Page 51 of Dragon’s Rebel

He’d never felt so alone.

It seemed an eternity before they got back to the lair. Rebel drove up the winding driveway and parked in front of the garage. She had to help him out of the car; wavy images moved across his vision, making him nauseated.

“Come on,” Rebel said in his ear, her arm around his waist. “You’ll be okay soon.”

“Get Tyr,” he said. His brother was their healer—maybe he could find something that could help. If this was what the BioGen scientists had done to all those shifters who took the serum, he was going to go back there and kill them.

“Soon,” she said. “You need to lie down first.”

She helped him into the house and down the hall to the elevator, keeping her arm around him even when he was leaning against the velvet wall of the elevator car.

It felt good, having her strong, solid body next to his. Shouldering some of his burden.

No, he couldn’t put that on her. After they found the Seals, he would have to set her free.

That thought was like a knife in the gut.

He’d stopped paying attention to where they were going, just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Finally Rebel pushed open a carved wooden door and led him inside a room.

Instantly his head began to clear. He looked around—and then realized where he was.

His lair. With his hoard.

A howl began deep in his chest and threatened to burst out of his lungs. He forced it back. He’d never let anyone see his worst pain, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked. “This is a dragon’s hoard. I’m not a dragon. It won’t want me.”

Dragons were bonded to their hoards, almost like bonding to a mate. Their gold and gems strengthened them, healed them, sang to them. They comforted them, mourned with them, rejoiced with them.

He’d lost enough today. He couldn’t handle being rejected by his hoard.

“Shh,” Rebel said. “Listen.”

She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her breathing deep and even. Slowly, slowly, his own breathing began to match hers. His body relaxed.

And he heard it.

A low, deep harmony, almost too low for humans to hear. It rose as he listened to it, growing louder, rising up through the stone floor and into his bones and muscles, his blood and cells.

His hoard was singing.

He felt something shift inside him, as if a crowd of chaotic, discordant sounds were tuning themselves to the song of the gold. The shattering pounding of his skull began to abate, and his vision cleared.

Whatever he looked like, whatever he felt inside, his hoard still recognized him as a dragon.

There was still hope.

Thorne sank down on a pile of gold coins, eyes closed, fighting the tears.