Page 93 of Dragon’s Ending

Silence stretched briefly again, broken only by the crackles and occasional soft pop from the fire in the hearth.

Mortimer was doing this deliberately. Setting the pace and making everyone else wait for him. And the worst part was that he was very, very good at it.

“I understand you have a particular skill at interpreting records,” he said to Ben.

Ben looked faintly wrong-footed again. “Thank you.”

“I believe,” Mortimer continued smoothly, “that I should like you to accompany me back to London.”

Everything inside me stopped. I felt Ben freeze.

Mortimer, meanwhile, simply waited. As though this were the most ordinary request in the world. As though he hadn’t just reached calmly into the centre of my life and closed a fist around it.

“No,” I said.

Mortimer’s gaze settled on me. The power he held was carefully banked. Just enough showed through to remind me of who he was and the dominance he had over us all.

“I wasn’t aware,” he said softly, “that this decision belonged to you.”

My dragon surged hard enough that gold flickered briefly at the edges of my vision, but I controlled him and kept my voice level and matter-of-fact. “Ben is our guest.”

Beside the fire, Rhodri was utterly motionless.

Mortimer regarded me calmly. “And?”

“And guests of this family aren’t removed from the house without the head of family’s consent.”

I did not look at Rhodri. Would not look at Rhodri. Because this wasn’t me asking permission. This was me drawing a line.

Mortimer’s expression didn’t alter, but something in the room sharpened all the same.

The gold threatened again behind my eyes, my dragon pressing forward. Mine. And it wasn’t just Ben. It was this house, this territory, this family. They were all mine to protect. God help me, for the first time in my life, I understood why Rhodri carried himself the way he did.

“You are very young,” Mortimer said. There was no condescension in it, which somehow made it worse.

“Yet you’re still arguing with me instead of taking him.”

Mortimer’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and Rhodri drew in a breath. They both knew what I’d just implied. That he couldn’t take Ben. Not while I stood here and said no.

Mortimer eased himself to his feet. Ben tensed. I didn’t move, and everything in me narrowed to a single, immovable point. No further.

Mortimer stopped, his eyes gripping mine like dragon claws, measuring me. Then he nodded once, as if satisfied by something.

“There you are,” he said.

BEN

“What the actual fuck?” Dominic blurted out.

Which was exactly my question as Mortimer returned to his seat. I’d had my hand glued to the phone in my pocket, ready for an emergency call to Evelyn, but then Dominic… Then Dominic had stood against the most powerful dragon in the country and said no.

And if I weren’t so scared and confused, I’d be turned on as hell right now.

“Well,” Rhodri said at last, “I believe my son has made our family’s position clear.”

“I believe he has,” Mortimer agreed.

I was glad someone was clear about what was going on. Dominic, meanwhile, had shot one startled, almost vulnerable glance at his father, before his expression closed again.