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“You're not the first lifebound dragon who's ever existed, Max.”

I went still.

“What?”

“Lifebound dragons are rare. Extremely rare. But you're not unique.”

I didn't know why that hit as hard as it did.

For fifteen years, I'd thought of this thing inside me as something I had to manage alone, a defect without a rule book, because the only person who'd ever explained it to me was my father.

“You know about others?”

“The council has records.”

“How many?”

“Enough.”

My pulse had started beating harder.

“And they—” I stopped because the question suddenly felt too large to fit inside my mouth. “What happened to them?”

“A great many things. They lived. They loved. Some of them found their mates.”

Everything inside me stopped.

“Mates.”

“Yes.”

My dragon surged so abruptly beneath my skin that I had to curl my hands into fists.

Ash.

The word wasn't spoken. It didn't need to be.

Ignatius's gaze sharpened as though he'd heard it anyway.

“What happens when a lifebound dragon finds his mate?”

“We'll talk about that properly.”

“Now.”

“No.”

Anger flared. “You can't tell me something like that and then decide we're done.”

“I'm not deciding we're done. I'm deciding that giving you another incomplete explanation when you've apparently spent fifteen years building your life around the last one would be spectacularly irresponsible.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

“My father wasn't irresponsible.”

“I didn't say he was.”

“You were thinking it.”