Page 19 of Dragon’s Ending

“Humans would say dragons aren’t real either,” she’d said. “Yet here we are.”

And that was all. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, I’d never been able to remember anything else from that day. Just that single, stubborn fragment. Proof she’d been there.

Proof she’d loved me.

* * *

I was taking approximately my five hundredth pass around the walls of the courtyard when Berstow finally appeared. For the first time, I saw an actual expression on his face. Barely suppressed excitement filled his eyes and a smile tugged at his lips. But when he saw me, kicking at the bare dirt where Heath’s blood had ensured nothing would ever grow again, that smile disappeared and his face became blank once more.

Oddly, I found myself regretting that—it had brought him to life. Made him look like a person, rather than the stolid block of nothingness he’d been ever since arriving here.

All it had taken was some ancient scratches in a wall. Seriously? That was what got a reaction out of him?

I raised my eyebrows at him. Wasn’t going to ask what he made of what I’d shown him, but I kind of hoped he’d tell me.

“Yeah, thanks for pointing me to those,” he said, sliding his phone back in his pocket as we started picking our way down the hillside. “I don’t know how old they are, but the castle’s pretty early—maybe eleventh century.” He paused for an instant, the only sound the curlews calling overhead, and sent me a sideways glance. “Do you know anything about the marks? Does your father?”

How the hell was I supposed to know what my father knew? I shrugged. “Far as I know, no one else has even noticed them.”

That was what came of having too much time on my hands, I supposed, and nothing to do with it. I noticed things. Like the furrow between Berstow’s eyes as he walked beside me, mentally miles away, despite our shoulders almost being close enough to brush. He rubbed a thumb across his eyebrow, and I noticed those hands of his again. They were big, and I wouldn’t mind feeling them on my skin, biting in as he urged me to fuck him harder.

“I’m going to send some photos to my head of family,” he said. “Maybe she’ll know what they are.”

He shot me another sideways glance. As if perhaps he thought he should ask permission to share the photos yet had absolutely no intention of doing so.

“Knock yourself out,” I told him. I wasn’t my father.

He nodded slightly. “Thanks for showing me.”

I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. There’d been the faintest suggestion of gritted teeth as he spoke to me. Which, yeah, I couldn’t lie—I liked that. I was getting under his skin even if he tried not to show it.

But he didn’t say anything the rest of the way back. Maybe he’d forgotten I was there again. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested in interacting with me. I couldn’t tell which it was. And that was very annoying.

“See you,” I said as we neared the old stables, and I peeled off in that direction.

“Uh, yeah,” he said after me. “And thanks.”

Well, someone was either well brought up or grateful. I knew which I wanted to believe.

BEN

Dominic was almost as annoying when leaving as he was when arriving. No warning, no build-up, just a ‘see you’, and he was off. I was probably supposed to be grateful he’d even bothered to say anything. Honestly, that man. Everything he said and did seemed designed to throw me off balance.

It took me a moment, a moment during which I found I was watching him walk away, his stride long and sure, leashed power in every move he made, but I finally realised. That was exactly what he wanted to achieve. Not just with me—with everyone. His own father, strolling in late to supper with a shirt that was barely decent, and even his little group of followers were always looking to him, hanging on his every word rather than relaxing like a normal group of friends. Because he kept them off-balance. I didn’t know why, and frankly, I didn’t care. He’d been helpful this afternoon, and I appreciated that, but everything else about him was disruptive and irritating.

I’d send a photo of the castle to Evelyn as soon as I was somewhere that had an actual signal. Those markings… Something was tickling at the back of my mind. I was almost certain I’d seen them before. But almost was doing some heavy lifting. Maybe I recognised them because they were a draconic pattern, and they spoke to inherited memory.

The back door was open, the sound of voices drifting out from the kitchen, and as I walked in, I almost collided with a short, fast-moving blur.

“Teddy,” a young woman said sharply. “Watch where you’re going.”

“My fault,” I said, and nodded to her. And found myself unable to move past her and back to the records room because Teddy was planted directly in my way, head tilted back as he looked up at me.

“You’re the one who’s looking at the papers,” he said.

“That’s me,” I agreed.

“This is my newest pine cone.” He thrust his hand up at me, with a rather small and crooked pine cone sitting on the palm.