He sighed heavily. “It’s worse.”
She frowned. He was really starting to scare her. “Tellme. Please.”
Another long moment of silence passed between them before Wyatt began.
“My best friend Axel and I were always getting into trouble. On this occasion, we had heard that there were dragon hunters in this little village in Norway, and of course, we thought it would be fun to poke the bear, so to speak.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. “Dragon hunters? I thought they were just a myth.”
Wyatt shrugged. “They are, as far as I know. But we were just kids—barely fifteen, and whether it was just a scary story that the elders tell young dragons to keep them in line, or whether there was any truth to it, we wanted to find out.” He stared up at the ceiling as he spoke, and she rested one hand on his arm. His bicep twitched to her touch, and he continued.
“We thought it would be fun to go nosing around the village, cause some trouble, and scare the locals. The fact that there were supposed to be dragon hunters in the area made the prospect all the more exciting to us.”
Amelia’s heart started to race, and an uncomfortable sensation washed over her. “What happened?”
“We flew to the village. We didn’t carry any clothes with us because we had no intention of shifting back into our human form. But when we got to the village, they were having a party—a wedding perhaps, some sort of celebration. Everyone was outside, drinking and having a good time. We hadn’t bothered to cloak ourselves and by the time we realized what was going on, we’d already been spotted. Night had just fallen, but they had torches lit all over the village that probably illuminated us.”
Amelia tried to stifle her gasp but he nodded in response to it.
“People started running in every direction, screaming and shouting. We should have just flown home, but we didn’t—probably because we thought the chaos that we were causing was funny. One of the village men had a shotgun or some sort of musket and he started firing at us. One of the pellets clipped my wing and it infuriated me.”
He frowned up at the semidarkness of the ceiling.
“I swooped down at him, just with the intention of knocking him to the ground so that he’d stop shooting, but he fired off a shot just as I nudged him over with my wing and as he fell, the shot sailed past me and it hit Axel.”
His jaw worked hard, and it took him a moment to continue. “He dropped to the ground like a lead weight, and he didn’t get back up, so I picked him up and I carried him home. He was so heavy I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it all the way, but I did. I thought one of the healers would be able to fix him—I was so sure—but…” He drew in a ragged breath. “There was nothing that they could do. We were so young that our skin hadn’t thickened fully—the shot caught him right in the heart. The healers said he died instantly.”
A sob caught in Amelia’s throat. “Wyatt, I’m so sorry. And they banished you for that?”
He nodded. “Axel was younger than me. Only by a few months, but he hadn’t even turned fifteen yet. They said I was old enough to have known better. And because I was so irresponsible, I’d exposed our kind and got another dragon killed.”
“But it was an accident! And you were just a kid yourself. How could they have banished you when you were only fifteen? How could they haveblamedyou?”
“I got what I deserved,” Wyatt said. “They were right. Iwasold enough to know better. We went there with the sole purpose of scaring humans, of letting themseeus. I put our entire clan in danger.”
“But you didn’t do it alone.”
“Yeah, and Axel paid with his life. By comparison, I got off lightly.”
Amelia shook her head. “Did all the elders agree on your banishment?”
Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. Even my dad.”
Amelia blinked. “Wait, even your own father thought you should be banished? Your dad is an elder?”
Wyatt nodded.
“What’s his name?”
“Lorenz,” Wyatt said. “But I left fifty years ago. I don’t know if he’s still…”
“He’s alive,” Amelia said. “Your mom, too. Or, at least, they were a year ago.”
Wyatt sighed. “Thank you. Did they have any more children?”
Amelia shook her head. “No. To be honest, I never realized that they ever had a child.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I’m the black sheep of the family, right? Why would they talk about me?”
