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I glanced around, making sure we were alone. We were in a small, nondescript white room. “Where’s your lieutenant now?”

“The next room. They will act as the last line of defense before the vault.”

A nine digit code that I made myself memorize took us into the next secure room.

Collin was lounging on a low white couch reading a book when we entered.

He stood, smiling at the sight of us. “Dom! Jillian! Gods, it’s good to see the two of you together again. Congratulations on the baby! What a shocker! You do know how to make an entrance, Jillian!”

I smiled, perpetually surprised to run into a friendly face among the druids. Collin always had been the most amiable of the bunch. “Thanks. If it’s any consolation, the baby surprised me as much as anyone.”

“A twelve year pregnancy!” he laughed. “I can see how that might surprise!”

Dom only nodded to his cousin/lieutenant, going immediately to the next door. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to chat. “Jillian, come memorize this code.”

I obeyed, watching him unlock the combination. I didn’t have a photographic memory, by any means—there was too much random junk in my brain—but I could memorize a few nine digit codes if it was crucial.

The watermelon-sized egg lay on a small round bed that sat low to the ground, perched upright on soft white cushions. It was a paler golden today, setting off the metallic tones still present in my own skin.

I had it cradled in my arms before Dom had closed the door behind us. I traced my fingers over the patterns etched in its surface. They changed, I’d noticed, as the egg grew.

I did this for several minutes before I realized that Dom still stood at the closed door. He watched us, face carefully blank, though I saw something raw move behind his mismatched eyes as I studied him.

“Our telepathic egg,” I said affectionately.

We shared a warm look.

“I need to go now. I’m late to an important meeting,” he said, not moving.

I nodded, my attention going back to the egg.

Dom contradicted himself almost instantly, moving to kneel beside us. He touched one big hand to the egg, the other moved to cup the back of my head. “I’ve named him,” he said quietly.

I shot him a startled look.

“He wanted me to.” He sounded a touch defensive, which was downright strange coming from him. “Somehow, through his telepathy, he’s picked up knowledge about druid customs. He knew it was my duty to name him, and so he asked me to.”

“What did you name him?” I asked.

“Conan.”

I nodded. It had been his father’s name, and I’d half expected it.

“He told me that he has the wolf’s eye. And he speaks Druidic.”

That had me speechless for a moment, my mind racing with the implications. “How could he know what color his own eyes are? And how could he learn an entire second language?”

Dom looked less puzzled about that than I was. “The eyes would have a feeling—a changed nature. He says the beast-call wars with the dragon inside of him. You know as well as I that having two natures is a complicated balance. He’ll have a bigger challenge ahead of him than most, but he’s been given more power, so we can hope that it will balance out. And the Druidic…who can say? He was inside of you for twelve years, and conscious for at least some of it, and if there is a limit to his telepathy, I do not know it.”

I knew I didn’t need to tell him, but I said it anyway. “No one can know about the telepathy. The things he’s picked up about druids already would make him such a target…”

He nodded. “I know. No one will hear it from me. I think our biggest concern is that he may reveal the secret himself. We don’t know who he might try to contact.”

“The girl,” a small voice said in my head.

I looked down at Conan’s egg, the voice now familiar to me. “What girl?” I asked him.

“The girl you met. The one with the lavender eyes. You need to let her see me.”