Page 62 of Dragon’s Rogue

There was another silence. Then Thorne said, “That’s impossible.”

“Why?” Blaze asked.

“Because Draken—full Draken—don’t mate with humans. It’s beneath them. That’s why Arkyld and Maia couldn’t be together in the first place.”

“Beneath them?” Blaze said. “Snotty racist assholes. No wonder they got sent back to the Dragonlands.”

“Trust me,” Tyr said. “Draken are beyond snotty. And if one of them mates with a human and produces offspring… look out. Their children get thrown out on their scaly little tails. Hybrids are a shameful disgrace.”

“Hey,” Zane said. “Watch your mouth, ‘brother’.”

“Wait,” Blaze said, looking around the room. “Aren’t you Draken?”

Zane was the only one who met her gaze this time. He shook his head. “No. We’re Wild Dragons.” At her look of confusion, he elaborated, “‘Shameful’ hybrids. Somewhere in our past is a human ancestor.”

“So we got kicked out of the Real Draken Cool Kids’ Club,” Tyr put in. “Or anyway, our ancestors did.”

Blaze shrugged. “Don’t know why you’d want to be in it, if everything I’ve heard about Draken is true.”

Thorne snarled, “You know nothing about Draken.”

Whoa. Okay. Blaze backed her chair away from Thorne a little bit.

Zane growled at him. Like, actually growled. His eyes went electric blue for a second, with those disturbing catlike pupils.

She stared at him, things clicking together in her mind. His dreams. The way he’d recognized her. They way he knew where all her beauty marks were, where she liked to be kissed, how to bring her to incredible, soaring orgasms like she’d never felt before.

The way she’d felt the gold in the room humming when they made love.

He was watching her now, his eyes intense and burning, and she knew he was thinking about the same things.

What if it were all real? What if she and Zane were somehow magically connected?

She swallowed hard. “So… if I were one of these Three Destined Mate people, how would we know?”

“Weeell…” Tyr drew out the word. “Since we’re the only Guardians left, one of us would woo you with our dragon charms—and our mighty hoards of gold. Then you would fall madly in love with him. And by him I probably mean Zane.”

Blaze glanced at Zane, who had stopped looking at her and was now mashing the cake on his plate with a fork.

Thorne gave Tyr a black look. “And most important, you’d have the Seal,” he added.

“Which I don’t,” she reminded him. That was the flaw in Tyr’s theory. She didn’t actually have the Seal, and she didn’t know where it was.

“I told you this was ridiculous,” Thorne said. “I mean, for one thing, there’s only one of her. There’s supposed to be three.”

“Don’t look at me,” Blaze said, even though he and Tyr were, in fact, looking at her expectantly. “I work alone. I’ve always worked alone, ever since I left the coven with the idol. Solo witch, that’s me.”

“A rogue,” Zane said softly. He raised his head. “You turned against your coven, stole their most precious treasure, and ran away. You practice on your own, without the oversight of a new coven. Technically, you’re a rogue witch.”

“I’m not—”

“You are. You’re the Rogue,” Tyr said.

Blaze felt a chill go down her arms. As if someone had said something so important it had imprinted itself on the fabric of destiny.

Could all this really be true? Had her mission and Zane’s been intertwined from the beginning?

Zane was watching her again. His face was impassive, but she could see his eyes were full of hope he was trying to conceal.