Page 9 of Dragon’s Ending

Well. We’d see about that.

Chapter Five

BEN

I’d set my alarm for half past seven. Glenys had informed me breakfast was available between seven and nine, but only after I’d asked her. The fact she hadn’t thought to mention it reinforced that the Bedwyr family didn’t get many visitors.

Certainly, once Rhodri had left the dining room last night, they’d been reluctant to let me go without wringing every last piece of information they could out of me. But not one of them had asked me why I was here. They were clearly curious, but Rhodri’s cryptic statement about my presence had set the tone. They didn’t need to know any details, and so they wouldn’t be told any. It seemed that Rhodri Bedwyr’s reputation was well-founded. He appeared to run this family like a dragon lord of old, almost like a king.

At least he’d agreed for me to be here. And hopefully, after breakfast, I’d finally get to see what records they had.

I sent Mum and Dad a quick text to let them know I’d survived the night. Mum had been concerned about me going alone to a strange dragon family. When I’d got the Wi-Fi password last night and had let her know all was well—though I couldn’t in all conscience say I’d been made welcome—she’d worried about me not having packed enough warm clothes and whether the sheets on my bed would be damp. She didn’t seem to realise I was thirty years old. I loved her, but it wasn’t exactly a hardship to have that bit more distance between us. Let my little sister bear the brunt for a while.

I had nothing to report yet to Evelyn, and she wasn’t the type to micromanage. In fact, she’d be annoyed if I tore her from her studies unless I had something interesting to report. All I’d found so far had been a pile of towels in the wardrobe, along with some folded sheets of paper. I’d opened them to find crayon drawings that looked as if they’d been made by a small, artistically ungifted child. Glenys had said this used to be the nursery, so it made sense.

I took one more look out of the window at that amazing view, then headed downstairs. Time for breakfast, to negotiate Rhodri Bedwyr again, and that irritating son of his if I had to. The one whom everyone had been watching all through supper last night, even when they pretended they hadn’t. I wasn’t sure whether he always attracted that level of attention—he certainly acted as if he did—or if it was the lateness of his arrival that had done it. I’d caught Phoebe’s whispered “Oh, no,” when Rhodri had told Dominic to follow him.

Anyway, I’d be glad to have nothing further to do with him. Give me a room full of records, and I’d forget everything else, happy as a dragon with two treasures.

Of course, it was just my luck that when I entered the dining room, Dominic was there. He was holding court, with a small group of dragons clustered around his chair, concentrating on his every word and move. They looked to be in their twenties, which tracked. Young enough to be impressed by his status and happy to feed his ego. As I walked in, his eyes fixed for an instant on mine, looking both curiously alert yet lazily amused.

“Good morning,” I said neutrally.

He leaned even further back in his chair. “That’s optimistic.”

I gritted my teeth and made my way along the table. The best thing to do was ignore his asinine comment, yet something about the lazy way he’d said it, the absolute arrogance of the man, had got under my skin. Not helped by the fact one of his little group of worshippers had snorted a laugh.

I pulled out the chair at the same place as last night, where an untouched place setting awaited me. Boxes of cereal, bread rolls and fruit were grouped in the centre of the table. I glanced back at Dominic as I sat, and promptly wanted to kick myself, because he was still watching me.

He was frowning as he stared at me, as if I were the one being difficult. His frown deepened into a sigh when the door at the far end of the room opened and Rhodri appeared. The dragons around Dominic scattered to their places—two of them had been propping themselves up against the polished wood of the table, and I couldn’t see that going down well with their head of family.

“Good morning,” I greeted Rhodri.

With a cursory nod to me, he pulled out the chair at the head of the table and reached for a roll. I had the impression he wasn’t a morning person. Or perhaps there was no one here he wanted to speak to, because he ate in silence. The rest of us did too.

I’d just finished my second cup of coffee when he spoke. I looked up, along with everyone else around the table except for Dominic. He kept his attention firmly on his coffee.

“I’ve told Glenys you may have a key to the records room for as long as you’re with us,” Rhodri said to me. “She’ll see you after breakfast.”

Dominic’s gaze flashed from his coffee to me, and I saw a kind of realisation on his face. Perhaps he, like the rest of them, hadn’t known why I was here. I looked away, but not before I’d seen his expression change to thoughtfulness as he studied me.

Another two dragons came in, an older couple, whom Rhodri greeted with a faint smile. Something I hadn’t seen on his face to this point.

Perhaps I was being unkind or jumping to conclusions in thinking Rhodri ran this place like a medieval court. Perhaps my presence was causing stress because he didn’t want me here but hadn’t been able to say no to Mortimer.

But then I remembered the horror on Phoebe’s face as Dominic had strolled in so late last night, and I was right—this house wasn’t run like any other modern dragon family. I hadn’t been sure whether she was scared for Dominic or scared of him. And I didn’t like either of those options.

Dominic didn’t stay long after his father’s arrival, and I soon followed his example. With a nod of acknowledgement to Rhodri, I went in search of Glenys.

I was beginning to learn the shape of the main rooms of this house, the huge hallway, the narrow, dark passages that made me glad I wasn’t claustrophobic, and the dining room. At the opposite side of the hall to the dining room was the room I’d gone to yesterday to see Rhodri. Even now, his presence seemed to seep out of it, as if the very walls were imbued with his brooding control.

As I approached the kitchen, running footsteps approached behind me. I turned to see the young boy from supper. “S’cuse me!” he called out, and I stood back against the wall to let him pass.

I still hadn’t got a handle on the number of family members who lived in the house. It was the dragon way to live on top of one another, but this wasn’t a small family, and Evelyn had told me they were scattered over a large area of rural Wales. Phoebe had filled me in a little further last night. The most immediate family lived in the house, with the next layer out in the village.

I hadn’t expected the core family to number a small, lively child among their number, but it was a relief. A touch of normality amongst the formality and sheer heaviness of this place.

Glenys was sitting at the kitchen table when I arrived, a mug of tea beside her as she scrolled on her phone. The place smelled of roasting meat and rosemary, and I guessed she’d been up far longer than the rest of us.