Still-black eyebrows shot straight into Calla’s salt and pepper hairline. “I’ve never heard of a mate controlling her dragon sign.”
“Wait…” One of the other women stopped her with a hand on her arm. Delaney, she was pretty sure that was the woman’s name, the one who made the two white dragons cook breakfast. “You’re telling me you controlled it?” Delaney asked.
While Hadyn knew that was an unusual thing, Delaney’s voice told her this was a bigger deal for this woman. “It took years, and my dragon parents helping me along the way. But…yes.”
Delaney sort of blinked. “Oh.”
Hadyn glanced at Calla, who was patting the other woman’s shoulder. The older woman explained. “Delaney set several fires without realizing it. Some bad ones.”
“Oh.” What to say to that?
“We’re still not sure if those fires were caused by a dragon shifter who didn’t reveal himself at the time. A stalker.”
“I see.”
Delaney’s expression flattened, which was better than the shell shock she’d been displaying. “He’s dead now.”
“Good,” Hadyn said. And meant it.
“Just think,” Cami murmured.
Cami’s coloring was sandier versus Lyndi’s rose-gold undertones. Her beautiful black hair and soft dark eyes hinted at a Latinx heritage. How had she found Drake while she’d been hiding with Rune? Hadyn had so many questions.
Her red-brown eyes sparkled now. “If word got back to the Alliance or the Clans that unmated women showing dragon sign didn’t have to make their choice so fast, it would probably implode their minds.”
Calla’s rich chuckle was loud enough that several of the men turned to check on them. She shooed them to their own business with a wave of her hand.
Delaney hadn’t laughed, though. Instead, her eyes narrowed, not in anger, more like speculation, though Hadyn didn’t know the woman well enough to tell for sure.
Calla did, though, and cocked her head. “What are you thinking?”
Delaney glanced in the direction of the rest of the team as they started walking again. “I’m thinking that Rune could have used your help with all those mates.”
That speculative gaze slid her way. Again, what could she say to that. “I guess it’s too late now.” She paused. “Where are all those mates, anyway?”
“With the Blue Clan,” Calla said. Like that was no big deal.
But it sure as hell was.
“Rune what?” The last word rose an octave. For the second time, she stopped walking. Why would he do that? It went against everything he said he’d been trying to do.
Up ahead, Rune stopped, too, turning his gaze in her direction, face a blank and yet she sensed concern from him. Raised eyebrows asked the question for him, but she was focused on Calla.
“When his mountain was attacked,” the older woman explained. “One of the people there was a phoenix who could use reflective surfaces to teleport people. She sent them all to her sister, who is mated to the blue king, without asking Rune.”
Bet he loved that.
A memory slipped in. “Through a black computer monitor?” she asked.
Calla tipped her head, gaze turning curious. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”
Rune, however, still watching her from the end of the corridor and apparently listening in now, simply shrugged, answering her question.
That black monitor, the one with the shattered screen sitting on the cave floor in that tunnel they’d gone down to escape at his mountain, had a reason for being there all right. Only something inside Hadyn said he wasn’t as casual about it as that gesture implied. Look at how he’d fought to keep her safe. Himself, too, but he hadn’t been forced to take her with him for any part of it. He could have left her to those mercenary assholes.
“Are the women okay?” she asked.
“We assume so, but we don’t get word often. Kings and clans generally only contact the Alliance. It would be odd if they communicated with us regularly.”
Why did she get the idea that a situation like that had to be working its way under Rune’s skin like a splinter to sit and fester?
“Calla?” she asked.
“Hmmm?”
“I’d like to hear more about your story sometime.” She glanced at Delaney, and behind, to Drake and his mate Cami. “All of you, actually.”
She hadn’t been allowed to be around dragons often. Only when her adoptive parents saw no other way and learning more of them had become a bit of an obsession. The only way she could feel…right. She had dreams about it sometimes. Dreams about finally being turned into what she’d been born to be, fated to be. Then she’d wake up so excited that it finally happened, only for the disappointment to hit her in the chest and weigh her back down in the bed. If she let it, she would’ve drowned in disappointment.
After this was over…
She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. Her dragon parents were who she needed to focus on right now. Rescuing them. The future would take care of itself. She didn’t have much control over how at this point.
Rune waited for her to catch up, then, a hand at her back though not touching, escorted her inside. Almost as if he needed to reassure himself that she was safe right now, which shot a glow of warmth right to her core.
Lovely, but a distraction she didn’t need right now.
At the end of the hallway, which led farther down, past the dungeons and into a massive cavern, what looked like a giant boulder. The cave troll had to be close to fifteen feet tall and looked to be made of gray rock, dust coating its leathery skin and facial features hidden in a face made up of crags and crevices.
Hadyn waved. After a beat, Vilsinn waved back.
“Of course you’d make friends with a cave troll,” Rune grumbled.
“I think he’s lovely.” And devoted to Lyndi, Levi, and all their orphans. For the few minutes she’d talked to the troll, he’d only wanted to talk about them. Devoted.
She turned the corner into the room they were filing into, and Rune had to urge her forward again. Because this was surreal. She’d heard of the technology dragon shifters—particularly enforcers—employed. This room, though, with its solid wall of screens all showing different things, images that appeared to be heat maps, a few video feeds, and several others that she couldn’t interpret, was nothing less than a—
“Welcome to the war room,” Rune said in her ear. “You are privileged. Many dragon shifters never get to see this, let alone…”