29. Maya

29

Maya

Her mother was a dragon shifter. Her mom. Her mom.

“Do you need to sit down?” Corin murmured in her ear, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to frown at him or, yeah, sit down. That might be good.

The dragon-who-was-her-MOM-oh-my-god looked as though she was trying to speak again. Her jaw clicked shut, and she managed to look awkward and like she was trying not to be any trouble.

In dragon shape.

In dragon shape.

“I need your help,” she whispered to Corin.

“Anything in particular?”

She shook her head. “Everything?”

For the second time in less than two years, her world had turned upside down.

But this time, she wasn’t alone.

Corin kissed her, then stepped forward, shedding his jacket. “Take this,” he offered to her mom, holding it out to use as a privacy shield as she shifted back into human form. She stared at it for a minute as though uncomprehending, then sneezed again.

She tried to hide the sneeze in her wing. Maya covered her mouth before she could burst out laughing.

And then the shimmering flames surrounded her again, and the bonfire-bright dragon was her mom again. Her normal, human mom. Except her mom wasn’t human, she was a shifter.

What does that make me?

Had her mom kept this from her, her entire life? The way Lainie’s parents had kept shifters a secret from her until she returned to Hideaway?

No, she decided, without hesitation. Her mom might not be the most open person in the world, but she’d always given Maya everything she needed to succeed in the world. If she’d been a shifter her whole life, and expected Maya would be too, she would have told her.

Which meant…

Gabriela wrapped herself in Corin’s jacket. “I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said, embarrassed. “I just…”

“Couldn’t find the right way to tell me that magic was real?”

They both looked over at Tomás, who had jumped on the necklace Seline threw to the ground and was looping it over and over his long neck.

“Same here,” Maya admitted, and her mom let out a gulp of laughter. “Tomás is a dragon shifter, too. Everything he can do…”

“I guess I passed down more than my curls,” Gabriela joked weakly. They stared at each other, wordless, but for the first time in years, with complete understanding.

“How long have you known?” Maya asked at last, breaking the silence.

“A few months. It started after you left. I thought it was the change at first, you know? A bit early, but, well, better to get things over with, and then one day…” She gestured with both hands. “I sneezed, and I wasn’t even human anymore!”

“That’s why you’ve taken leave from work.”

“I can still clean like this, but so many people have cameras in their houses. What if they saw me? What would I say?”

“And it’s not just the dragon shape? Can you use telepathy, too?”

Gabriela’s eyes widened. “Telepathy?”

“Do you—do you hear voices in your head?”

“Like when Tomás is happy?” Gabriela nodded. “It’s part of the magic, I think?”

“I can—” Maya bit her lip, but the words tumbled out. “I can, too. I can hear what he’s telling me even if he’s not talking.”

“But you haven’t turned into a dragon yet?”

Her heart soared and constricted at the same time, and her mom hugged her.

“You have a few years to go, if it turns out the same for you as it did for me.”

Maya returned the hug. “Or I’m a couple decades too late, by Tomás’s standards.”

Gabriela laughed. “I wish I’d told you earlier.”

“I wish I’d told you earlier.” She sighed and then remembered there was one piece of information she still really needed. “What type of fire do we have? Is Tomás going to start spitting out fireballs when he figures it out, or something else?”

Her mom pulled back. “Fire?” she asked. “What do you mean, I’m going to breathe fire ?”

They had so much to talk about. Gabriela had questions she’d never had anyone to ask before, Maya had questions she’d never thought to have before—and for the first time, they both let each other see how lost they’d felt, stumbling through a world that was nothing like they thought it was.

That night, everyone gathered in Maya’s front room. Blackburns and Flores. Two dragon families, gossiping and bickering and laughing in her messy house. It would have been three families, but Seline Montfort had only stayed long enough to sneer at the thought of joining them. Whatever she’d hoped to find in Hideaway—whichever of the Dans she’d been after, and whatever she wanted from him—she hadn’t found it, and had left rather than let anyone think she was still looking.

Even two dragon families celebrating together was something she’d never imagined. Something she’d never planned for. And it was the best way things could possibly have turned out. Corin’s family.

And hers. Together.

“You Blackburns,” Maya mused, dragging him to the kitchen to grab more snacks and steal a few kisses. “I think I’m starting to understand you.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Or maybe I understand you less than ever,” she said at once. “The terrifying Blackburns! With their power that even other dragons fear. That even you fear. You expend all this energy presenting yourselves as ferocious and untameable … And this. This is the Blackburns, too.” She gestured at the scene in front of them. His mother gossiping happily with Gabriela. The Dans, helpless with fascination for Tomás, reigning supreme in front of the fireplace. “You all love each other so much. You say your magic is only meant for hurting, but behind it, you’re all like this.”

“Our magic makes us what we are,” he said.

“I think it stops you from being who you are,” she suggested gently.

He frowned. “It doesn’t stop us—”

“Doesn’t it? Isn’t yours stopping you from having what you really want?”

She hesitated on the edge of a statement there’s no coming back from.

“You still want to claim me.”

He dropped his gaze. “It should be enough for me, that you want me. But…” his hands flexed, and when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, they were full of dark fire. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll find a way to make it happen.” She lifted her chin. “Don’t tell me we can’t. I’m your queen. I very likely may turn out to be a dragon myself, one of these days. And I’m tired of putting off taking the things I want, because I’m scared of how it might go wrong.”

She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Let’s see how right they can go, instead.”