“Yes?” Francine felt unsteady. She’d never seen Julian this out of control. Some instinct she probably should have known better than to follow made her cover his hands with her own. “One of your sister’s clutch hatched a few days before I fetched you from the safe house. A female, with gold scales.”
“All hatchlings are golden,” he said vaguely. “They’re treasures … A girl?” He stared at her, his eyes half wild, half pleading. “A niece. I have a niece.”
“Yes.” She frowned at him, confused.
Understanding dawned over his face like the end of days. “You knew this whole time.”
His anger was a lash, uncontrolled and desperate, and she only knew one way to react to that sort of threat.
Francine lifted her chin. Disdain wrapped around her like a cloak, cold and familiar. “I’m second in line to one of the most powerful shifter families in North America. People would betray their own grandmothers to get on my good side, Julian. Of course I knew. The first egg hatched in the care of Lance’s mate, and his employees wasted no time in beating my door down to be the first to tell me.”
It wasn’t entirely true, but there was enough truth in it that Julian’s face shuttered as he mentally aligned her with people like Eloise and Harper and all the other rich shifters who treated the world like their playground. She hadn’t meant to react like that, but it was too late now.
And maybe this was right. They’d grown too close. She’d seen the softness in his eyes as he looked at her unguarded. The gentle way he’d held her.
She’d fooled him.
This is what I am,she wanted to scream.Look at me! See me! I’m another monster. Another user. Don’t try to keep me safe. I don’t deserve it.
She wanted his hatred. The horror as he understood what she really was, what she had done. But despite everything, she couldn’t stop herself from watching the emotions warring behind his glacier-green eyes.
Hate me, she pleaded silently, but a smaller, quieter voice inside her wept:Could you still love me, now? Could you ever?
He came to a decision. She saw that, in the firmness of his shoulders and the clenching of his fists, but she didn’t know what his decision was until he swept her into a hug that almost tore her soul to pieces.
“Thank you,” he breathed into her hair, holding her tight and safe in his arms. “Thank you.”
Thank you?
“You didn’t know about her.” Her breath caught in her throat. “I—I assumed you knew.”
He started to laugh, thin, cracking sobs that racked his frame. “The last time MacInnis called me, I smashed half the furniture in the meeting room before the guards pacified me. I thought he was mocking me. I…” He stared into nothing. “Adria’s first hatchling. Another living shadow dragon. And I was going to…”
He pulled away from her, still staring into whatever horrors his mind had dredged up. Francine reached for him. “You didn’t know.”
“I shouldn’t be here.”
He can’t leave. Francine’s heart beat like a trapped bird. She wet her lips. “Of course. If you’d known there was a hatchling out in the world, you never would have agreed to come with me.”
“Agreed?” His eyes were like cracked marbles. “You speak as though I had a choice.”
“You seemed perfectly content with our arrangement until now.”
“Yes. When it was a suicide mission, not…” He passed a hand across his face, oblivious to the alarm Francine was too slow to keep from her expression.Suicide mission?
She swallowed. “If it helps, Lance is—is tracking us. You might meet your niece sooner than you think.”
“Tracking us. I sensed someone following us. A presence. I thought…” His laughter this time was hollow. “A powerful shifter tracking me down. A hatchling. Of course. I should know better than to let myself think anything. I should have—”
“Julian.” The hell with staying in control. Julian was falling apart. She couldn’t let that happen. She put her hands around his face and forced him to look at her. “Julian, look at me. Look at me! You’ve done nothing wrong.”
His eyes slowly regained their focus. He seemed to stare deeper into her than ever before, and when he spoke, his voice was soft with regret. “You’re not usually this bad a liar, Francine.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re trying to be kind to me. You shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it. And you deserve so much better than me.”
She chose her words carefully, then the words that came out of her mouth weren’t careful at all. “Why did you call this a suicide mission?”
