Page 31

His scent sours at his mother’s words. It’s there and gone in an instant, but I catch it. She’s talking about me. My wolf growls low at Claude for saying it in front of him. He doesn’t argue, though. He comes around the island and presses his lips to the top of my head long enough for me to breathe in woodsmoke and dragon. I whine when he straightens up.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises. He follows his father out the door.

Claude takes the chair across from me. She doesn’t say a word until she pushes the pitcher of water at me with a pointed look. “Drink.”

I take a long sip and set it down. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I lean on the counter. “What does it really mean to be a Stormscale?”

She studies my face. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve never seen a dragon do what Ezra did. The storm, the lightning coming down from the sky like that.” I’m still trying to wrap my mind around his fight with my father. “We never learned about any of that at the Academy.”

Claude leans back in her chair. Wherever she is right now, it’s a long way from this kitchen. “That’s because Stormscale dragons were nearly wiped from existence during the Great War. Most supernaturals don’t talk about them anymore. The name carries too much pain, too much history.”

She pauses, and I wait.

“But before the war, Stormscale dragons were revered.” Sadness slips into her scent before she goes on. “They held the highest rank among dragon shifter clans, the same way House of Zorah holds status among wolf shifters. In times of war…” She trails off and stares down at the counter. “They could level armies with nothing but a roar.”

I try to picture a clan of dragons calling storms out of clear skies whenever they please. I rub my chest over the spot where Ezra’s lightning caught me. My wolf circles and wants no part of that.

“Everything I know about them comes from Tyrion.” Claude smiles when she says his name. “He was raised by them. Trained by them. He knows what that power truly means.”

“Then how come Ezra’s grown up all this time not knowing how to control it?” I ask. “Why wasn’t he ever trained?”

Claude stops smiling. “Because Tyrion renounced his clan.”

I scoot to the edge of my chair. “What do you mean?”

“When Tyrion and I completed our mate bond, Ash Clan would have never accepted him as a Stormscale. Not after what his clan did during the Great War.” She slides the pitcher closer to me. “So he gave up the name. Renounced everything his bloodline stood for, just so I could stay with my family. So we could build a life here together.”

He gave up his entire identity for her. I think about Amos and Arlo bickering at my parents’ dinner table and go quiet. Claude doesn’t push.

“When Ezra was born, Tyrion assumed the Ash Clan bloodline would be dominant. That his dragon would take after my side of the family instead of his.” She sighs. “But that’s not what happened. His dragon is full Stormscale. The power is in him, whether we wanted it to be or not, and now he needs to learn who he is and how to control the gift he was born with.”

She reaches across the island and pats my hand. “He’ll learn. Tyrion will teach him. It just should have happened sooner.”

She points at the pitcher. I take another long drink without arguing.

“Enough heavy talk.” Claude sits up straighter with the gloom gone from her scent. “Tell me about you. How are things really going with my son?”

I duck my head. “Good. Really good.”

“Mm-hmm.” She grins at me, and I see so much of Ezra in her face. “He’s been insufferable since you got hurt, you know. Wouldn’t leave your side at the hospital. Kept growling at anyone who came too close to your bed.”

I eat up every word. I giggle at the thought of him snarling at his mother’s coworkers. “That sounds like him.”

We fall into easy conversation after that. She asks about my family and my pack, about how my brothers are handling me being with Ezra. I want to know how she met Tyrion and how they fell in love. Then I get nosy and ask how things worked out for them with him being a Stormscale in Ash Clan.

A few hours pass before Claude stands and stretches. “How about we go check on our men?”

She’s already counting me as family. “I’d like that.”

I don’t bother with shoes on the way to the door. She holds it open for me. I step out first into the fresh air of the community lands under a clear, bright sky.

We walk down the porch steps together. When Claude reaches the grass, her wings sweep out. They’re dark, shimmering green where the sunlight catches them. I’ve seen plenty of dragons fly, but I never get tired of it.