“And if I told you I wanted to go alone?”
He grinned. “Your attempt at getting rid of me would be charming but ineffective.”
I rolled my eyes. But I didn’t try to get rid of him.
We walked together back to the road and then down toward the village. We’d have to walk through the village to get back to the school, and I realized with a sudden dawning sense of horror that everyone in the village would see me with the dragon shifter.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew somehow that I was dragon-marked. That I had never come forward to train and to receive a dragon. To have that ability and to leave it unused was considered criminal. Treasonous.
I wasn’t the one who had made that decision, but when I realized what my parents had hidden, I hadn’t made it right, either. I had been afraid of what would happen to them…and I’d been afraid to leave them behind. They needed me.
I tried to think of a way to make conversation. He seemed perfectlycontent walking silently beside me. “What’s it like being a dragon shifter?”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Would he guess that I had a reason for asking? Was it yet another hint I was giving him about who I really was?
He took it in stride, though. Maybe this was a question people asked him all the time. After all, people feared and admired the dragon shifters in equal measure.
“Do you want to know the good things about being a dragon shifter?”
“The good and the bad,” I said.
His lips twisted ruefully before he said, “I don’t think anyone really wants to know both.”
There was a flash of emotions across his face—maybe sadness, maybe bitterness, maybe anger—and then it was gone, too quick for me to understand.
But before I could say anything, to try to fix the misstep I’d clearly just made, he went on. “It feels good to train and to protect the kingdom with my clan.” He grinned as if he couldn’t hide the pride he felt in his friends. “You just met some of them.”
“They seem pretty incredible,” I admitted.
“They are. I am so lucky to have them as my family now.” He brimmed with genuine gratitude, despite the way he had teased them earlier. “And having the connection to the dragons is incredible. Not just the powers that come with them. Not just flying. The dragons are in our heads, and it’s as if we’re never alone.”
“I don’t know that I would like that.” I often liked being alone. I just didn’t like the loneliness I felt at times.
“You get used to it. A lot of people think the dragons are just a version of ourselves, even though the same dragons surface over and over again. Only some of the dragons from the beyond are willing to claim us.” He grinned ruefully, as if the dragons were unwise to mix with the shifters at all.
Even if I had presented myself to be trained as a dragon shifter, there was no reason to think a dragon would claim a mortal. The dragon-marked merely had the ability to shift. Then the spirit of a dragon hadto choose them; the dragon interacted with our world through the shifter, and the shifter was granted powers by the dragon.
I’d probably be just as unimpressively mortal to a dragon.
He went on, “Mortals and Fae alike don’t understand dragons have their own personalities. It’s like having my best friend who’s always there with you, a part of you.”
“What’s your dragon like?”
“Kind of a bossy, controlling asshole.”
“I thought you said they weren’t that similar to yourselves.”
I felt the hum of regret as soon as the smart comment was out of my mouth. I didn’t want to make him mad. I’d been enjoying talking with him.
But he threw back his head and laughed. “Fair. But I promise, he is very different from me.”
We had almost reached the school.
“Most of all, it feels good to protect people.” He gave me a hard look. “It’s what some of us are meant to do.”
Again, my heart was hammering. And again, I was afraid he knew, and then if he didn’t already know my secret, my body would give it away. I tried to calm myself. “I’m just a mortal girl. How could I protect people?”
“How could you?” he agreed. “And yet, I saw you do it. I don’t think you’re just a mortal girl.”
