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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PYRAH

Inside the gloom of my lair, a mountain of treasure glimmers in the shadows.

Kneeling, I scoop up handfuls of gold coins and gems before letting them trickle through my fingers.

With a shuddering sigh, I close my eyes and savor this moment.

It takes me a minute to name this feeling, which I haven't felt in far too long. The sensation glows inside my chest.

I’m happy.

Though I should be shifting into a dragon and sleeping on a bed of gold, I linger in the body of a woman. If Rook wants to hold me in his arms tonight, I can wait for him to come back and keep me warm.

Besides, I enjoy being smaller than him. When I'm with him, I don't need to worry about protecting myself, and I’m comfortable removing the armor of my dragon scales. He has given me the safety to be vulnerable and surrender to him in ways no other man ever could.

I touch my mouth, finding my lips swollen from his kisses. My breasts are also unusually tender. I cradle them in my hands, wondering why they feel so full and heavy. He didn't pay special attention to them this time. My nipples have become sensitive to the slightest of touches.

Even stranger, a cramp twinges through my belly.

Am I pregnant ?

The old legends about dragon eggs aren't true—we dragon shifters birth our babies and nurse them with milk, just like human women. My breasts have never felt this way before. Could this be why?

I place my hand flat against my belly, imagining a flicker of life inside me. Rook told me himself that he's a cambion and he's incapable of fathering a child. But what if, against all odds, he's wrong?

My mother never told me about such things.

She died before she could explain what pregnancy means for our kind.

I can only piece together what I have heard gossiped among human women.

More than a few maidens in Quickmire whispered their secrets in the tavern—a tumble in the hayloft with their lover, followed by a hasty wedding.

Hope flutters inside my chest like a caged bird. When I close my eyes, I can't help imagining what our baby might look like. Would they have his silver skin? My blue eyes? Would our child inherit my ability to shift into a dragon, or his power to walk through dreams?

My eyes sting with unspent tears. Rook might see this as a miracle.

I imagine the look on his face when I tell him. His ember eyes would glow brighter, stoked by a breath of hope. That determined, often grim set of his jaw would soften into wonder.

I never wanted children before. The thought of being a mother terrified me, after dragonslayers murdered my own mother and left me desolate. For years, I could think only of my own survival, living alone in my cave, guarding my hoard. Wanting a baby was far too vulnerable.

But now, sitting among my treasure, all I can think about is how empty this cave feels. Gold and jewels glitter around me, but they're just things . Cold metal that offers no warmth, no love in return. They hold memories of my mother, but memories stopped being enough.

Rook has changed everything.

The truth of it strikes my heart. I want his baby . Someone to love and nurture, someone who would never know the loneliness I have endured. I would protect our baby with all the ferocity of a dragon mother.

Am I hurting myself by allowing myself to hope?

The next cramp doubles me over. Intense pain slices through my abdomen like a dagger. Shuddering, I collapse onto the gold coins and curl into a ball. Something warm trickles down my thighs.

My heart pounds as I look down. Blood. Bright and red against my pale skin.

The sight hits me like a fist to the gut. Not a baby. Just my body betraying me in a new, cruel way. The pain twists deeper, as if punishing me for daring to want something I can never have. Tears blur my vision, and I hate myself for crying. Dragons don't cry. Dragons don't bleed like this.

But they do.

Scaldric's voice slithers through my mind, dripping with cruel satisfaction: Because of him, you will bleed.

Moonlight streams through the entrance of the cave, casting long shadows across my treasure hoard. I press my hands against my cramping belly, each wave of pain a reminder of my empty womb.

Rook will never give me a baby.

The truth buries me like an avalanche. I had known this, of course—cambions can't father children. But it never felt like reality until this moment, watching my blood stain the gold beneath me.

My throat aches, a hot coal of pain lodged inside. I don't even know if Rook longs to be a father. He has never confessed such a thing to me. I could be dreaming of a future he doesn't even want.

More tears spill down my cheeks before I swipe them away.

Even alone, I despise this display of weakness.

My mother taught me better than this. Emotions make you vulnerable.

Tears make you prey. But I can't stop crying.

The pain, the humiliation, the utter helplessness of this situation—it's too much to endure.

I'm no longer the fearsome dragon who guarded this cave.

I'm just a woman, crying on the floor, bleeding and afraid.

I close my eyes and reach for that familiar power inside me, the dragonfire that burns in my blood. My bones should be lengthening, scales armoring my skin, wings unfurling from my back.

Nothing happens.

I try again, desperate now. The transformation has always come as easily as breathing. But the dragon within me has become distant, unreachable, like trying to grasp smoke with my bare hands.

"No," I whisper. "Please, no."

My shift is locked away, leaving me small and vulnerable in this echoing cave. The treasure around me mocks me. What use is a dragon's hoard to a woman who can no longer be a dragon?

I pick up a sapphire from my hoard, turning it over in my trembling hands. The gem's familiar weight anchors me as another cramp tears through my belly. Bigger than a goose egg, the blue stone catches moonlight from the cave's entrance, glowing with an inner fire.

I focus on the gem's perfect facets rather than the bleeding staining my skin.

My reflection fragments across the cut surfaces—a hundred tiny versions of my pale face, each one distorted.

I trace the largest facet with my fingertip, watching the moonlight dance through the crystal's heart.

The deep blue reminds me of mountain lakes, of summer skies I once soared through on dragon wings.

When I'm a dragon, I'm more like this gemstone.

The sapphire doesn't feel pain. It doesn't dream of the impossible.

The gem's coolness seeps into my hand as I cling to it as if it might save me. Each glint distracts me from the cramps, if only for moments at a time. I count the faces, name each angle, catalog every flaw and inclusion—anything to distract myself from my body's betrayal.

I hear footsteps at the cave entrance. Rook.

My time hiding has run out.

I clutch the sapphire tighter, willing my hands to stop shaking. The gem's cold weight grounds me as I hear his boots scuff against stone. I keep my back to him, pretending to examine the jewel's facets in the shadows. In truth, I'm holding my breath, waiting for him to speak.

"Pyrah, we have a problem." I brace myself, certain he has already noticed the iron scent of blood, but his next words aren't what I expected. "The deer is gone. Completely vanished."

"What?"

His footsteps draw closer. "Are there dire wolves in your territory?"

When another cramp hits me, I bite my lip to keep from crying out. I shake my head and focus on breathing through the pain. "No wolves would dare hunt here. Not in my territory."

"My thoughts exactly. Which means?—"

"Another dragon." My voice sounds hoarse. "Scaldric?"

"Has to be." He stops in his tracks. "Pyrah? What’s wrong?"

I have doubled over, the sapphire slipping from my grasp. It hits the pile of gold with a musical chime. The pain has become too intense for me to hide my weakness from him any longer.

"I'm bleeding," I whisper. "Scaldric was right."