, kindly but with absolutely no room for his mother to blithely ignore him, that she leave—but he closed his mouth.

“And here’s the man of the hour.” His mother sounded proud. “Waking everyone up for breakfast? I see some things don’t change. Miss Flores, I didn’t tell you on the phone, but Corin always used to…”

“I’ll put a pot of coffee on,” Maya said vaguely. “Corin, could you show your mother to the living room—”

“Oh, I’m perfectly happy in the kitchen!”

Tomás jumped from Corin’s shoulder into Maya’s arms, perfectly happy to be clucked and fussed over by their guest as they walked through to the kitchen. Corin lingered behind a moment, reaching telepathically for the sparkling golden light that was Apollo Jenkins’s mind.

* I thought you were going to warn us if any other dragons approached the town?*

Apollo’s thoughts were muzzy with sleep. * You didn’t warn me that your MOTHER might show up. I was still fast asleep when she scratched on the perimeter. Do you know how close I got to flinging her over the water by reflex?*

Some of Corin’s shudder of horror must have got through, because Apollo laughed. * You’re lucky I’m the one who woke up, not Felicity. Your mom took it fairly well, considering.*

Corin frowned. * While we’re on the subject.*

*Aha. Dylan and Tally’s mysterious dragon sightings?*

*You heard?*

*It’s their favorite game. Yesterday afternoon they banded together to defeat yet another dastardly intruder, calling upon the combined forces of their secret Atlantis water-griffin friends to cast out the mean dragons.*

*It’s … a game?*

He felt Apollo’s shrug through their telepathic connection. * The real thing was scary. They want to make a version of it they can win at. You were worried there was another real dragon sneaking around? I’m hurt. I wouldn’t let that happen.*

*You let my mother in.*

Apollo’s laughter sparkled in his thoughts. * That’s perilous for you, not the town. It doesn’t count.*

To Corin’s surprise, laughter echoed from the kitchen, as well. He stared at the half-open door. * I have to leave for a few days,* he told Apollo. * I’ll need you to look after Maya and Tomás.*

*We would do that anyway,* Apollo said. * Are you off looking for anything in particular?*

Maya had turned on all the kitchen lights; the golden glow poured through the doorway into the darker hallway. Deep inside Corin, the duskfire lay dormant, but waiting.

He sighed. *I am. Something impossible.*

The smell of coffee filled the air. He joined the others in the kitchen, and within a few minutes they were all seated around the table, coffees steaming in mugs in front of them. Tomás had retrieved a small portion of his hoard and was gripping the watch in one sticky hand as he demolished banana muffins with the other.

“You’re leaving?” His mother blinked twice. The second blink was over-exaggerated and directed at Maya. “He’s leaving? ”

“I have something to discuss with my grandfather,” he said stiffly.

“Oh-h-h?” Igraine’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, perfect timing, then. I’ll stay and catch up with Miss Flores.”

“Mother—”

“I think that’s a great idea.” Maya sipped her coffee.

He stared at her in disbelief. “You do? No offense, mother—”

“No, no, none taken. I did appear out of nowhere, after all.” His mother smiled like the cat who’d stolen the cream and performed a faultless takeover of the dairy farm.

“There are more things I’d like to ask your mom about. And she did come all this way.”

He reached out to brush the back of her hand with his fingers. “If you’re sure?”

“I’m sure. You have your own research to do, and your mom has a lot to teach me about parenting a dragon shifter.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “That’s what worries me.”

Across the table, his mother’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

Of course, it didn’t take long for that to change.

Maya had just left, taking Tomás to his carer’s before her shift at the bed-and-breakfast started.

Igraine had obviously been waiting for this moment to strike.

“You’re flying in dragon form?” She snatched at his sleeve, tugging him to face her. No mischief in her eyes now, only maternal sharpness. “There’s no need for that. I’ll call Odie with the helicopter—”

“Flying is faster.” He crooked an eyebrow at her. “ You flew here.”

“I needed to get here quickly. And I can afford the price.” She sighed. “I’m not going to convince you, am I?”

“I need to talk to my grandfather.”

“By phone?” she suggested.

“In person. ”

“And it can’t wait for you to fly by non-magical means?”

“Mother—” He bit back an exasperated groan. “I’ve been flying cloaked in our magic my entire life. I can handle it.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t.” She looked uncharacteristically downcast, even for someone who’d flown overnight using the same magic she seemed determined to make him avoid. “I can’t convince you? Why do you want to speak to your grandfather, anyway?”

There was no way in hell he was telling his mother that he needed to ask her father-in-law how to corral his dangerous magic in order to claim his mate. She had raised him to be the head of the Blackburn clan. If she knew her son couldn’t even control his own power, she would be devastated.

And she would try to help.

He swallowed. “You must have heard by now. A thief has ransacked our family vault.”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” She pressed her lips together and let out a frustrated sigh. “And you need to go all the way there to inspect the vault yourself?”

“If necessary.”

“Well, what if it isn’t necessary? Don’t you have your people looking into it? Go and talk to them first,” she suggested breezily. “And while you’re at back home, round up your cousins and ask them what the hell they think they’re up to.”

“First you tell me not to fly at all, now you’re telling me to extend my trip?”

“It’s barely any further. A pit-stop. And if you find out what you need there , then you can come straight back!”

He doubted that very much. “I’ll do as you suggest,” he said anyway. It would only be a brief detour—and he could handle the additional strain, no matter what his mother thought.

All shifters took the trouble to keep their true natures hidden from the human world. For some, like raccoon shifter Avi, or most of Maya’s neighbors, the risk was minimal: if humans saw an animal wandering somewhere unexpected, they would suspect it had escaped from a zoo or was someone’s lost pet, if they even noticed it was out of place at all.

Dragons, of course, had no natural habitat. They could not let themselves be seen at all. And this was the duskfire’s one saving grace: Blackburn dragons could wreathe themselves in their own power and fly unnoticed, a shadow like a passing cloud moving through the air at the speed of grief.

The same way their fire burned away all healing to reveal the wounds beneath, this method of safe travel was powered by the memories of loss and pain that clung to the landscapes they flew over.

He didn’t know why his mother was making such a fuss. He’d flown this way all his life. He was used to it.

“Be careful,” she said, patting his cheek.

He stared at her, bemused. “Of course.”

“No need to tell me to do the same, of course. I’m going to have a wonderful time with your Maya, and the little boy, and all the delightful locals.”

He hesitated. “Mother—”

“Hmm?”

To his surprise and amusement, he found himself echoing Maya’s words from when he first arrived. “Try to behave?”

“What a thing to say to your own mother!” she huffed, eyes glittering. “Fine, fine. I’ll be good. I won’t tease that lovely Miss Flores too badly. God knows she’s had a hard enough time of it without further blackening our name in her eyes, hm? I will refrain from commenting on this quaint little town’s sad lack of real amenities. I will greet people in the streets instead of pouring fire and brimstone down on them.” She let out a long sigh. “I even promise not to take advantage of the mayor’s state of exhausted new parenthood, and wrest control of the town from him while he and his darling wife dote over their baby.”

“I hadn’t even thought that was one of the things I would need to worry about,” he grated out.

“It isn’t! Because I promise not to. Does Maya see much of them, do you know? Griffin shifters are so rare, and the mother’s family is well respected in these parts. It would be a good connection for little Tomás.”

“He’s not even two yet. Too young for politicking friendships.”

“Corin! There’s no such thing.” Igraine laughed. “I’m only teasing you. Or am I? Perhaps you should stay here and make sure I don’t cause too much trouble.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Just—” She tsked and pulled him in for a hug. “Remember, you have had a hard time this year, too. And I know you’re not as heartless as you pretend to us all that you are.”

He found Maya again before he left, leaving her with a kiss and a promise to be back soon. He hoped he was telling the truth.

Then he took to the sky. He flew in dragon form, wrapping his power around himself and using the power of every old misery that blanketed the world below to reach his home faster than any airplane.

The Blackburns’ city base was a towering skyscraper, a fortress that included numerous lavish apartments and amenities for the clan members who lived there and any who might visit. In its way it was as much a sanctuary as Hideaway. But it was a long journey. By the time he arrived, his heart was heavy with bitter grief. Without Maya’s clever tricks, her spreadsheets and gossip, it would take days to rid himself of it.

But he would return to her soon. And, as he’d told his mother, he was used to this. He flew wreathed in his family’s miserable power to every clan gathering or confrontation with other dragons. It was necessary. He needed to show them he was strong enough to lead the other Blackburns, and strong enough to protect them from other dragons.

Shadows filled his mind. He stumbled, cursing, and caught himself on the nearest wall.

“Who’s—Uncle Cor—Uh, shit. Sir?”

Corin looked towards the voice, but all he could see were shadows. The misery he’d cloaked himself in as he flew filled his mind and his vision. A thousand broken hearts. Lost connections. All the mundane sadnesses of mundane lives, cut through with the bright shards of true loss.

If he searched through them, would he find Maya’s pain?

He flinched, hissing in a breath.

“Sir? Uhhh … dude?”

The voice again. He blinked until his eyes cleared. A dark-haired young man was hovering a few feet away, looking as though one sharp word would make him run a mile.

A distant cousin. Younger than him and the Dans. One of the lucky ones , Corin thought vaguely. Too young and too distantly related to the main Blackburn line to be in line for the throne.

“I’m fine,” he said as calmly as he could while the kid—Harry? Han?—opened his mouth to dither some more. “I need clothes. And I need to speak to my cousins. The Da—Aedan, Braedan, and Caedan.”

He pulled on the outfit Harry-or-Han brought from his suite in the building. The jacket closed over his shoulders like armor. Like all his wardrobe, the cloth was woven through with the finest gold thread. A subtle comfort to the dragon wearing it, and infinitely aggravating to his rivals.

It was too much to hope that his cousins would appear when called. He spent half his life dragging them out of whatever latest mess they’d thrown themselves headlong into, and the moment he wanted to talk to them, they vanished.

He stalked through the building for several fruitless minutes. As was expected for the head of the Blackburn clan, he was not allowed to move unhassled around his own properties. Harry- or-Han gathered up more cousins as he searched for the Dans. There were half a dozen of them bobbing around like lost ducklings by the time he was ready to give up. Not only was there no physical trace of them—not a surprise, if they were hiding—but he couldn’t sense them telepathically, either.

Wherever they were, it was not here.

This detour had been pointless. He would follow his original plan, and head directly for his grandfather.

He shot a sharp look at his hangers-on as he headed back to the landing pad. They’d collected several backpacks and were bagging up their phones and other electronics in a way he found highly suspicious.

“You’re not planning on following me.”

“W-we can’t let the head of the clan go out unaccompanied!”

Corin sighed. He’d thought having a retinue made him look powerful, when he first took over, and had enforced it.

And see how that ended up. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he was being tailed by a group of draconic meatheads the night he went after Maya—until he realized that, from her perspective, he’d run her down with a full army at his back.

But he wasn’t going straight back to her, and he would be able to shake off this lot before he returned to Hideaway Cove.

Besides, these dragons were so … young.

“Why not?” He braced himself, and it took him a moment to figure out why. Leading out a troupe of young dragons wreathed in their own power was precisely the sort of chaos the Dans delighted in. “I suppose Aedan, Braedan, and Caedan will leap out of the woodwork at any moment, now,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Oh, er, um … they, er…”

“They’re not here!”

“Shut up , Han!”

So it was Han, after all. The boy stuttered into silence as another kid shushed him. Kid? They were all in their late teens or early twenties. Older than he’d been when he began training for his position.

But how much of the world had any of them actually seen?

“What’s the furthest any of you have flown, using your power for speed and to hide from sight?”

The ducklings exchanged nervous looks. “A few miles?”

“Over what sort of land?”

More nervous looks. “Mountains?”

“Some deserts…”

Places that were largely uninhabited, and had never seen the sort of concentrated pain Corin was used to flying through. He set his jaw.

“Listen to me,” he said sternly. “We’re heading to the forest estate up north. You’ll need to use your powers to hide yourselves. And there are certain dangers involved in that. You must be prepared…”

He’d been right to worry. The journey from the Blackburns’ town buildings to the forest estate was lined with hurts. His magic soaked them up, using them to speed through the air like a shadow, but the youngsters flailed in the air.

* Stay above the clouds,* he urged them.

* But it’s awful! It … it’s so sad. Is this all there is, down there?*

Corin’s dragon hissed unhappily. * Of course not. The land is full of happy memories, too. But our magic only feeds on the sad ones.*

*Are there other dragons who feed on less shitty feelings?*

*Quite possibly.*

*Lucky them.*

Privately, he agreed. Out loud, he stayed strong. * This is our power. We should use it, not be afraid of it.*

The conversation moved on. His younger cousins buoyed one another up, joking and supporting each other when the magic threatened to drain the joy from their veins.

It should have comforted Corin but instead he was troubled.

He was a hypocrite. He’d told the kids that they should use their magic, not be afraid of it, when he was terrified of what his magic could do to Maya. Or to anyone else who wasn’t a Blackburn. It was a weapon, a threat … and nobody from outside their clan could do anything against it.

How did his mother bear it, when she married his father, knowing what the Blackburns’ magic was?

How had his father managed?

All those long hours of study and training, and he’d completely missed the most important information.

The kids were exhausted by the time the estate where his grandfather lived appeared on the horizon. Corin told himself this was a good thing—it would be easier to slip away from them later. And fly back to Hideaway alone, along the long path paved with Maya’s unhappiness.

* That wasn’t so bad,* someone chirped.

* It was AWFUL,* another retorted.

* Well, it was terrible, but it wasn’t so bad.*

* The best approach is from the west,* Corin told them as they came up to the estate. The main house was in the north-eastern quadrant of the land, separated from the landing area by a small artificial forest.

* I’ve only ever come here by car before,* someone whispered, awed. * It looks so different from the air.*

*Are those scorch marks on the roof?*

*Why does the castle look like that? It’s like different pieces, all jumbled together.*

Corin’s dragon’s face wasn’t designed for frowning, but he was confused by the youngsters’ questions.

Didn’t they know?

* This used to be our family’s home,* he said. They all fell silent, listening intently. * It’s still the nearest property to our clan’s vault, in its secret location in the mountains.*

The younger dragons’ silence became sharper at the thought of all that gold.

* When my grandfather was young, the children of the clan were raised out here. It had been that way for generations, since our family first came to America. But we spent too long in the one place.*

He stretched out his wings, coasting on the breeze, at the edges of all the memories sunk deep into the Blackburn Estate. * There was a fire, and an altercation with another dragon clan, and the usual rough and tumble of young dragons learning their limits. For another clan, that wouldn’t have meant anything. But our duskfire doesn’t play nicely with damaged things. Even after they’ve been repaired.*

Blackburn Senior was waiting for them on the front steps of the great house.

He regarded the younger dragons with an imperious eye. “I have hidden a piece of my personal hoard somewhere on the estate,” he informed them. “If any of you find it before I finish my interview with Corin, it is yours to keep.”

The cousins scattered. Corin frowned as he watched them go. “Your personal hoard?” he asked his grandfather in an undertone.

“A mere bagatelle.” The old man shrugged. “Besides. I’ll have it back off whichever of them finds it by Christmas.” His eyes flashed dragon-sharp with anticipation. The youngsters were old enough for the rule about children’s hoards not to apply, and he was old enough to enjoy making a game of it.

Corin’s own dragon narrowed its eyes in suspicion. “You knew we were coming.”

“Of course I did! What do you take me for? We may not be landed dragons, like the young king who’s staked his claim in Hideaway Cove, but I could hardly miss half a dozen of my own descendants descending upon my home like a hoard of hungry bees.”

Young king? Corin thought of Apollo, the golden dragon shifter without a hoard whose magic infused Hideaway Cove like fine liquor.

His grandfather was still watching him. Corin sighed. “And you know why we’re here.”

“Of course.” The old man put one hand on his shoulder. “Come along, hatchling. This is a matter for the library.”

The Blackburn library had been burned down twelve times, by generations of Blackburn males in various fits of pique. There were still scorch marks on some of the bookshelves, where each generation had given up re-sanding and oiling the wood.

The books themselves were mostly unharmed, largely due to the fact that in her first year as lady of the estate, Corin’s grandmother had declared that if any books were destroyed, she would replace them with brightly illustrated books about puberty, and the men would have to hold their important meetings surrounded by titles like What’s Going on Down There? and Saying Hello to Auntie Flo!

Corin settled into a leather-upholstered armchair while his grandfather poured drinks. Whisky shone like rich amber in the crystal tumbler and burned pleasantly when he sipped it. “Do you miss her?”

His grandfather didn’t need to ask who. He looked around, his sharp eyes gentling as he took in the preserved library with its leather-bound tomes and comfy reading nooks. Even the ‘boozing corner’, as she’d called it, carried his grandmother’s touch. “Every day.”

Corin stared into his glass. His draconic instincts were pricking at him, like dozens of tiny claws stabbing into his shoulders, but he couldn’t be bothered paying attention to what they were trying to tell him.

“I almost never had her at all, did you know?”

Corin’s eyes snapped up. His grandfather was staring into the distance—lost in memories. “Grandmother?”

“Yes. My enchanting Fiona. I thought I had all the time in the world. Who wouldn’t wait for the next leader of the Blackburns? I let myself be distracted—by clan politics, treasure-hunting, company nonsense.” He waved a hand, dismissing all the worries that had snared their claws around Corin’s heart for the last year. “She stalked me to ground in the end, and I loved her for it, but she shouldn’t have had to. I was hers, and I should have let her know far earlier.” He pinned Corin with his too-incisive gaze. “So. It’s the Flores girl, isn’t it? Not, I might add, currently hanging off your arm like the prize she is. What’s your excuse?”

Corin gaped at him. “You know that Maya—that Miss Flores is my mate?”

He snorted. “You greenscales! I knew the moment you stepped into the room at that send-off they gave me. It wasn’t the job that stunned you. It was the girl.” He harrumphed and sipped his whisky. “There she was, young, beautiful, anxious about learning her new boss’s ways after years looking after the same crusty old bastard—and there you were, paralyzed by love. I thought I was leaving her in good hands. What happened?”

Corin slumped in his chair and the old man nodded.

“Ah. Clan politics, treasure-hunting, the weight of command … A sudden attack of morality about being her boss? Tsk, tsk. Well, it’s been enough time, hasn’t it? And she no longer works for you. What’s the hold-up? Doesn’t she want to stand beside you as head of our clan?”

If only it was that simple. He could not imagine Maya being intimidated by the requirements of the job.

More likely she would be better at it than he was.

“I cannot control my magic around her.”

The old man stared at him. His eyebrows, raised quizzically to smirk at his own joke, slowly straightened. “Ah.”

“I can be around her. I can touch her. I can give her everything she deserves except the one thing she deserves above all.” He hissed in an uncomfortable breath. “She is my mate. I will not allow anyone to say otherwise, or to disrespect her. But when I think about claiming her—”

Darkness burned from his shoulders, grief and loneliness edged with eerie green. The smell of old smoke filled the air.

“Hrmph.” His grandfather put down his drink. “So that is why you never claimed her.”

“How—” Corin forced out the words. “How can I make her mine, when my magic will harm her?”

The old man sucked on his teeth, and Corin’s heart sank.

“You don’t know.”

“I certainly wish you’d come to me with another problem, my boy. I’d hoped everything else going on would help, but if this is what’s standing in your way…”

“It must have happened before. Our magic is a purely destructive force. And I will not hurt her. ” He clenched his fists, warding off a fear that he already knew what his grandfather would say. “When Grandmother finally tracked you down—”

“Ah.” The old man’s gaze went foggy. “She shot me out of the sky. Wind magic, you know. Nothing I could do. We clashed in a storm of lust and magic and power, her strength against mine, until she had me exactly where she—”

Corin made a strangled noise, and he broke off with a fiendish smile. “She had her hoard all laid out already, the little minx. But that doesn’t help with your question.”

“I think it does.” A weight settled in Corin’s chest. “The duskfire obeyed you. It never tried to hurt her.”

“It wasn’t a question of obedience, boy. The duskfire is not a part of the ritual. Our hoards and our mates are things of joy, and our magic is a thing of duty. That is the way it has always been.”

But not for me.

His grandfather cleared his throat. “Your father never told you this before he passed?”

Corin’s father had died when he was a teen, not long after Corin himself first began to shift. He let out a bitter laugh. “No. I imagine he thought he would have more time.”

“We all did.” He looked solemn. “And you grew up quickly after that, didn’t you? I wonder…”

“What?”

“The duskfire eats grief, lad,” his grandfather said gently. “And spits it out for us to deal with. How long have you flown in it lately? Perhaps—”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Dear, terrifying Igraine. But think about what I’m saying. The duskfire is our duty, and our weapon. We cloak ourselves in it, but we do not let it consume us.”

Corin stared at him. He couldn’t mean—

Helpless rage surged inside him, a rage he hadn’t felt for years but was still so familiar.

“Careful,” his grandfather growled.

Corin pulled his magic back in, but not before blistered scorch marks appeared on the nearest cabinets and floorboards. He swore.

So this was the truth that had been staring him in the face this whole time.

He had fought all his life to be the leader his clan expected him to be. The powerful dragon his mother had dedicated her life to raising, after she’d lost her own mate.

They’d all backed the wrong horse. His stronger duskfire wasn’t a sign that he was meant to lead his clan—it was a sign he was too broken to offer his people, or his mate, what they truly needed.

He was doomed.

His grandfather leaned forward, frowning. “I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, lad, but from the look of you it isn’t—”

Corin gave a bitter laugh. “I have worse things to worry about than flying through other people’s misery. Someone has breached our clan’s vaults and run off with our most valuable treasures, and I’m as incapable of solving that problem as I am of claiming my own mate!”

The rage rang hollow. What did he need treasure for, if Maya could never be his?

She said you were enough for her , a treacherous voice within him said. He thrust away the thought.

“What?!” His grandfather leaped from his chair, wings spreading like a wall of night behind him. The smell of stale smoke filled the air, quickly thickening to something potent and choking.

Then the old man’s eyes narrowed. He pulled his wings in. “This is about that damned report you’ve been bothering everyone over, isn’t it?”

“I hadn’t realized it was a bother to know a rival dragon had discovered the secret location of our clan’s hoard,” Corin hissed back at him. “Let alone tell me , so I can do something about it!”

“Rival dragon, pah!” His grandfather sank back into his armchair, waving one hand dismissively. “If you’re worried about who took those pieces from the vault, you should look a little closer to home.”