He hesitated. “Mother—”
“Hmm?”
To his surprise and amusement, he found himself echoing Maya’s words from when he first arrived. “Try to behave?”
“What a thing to say to your own mother!” she huffed, eyes glittering. “Fine, fine. I’ll be good. I won’t tease that lovely Miss Flores too badly. God knows she’s had a hard enough time of it without further blackening our name in her eyes, hm? I will refrain from commenting on this quaint little town’s sad lack of real amenities. I will greet people in the streets instead of pouring fire and brimstone down on them.” She let out a long sigh. “I even promise not to take advantage of the mayor’s state of exhausted new parenthood, and wrest control of the town from him while he and his darling wife dote over their baby.”
“I hadn’t even thought that was one of the things I would need to worry about,” he grated out.
“It isn’t! Because I promise not to. Does Maya see much of them, do you know? Griffin shifters are so rare, and the mother’sfamily is well respected in these parts. It would be a good connection for little Tomás.”
“He’s not even two yet. Too young for politicking friendships.”
“Corin! There’s no such thing.” Igraine laughed. “I’m only teasing you. Or am I? Perhaps you should stay here and make sure I don’t causetoomuch trouble.”
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Just—” She tsked and pulled him in for a hug. “Remember,youhave had a hard time this year, too. And I know you’re not as heartless as you pretend to us all that you are.”
He found Maya again before he left, leaving her with a kiss and a promise to be back soon. He hoped he was telling the truth.
Then he took to the sky. He flew in dragon form, wrapping his power around himself and using the power of every old misery that blanketed the world below to reach his home faster than any airplane.
The Blackburns’ city base was a towering skyscraper, a fortress that included numerous lavish apartments and amenities for the clan members who lived there and any who might visit. In its way it was as much a sanctuary as Hideaway. But it was a long journey. By the time he arrived, his heart was heavy with bitter grief. Without Maya’s clever tricks, her spreadsheets and gossip, it would take days to rid himself of it.
But he would return to her soon. And, as he’d told his mother, he was used to this. He flew wreathed in his family’s miserable power to every clan gathering or confrontation with other dragons. It was necessary. He needed to show them he was strong enough to lead the other Blackburns, and strong enough to protect them from other dragons.
Shadows filled his mind. He stumbled, cursing, and caught himself on the nearest wall.
“Who’s—Uncle Cor—Uh, shit. Sir?”
Corin looked towards the voice, but all he could see were shadows. The misery he’d cloaked himself in as he flew filled his mind and his vision. A thousand broken hearts. Lost connections. All the mundane sadnesses of mundane lives, cut through with the bright shards of true loss.
If he searched through them, would he find Maya’s pain?
He flinched, hissing in a breath.
“Sir? Uhhh … dude?”
The voice again. He blinked until his eyes cleared. A dark-haired young man was hovering a few feet away, looking as though one sharp word would make him run a mile.
A distant cousin. Younger than him and the Dans.One of the lucky ones, Corin thought vaguely.Too young and too distantly related to the main Blackburn line to be in line for the throne.
“I’m fine,” he said as calmly as he could while the kid—Harry? Han?—opened his mouth to dither some more. “I need clothes. And I need to speak to my cousins. The Da—Aedan, Braedan, and Caedan.”
He pulled on the outfit Harry-or-Han brought from his suite in the building. The jacket closed over his shoulders like armor. Like all his wardrobe, the cloth was woven through with the finest gold thread. A subtle comfort to the dragon wearing it, and infinitely aggravating to his rivals.
It was too much to hope that his cousins would appear when called. He spent half his life dragging them out of whatever latest mess they’d thrown themselves headlong into, and the moment he wanted to talk to them, they vanished.
He stalked through the building for several fruitless minutes. As was expected for the head of the Blackburn clan, he was not allowed to move unhassled around his own properties. Harry-or-Han gathered up more cousins as he searched for the Dans. There were half a dozen of them bobbing around like lost ducklings by the time he was ready to give up. Not only was there no physical trace of them—not a surprise, if they were hiding—but he couldn’t sense them telepathically, either.
Wherever they were, it was not here.
This detour had been pointless. He would follow his original plan, and head directly for his grandfather.
He shot a sharp look at his hangers-on as he headed back to the landing pad. They’d collected several backpacks and were bagging up their phones and other electronics in a way he found highly suspicious.
“You’re not planning on following me.”
