Page 86 of Dragon’s Rogue

“Through the years Zane stayed in touch with them, though of course they grew old while he remained young. When his youngest sister was elderly and near death, their village was targeted by a rogue warrior clan.” He paused. “The eighteenth-century version of a criminal biker gang, I guess you’d say. Zane wanted to move her sons and their children and grandchildren to safety, but they wouldn’t leave while the rest of their clan was still in danger. So he gave his sister a token—a piece of gold from his hoard that he’d fashioned himself—and told her to call on him if her or her children needed help, and he would come to them and fight for them.”

“But he didn’t?” she asked in a whisper, already knowing the answer. Somehow, the message had gone astray, and Zane had failed to save his family.

“He returned to find the clan destroyed,” Thorne said. “Only one cub survived—a great-grandchild of his sister’s.”

Blaze’s heart ached for Zane. Their situations were different, but she knew how it felt to lose everyone and everything that had given you your foundation in life. You were cut adrift, never able to truly trust life to give you happiness and love without taking it away.

“That’s awful,” she said. “What happened to her? The cub?”

“She was adopted into another clan, out near what’s now Hillsboro. Her descendants are still there.”

Blaze was stunned. “Zane has family in the Valley?”

“A few,” Thorne said. “They don’t know about him, but he still watches over them.” He turned his deep blue gaze on her. “It’s been over two hundred years, and he has never forgiven himself for failing the others. If anything happens to you, it will destroy him.”

He turned abruptly and faced the back of the elevator, where there was a second set of doors.

Slowly, Blaze hit the button and the elevator began moving again. Zane loved her. And he was afraid of failing her the way he’d failed his family.

“Is that how you feel about Rebel?” she asked Thorne, going to stand next to him.

Thorne glanced at her, startled. “That’s completely different,” he said. “I’m half-Draken. For us, mating is about duty, not love. And we don’t get emotionally involved with humans.”

Blaze hadn’t seen much of Thorne, and most of the time he’d been angry. But he had a softer side. He’d showed it in his affection for Bucephalus—and the way he cared about Zane. Plus, his dragon obviously had a thing for Rebel.

“Uh huh,” she said. “If Draken don’t fall in love with humans, how do you explain all those Wild Dragons running around?”

There was a short silence. “We are attractive to humans, I suppose,” Thorne said stiffly. “Like that Tempest woman, with her fantasies and fairy tales.”

Blaze bit back a smile. “Or like Rebel?”

“Certainly not. You heard her yesterday. She doesn’t love me. She’ll never love me.”

Blaze shook her head. “You believed all that protesting too much? You really don’t know anything about humans.”

Thorne snorted.

The elevator arrived at the lower level, and the doors opened to a large domed cavern with several dragon-sized tunnels branching off it. To her left, Blaze saw the huge carved doors that led into the Batcave. Apparently, the elevator opened on either side.

“Down there,” Thorne said, pointing toward the corridor just past the Batcave. “The end of the hall—just look for the door with the stars and moons on it.”

“Thanks,” Blaze said.

He nodded and turned away, and she touched him on the arm. “Thorne?”

He turned back, eyebrows raised.

“Thanks for telling me about Zane. And for taking care of me and Bucephalus. I’m thinking maybe you won’t make somebody such a bad mate, after all.”

He shook his head, but as he turned away to head toward the Batcave, she thought maybe he looked a little bit pleased.

Blaze walked alone down the hallway. She felt tiny in the huge, echoing space, meant for creatures who were so different from her.

Creatures that understood duty, but not love. Zane understood love, but it was his failed duty and broken promises that were crushing him.

As she got closer to the end of the hall, she caught the faint sound of music in the air. Not the joyous singing of the gold in Zane’s room when they made love, or the soothing lullaby her necklace sang when she had nightmares.

This song was a lament, a song of loss and longing and despair so poignant that she paused with her hand on the door, transfixed by its beauty and sadness. It pulled at her heartstrings, weaving a tapestry of all the emotions she’d thrust aside and buried for so long.