“You’ll have to make do with your pants.”
“You’re wicked.”
“Well. One of us has to be the big, bad dragon, now that you’re busy being the family man.”
Her words filled his heart as they clambered the last few hundred yards to where the greenery opened up to reveal a shimmering waterfall. Family man? His responsibility for his clan had always been a millstone around his neck, when he thought that leading it meant being a distant patriarch. But playing with little Tomás, teaching his younger cousins to fly shrouded by their magic, even play-fighting with the Dans and helping them,finally, get a rein on their own powers—it was a different way of being.
One he wasn’t used to, yet, but that he hoped would suit him.
“Where do we go from here?” Maya asked.
“Can you feel it?”
She bit her lip, concentrating. Her draconic powers were increasing, slowly; though there was no sign yet of her transforming into dragon form, he suspected it was only a matter of time.
He suspected, and he hadtoldher, and they had discussed it like sensible adults. A milestone achievement. And part of the reason they were out here in the jungle, instead of risking hersneezing herself into a dragon for the first time in front of non-shifters elsewhere.
“Ooh,” Maya gasped. “Behind the waterfall? Is that possible?”
“There’s a cave.”
“No!” She grinned at him, eyes shining, and waded through the water into the cave hidden beyond.
The cool water was a relief after the heavy heat of the tropical jungle. Corin stood in it an extra moment, relaxing, letting Maya take the lead.
She ventured slowly into the dark cave, water trickling deliciously down her body. Another benefit of staying back: the view.
“Now, why does this not surprise me?” she commented with a laugh.
The moment he stepped up beside her, he understood.
The Dans’ hoard was a mess.
“How can they even tell whose is whose? I thought dragons were meant to stash their own hoards. How does that work, with the three of them?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“And how are we meant to find a ring in this mess?”
Privately, he agreed.
“Also,” she added. “No offense to your cousins’ gold-sniffing abilities, but I’m pretty sure that’s a Pokémon card. I don’t think they make those in actual gold. And the humidity will be terrible for it!”
Corin’s dragon was nudging him. “There’s something else here,” he said. “Down the back.”
They followed the cave to an underwater pond, lit in gold by the sun pouring through a sinkhole that dripped with ferns and flowers. “All right,” Corin growled. “NowI’m jealous.”
“You should have banished yourself here,” Maya said, her voice soft with awe. “It’s beautiful. And is that … women’s jewelry?”
She waded out to a flat stone in the center of the lake. “Hang on,” Maya said. “I recognize some of these…”
So did Corin. There were several more of the missing pieces from his clan hoard. Including the ruby earrings Seline Montfort had been wearing the day she came to Hideaway Cove.
“I wonder what’s going on here?” Maya said, a curious smile on her face. “Come on. We’d better leave it as it is. We wouldn’t want to intrude on … whatever this is we’ve stumbled onto.”
Corin took a deep breath. The cavern smelled of gold, of course, and dragon—his cousins—and another dragon.
Afemaledragon.
