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“I am bound by my alpha, Ezra.” Tyrion lowers his eyes to the floor. “I have raised you to honor clan life and honor your alpha. If Valek denies the Stormscale bloodline, then I must obey.”

The air around Ezra shimmers with heat. “I will never take the alpha role if this is your future.”

“Ezra—” Tyrion tries, but his son isn’t listening.

I grab Ezra’s arm. His skin burns against my fingers, but I squeeze until he turns to me. His pupils have swallowed almost all the blue-green in his eyes.

“Calm down, baby,” I order, and his dragon obeys immediately. His breathing slows and the smoke stops. His skin cools to his normal warm. I don’t know how I do it, but his body listens to mine every time.

I put my hand over his heart. It’s pounding, but it eases off the longer I stand here.

“The mate bond is a force beyond even the stars,” Tyrion says. “Aya’s influence on you bends even light itself to its will.”

I sigh at all the star talk. “We stay for dinner. When Claude gets home, we all sit down with Valek and Lauren and hash out the Mer thing together.” I keep my hand where it is. “They see Ezra as a leader. Ash Clan should act like one too.”

“The Mer will only listen to Stormscale.” Tyrion turns to the window.

“Then help me, Father.” Ezra’s voice breaks. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

I smell the hurt in his scent, bitter like a fire doused too fast. My wolf whines for him. I fist the front of his shirt.

Tyrion winces and moves closer to his son. “I can only assist if my alpha will allow it.”

“Just wait until Mom gets home,” Ezra says. “She’ll slap some sense into Valek.”

I burst out laughing. I’d give anything to watch Claude take on her brother. Ezra chuckles under my hand, and the bitter is already clearing out of his scent. Tyrion rolls his eyes, but the fondness is all over his face. It’s going to be a long day.

29

EZRA

Ihaven’t touched the beef ribs on my plate. My father went out of his way to make this happen. He asked a clan neighbor if they had any to spare for my mate. Now Aya sits on the sofa across from me and takes another bite with her eyes closed in bliss. She’s got sauce on her chin.

My father moves around the kitchen while he cleans up. He’s talking again about the constellations we can see this time of year. When he gets to the planetarium being built, his scent brightens.

“The Andromeda Galaxy will be particularly visible from the observation deck,” he says as he dries his hands on a towel. “Did you know it’s the closest major galaxy to our Milky Way? Over two million light-years away, yet on a clear night, you can see it with the naked eye. A smudge of light that contains a trillion stars.”

Aya hangs on every word he says and keeps beaming over at me. I want to enjoy this with her. Instead it burns in my gut that he’ll obey Valek over his own blood. I taste smoke whenever I think about it.

My father turns to us. “Do you remember that lesson on binary stars, when I had you both in my astronomy class? How I explained that some stars orbit each other so closely they appear as one point of light to the naked eye, yet they’re two separate bodies, bound by gravity, dancing eternally around each other?”

“I remember, Father.” I keep my face easy for him, but my dragon won’t stop pacing.

I can’t sit still any longer. I put my plate aside and cross to the window. Across the village, clan members fly home from hunts or set off for evening gatherings. My dragon wants to be up there with them, far from Valek and his rules.

I turn from the window at a sound outside. I’d know my mother’s wingbeats anywhere, and they come down heavy tonight. She drags her feet up the porch steps. Her scent reaches me before she does, tired and sharp with antiseptic.

I’m at the door first and throw my arms around her when she walks in. “Mom.”

Behind me, the sofa creaks. I glance around, and Aya’s up and wiping her mouth with a paper towel while she watches us.

“Let me get in the door, baby.” My mother laughs and hugs me back.

She stiffens and grips my shoulders. Her nostrils flare against my neck. There’s no hiding the burnt, sour edge my temper left in my scent. She pulls away and studies me through narrowed green eyes.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” The drag is gone from her voice.

“Nothing,” I lie.