Page 60 of Dragon’s Ending

I wanted to throw up, I wanted to cry, but more than anything, I needed to find Dominic. I didn’t know what to say—I just knew that he couldn’t be alone after reading this. How much of it had he known, I wondered? What had they told him about sending him away?

Even at eighteen, when he’d returned here, he still hadn’t been trusted.

Oh, God, it was all making so much sense now. The way he was with Rhodri, the effort he put into showing he didn’t care about his father’s opinion. The way he kept provoking everyone, even the sheer recklessness in the way he flew, plummeting towards earth. Almost as if he were daring it to take him.

The first thing I did was dump a stack of documents on top of that damned piece of paper. Locking the room behind me, I went in search of Dominic.

Chapter Twenty-four

DOMINIC

Branches whipped wetly against my face as I shoved through the wood, leaves slick beneath my boots and my clothes heavy with rain. The words echoed in my brain, over and over. Emotional instability. Assessment ongoing.

I reached the stone wall at the edge of the wood and vaulted it, breath tearing raggedly through my chest. My dragon wanted out. He was close beneath my skin in the ugly, restless way I hadn’t felt in years. We’d finally found a balance, and now he didn’t come out without my agreement. But right now, I wasn’t sure I could stop him. Wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I stumbled slightly in the darkness and swore viciously. Rainwater dripped cold from my hair into my eyes, and somewhere far behind me, Dragon’s Ending sat hidden among the trees.

I couldn’t bear the thought of it. That room. Those records. Those fucking reports.

Progress inconsistent. Assessment ongoing.

I doubled forward, hands braced against my knees as nausea rolled violently through me again. The memories came back in broken flashes. The farmhouse kitchen warm with baking bread. Mrs Vaughan talking quietly to me late at night when I’d cried myself sick after another nightmare. Mr Vaughan sitting silently at the scarred wooden table every Sunday evening writing emails. Only, they hadn’t been emails. They’d been reports.

Something twisted viciously in my chest.

I straightened abruptly and stripped my clothes off with shaking hands. The shift hit hard, dragon form tearing through me almost painfully.

I flung myself into the sky, and I flew. Nothing like last night with Ben laughing beside me beneath the moon. This was brute force and fury, each beat of my wings jarring through my body hard enough to hurt. I flew too low through the valley, too fast over black water and rain-dark trees, close enough that branches whipped beneath me.

Part of me wanted to keep going, to follow the river until I reached the sea. To disappear into the dark and never come back.

Then somewhere behind me came the unmistakable beat of another dragon’s wings.

BEN

It hadn’t taken me long to realise I didn’t have a clue where Dominic had gone. The only thing I was sure of was that he wouldn’t have stayed in the house.

I went up to the castle, wind driving the cold rain into my face. I even called his name, however futile I knew it to be. He could have headed across the fields, the open hillside, or even the woods—I had no idea. I just knew I couldn’t leave him alone, that I had to try to find him.

What kind of family did that to a grieving child? Yeah, it took dragonets years to learn how to balance the two parts of themselves and to exert full control, and it sounded as if the impact of Dominic’s loss had undone whatever learning he’d done. But the answer was to teach him again, simply keeping a fire extinguisher handy in case of accidents. Not to declare him out of control, as if he were a threat to his own family, and send him away. A seven-year-old boy who’d just lost his mother.

I dashed a hand across my eyes, wiping away the rain so I could see better in the beam of light from my phone. I didn’t know how to find him. Perhaps if I shifted, my dragon’s keen senses would be able to scent him, or hear him. And suddenly I knew—if Dominic were anywhere out here, he’d have shifted already.

His dragon was always swift to show, much more so than any other dragon I’d known. I’d noticed that during our first days together, but hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Now, maybe it made sense. Or maybe I was judging him just like his fucking family had.

I shoved those thoughts aside and headed down the hill to shift. Better to do so somewhere that wasn’t contested ground. The last thing either of us needed tonight was me accidentally starting an inter-family incident with the Gruffydds.

I found him within minutes of lifting into the sky, although it took me a moment to be sure the dark figure in the wet night really was Dominic. There was nothing of the sleek, savage joy of flight he usually had. This dragon looked as if he were lumbering through the air, each beat of his wings full of effort.

I swooped in beside him carefully, giving him enough space to turn away if he didn’t want me there, and within a minute, he headed down to the ground. As if my being there had given him permission to give up on something that looked actually painful.

We landed badly on a rough stretch of hillside above the river, wet grass flattening beneath us as we shifted back in drifting rain.

When my human eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw Dominic was sitting hunched forward a few feet away, forearms braced on his knees, breathing hard. I didn’t move closer immediately. His body language seemed designed to repel.

Eventually, quietly, I said, “I read it.”

His laugh was short and ugly. “Congratulations.”