AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If this mountain is special to the dragon shifters, it could have some meaning for the fae too,” Nate pointedout.
I thought about that memory I’d had, talking about the fae with Mom. “Have you heard anything about the dragon shifters and the fae... working together, or associating with each othersomehow?”
Aaron frowned. “I haven’t come across anything referring to a collaboration in the research I’ve done into our history. But that doesn’t mean it never happened. There’s plenty the dragons have kept to themselves.Why?”
“Oh, I just remembered my mom saying something about that. But she didn’t know any details either, from what she told me.” When I wasn’t even five yet. How much more might she have shared with me if I’d known the truth when I wasolder?
The pain of that loss returned with a dull ache. It’d been seven years since I last saw her, but following her trail had made me feel as if she’d only just slipped from mygrasp.
“It doesn’t matter what dragon shifters might have done once upon a time,” West said darkly. “Youshould steer clear ofthem.”
“If they come to the mountain regularly, one of them might have seen my mom while she was here,” I pointed out. “Even talked toher.”
He shook his head without meeting my gaze. In the dim light, his deep green eyes looked even more shadowed. “It doesn’t matter. They won’t tell us anything unless they can use it to their advantage over us. Trust me. The only fae I like is one that’s at least a hundred miles away. Ordead.”
There was a rough note in his voice, beneath the more typical bitterness. I peered at him from the corner of my eye as we tramped on. He’d obviously had personal dealings with the fae in the past. Dealings that had causedhima lot of pain. I wanted to ask more, but I had the feeling he’d bite my head off forprying.
None of the other alphas had argued with him. Even if they didn’t have the same hate for the fae, they mustn’t have found his comments all that inaccurateeither.
I shivered and rubbed my arms through the padded sleeves of my jacket. In that case, I hoped those shiny beings were now far, far away from heretoo.
“I guess I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me when we’re done all this running around,” Isaid.
Nate stepped closer and took my hand in his large one. The smile he gave me brought back the memories of what we’d gotten up to in the tent last night with a flush of warmth. “We’ll be right there beside you, figuring things outtogether.”
West made a wordless noise of dismissal. My temper flared. Why did he have to make it seem as if he was offended by even the slightest suggestion that I was worthy of the role I’d inherited? I’d been hiking up this mountain right along side him. Couldn’t he cut me a littleslack?
“So what exactly are you planning on doing if you throw away tradition and any hope of making this mate thing work, Mr. Wolf Man?” I demanded. “Annex the canine shifters from the rest of the shifter community? That doesn’t sound like it’s going to helpanyone.”
West finally turned his penetrating gaze on me. “I don’t think you know enough about our community to have any idea what will help or not. When we’re finished this ridiculous questing, maybe I’ll get to see what you’re really made of as a dragonshifter.”
Maybe you should open your eyes, because I’ve shown you plentyalready.
I bit back the snappy retort, swallowing hard. West wanted me to argue with him. Wanted me to give him excuses to keep antagonizing me. As if it weremyfault that my mother hadn’t taught me anything about the shifters. Or that the rogues had slaughtered my fathers and sisters to force us into going on the run in the firstplace.
Another memory, a fragment from long, long ago, rose up, so vivid the rest of the cave fell away. I was sitting on my mother’s lap while she brushed my hair, which was knotted from a scramble through the woods with my sisters. She tsked her tongue as she worked through atangle.
“You’re lucky I believe in letting children run a bit wild. Otherwise we’d have rules about rolling down hillsides and dangling fromtrees.”
My four-year-old self looked up at her with wide eyes. “You could do that, couldn’t you? You get to make the rules for all theshifters.”
Mom laughed gently. “Not exactly. Not all by myself. Your fathers and I decide what’s best for the communitytogether.”
“Indeed we do,” my tiger shifter father had said, sauntering into the room. My other dads followed him. They stood around my mother and me, enveloping both of us both in an aura of familiallove.
In the present, I blinked hard at the tears that had started to well in my eyes. My throat had tightened. So much the rogues had stolen from me. I’d barely gotten to know my fathers at all. How much wouldtheyhave taughtme?
But I knew how much they’d loved my mother. That was what the mate-bond between the alphas and their dragon shifter was meant to looklike.
I raised my chin, pushing down the pang of loss. If West really believed I’d be a total disaster, he wouldn’t still be here. He’d have forsaken me as his mate and taken off to find one he liked better. I just had to keep reminding myself ofthat.
Aaron’s flashlight beam caught on a claw-shaped scar on the wall up ahead. A deeper scrape than Mom had left before. For a second I wasn’t sure if this one had been made by her or something else, but as soon as I came up beside it, her energy tickled over my skin. The sense of her presence—and a thicker emotion. I let go of Nate’s hand to touch the marks, and a jab of distress jolted through mybody.
I paused, my fingers twitching toward my palm as if echoing the sweep of her talons. She’d been upset when she’d scratched this mark. In pain or afraid. What had happened to her here? How had anyone even known she’d come up this way? She’d been so good at covering hertracks...
Nate hovered behind me. “What’s the matter,Ren?”
“My mother,” I said. “When she came through this part of the cave, something was wrong. She was upset. But I can’t feelwhy.”
