In his rage and to save face, he’d destroyed a section of the city and invented the story about a human rebellion in which his sister had supposedly been killed.
“Milena gave me the prototype as a reminder of what I must not become,” Thaden says. “But within that device was already the soul of a wolf. A living creature whose life force would ensure that the metal could grow.”
I quickly recall what Erik told me about his own change. Malak had embedded the device in Erik’s heart, but Erik’s heart had been fully functional and intact, and Thaden is telling me that his daughter’swasn’t.
He seems to anticipate my question. “I used a piece of one of my medallions,” he says. “I commanded it to take the shape of the tiniest heart I could fashion, and then I fused the prototype to the base of it and?—”
“But the pain, Thaden.” I’m horrified. “How did you expect her to survive the implantation?”
“I didn’t.” His voice is bleak. “By the time I did all that, she was already dead.” His eyes meet mine. “So you see, I had nothing to lose.”
He finally steps away from me. “The prototype took hold immediately. The metal heart attached to her damaged heart so fast, it was fucking frightening. The power in that device was—” He closes his eyes for a second. “But she healed up, and within seconds, she was alive.”
I consider the little girl in the cage. “But not the same.”
He shakes his head. “She’s growing at the speed of a wolf cub. She’s only two months old, but her body is beyond that of a baby already, and her mind can’t keep up. She acts on instinct, not reason. She looks old enough to speak, but she can’t. She’s…”
“A predator,” I whisper, steeling myself. “May I move closer to her?”
“Yes, but be careful. Her claws?—”
“Can cut through anything.” I take a cautious step toward the cage before I lower myself into a kneeling position.
“Caught a mouse and let it go, huh?” I murmur, recalling what I heard the woman say when we first arrived.
I’m still not clear who that woman is—she certainly appears too old to be the child’s mother—but she isn’t my greatest concern right now.
The little girl watches every move I make.
Her nostrils flare when I settle into position.
No doubt she’s inhaling my scent.
With a brief narrowing of her eyes, she darts forward, pressing her nose between the bars, drawing an even deeper breath.
Her eyes brighten, and she makes another growling sound, this one questioning.
“You can smell the wolf on me, can’t you?” I ask her softly.
Erik’s scent will be all over me. I don’t know what wolf Malak may have used for the soul of that prototype, but it’s possible it was from the same original pack as Erik’s wolf, Skirra.
“If only I knew how to speak to you like Erik could.”
As the little girl continues to peer at me, I look up at Thaden again. “What happened to Lysander Rex, Thaden?”
I still don’t know how Thaden killed him or why. When I challenged Graviter Rex to a fight, staring him down, I convinced myself that if Thaden could kill a dragon, then I could, too.Somehow.
I was so confident at that moment that I think even Erik believed I could do it.
Thaden lowers himself down onto the floor beside me, crossing his legs and hunching. “He saw her, and he thought I’d turned to the dark. He thought I was conducting experiments like my father had. And on a child, no less.”
I consider what I know of fire dragons and their rage. The way they don’t see anything else around them once their fury takes hold.
I also remember the mind-destroying heat I felt the first time I touched Thaden’s scaled arm while I was in contact with my power. That was the first time I sensed Lysander’s soul. He was majestic, but his fury had no limits.
“He truly believed you’d betrayed him,” I say.
Thaden inclines his head. “All my life, Milena and the dragons have watched me, waiting for signs that I would turn. They treated me as if it hadn’t been so much a question ofif, butwhen. Lysander was my dragon, but I knew he’d been assigned to me because of his strength. His fire was more destructive even than his father’s. He was powerful enough to end me.”
