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I swallowed hard around the sudden tightness in my throat. But how could I convince him otherwise? How could I explain to my son that I couldn’t talk about his father because the memory hurt too much? I’d waited too long, and now Dylan was suffering for it.

My heartbreak turned to stony determination.

Dylan was my top priority in life. I couldn’t let him continue to suffer because of my own ancient hangups.

If Suri was right, then these outbursts would only get worse and worse, until…

Until what? His first shift? I had no idea what a first shift would be like, anyway.

What if he was in pain? What if he was hurting, alone, confused, and had no one around who could help him?

If he needed his father—fuck it, I’d take him to his father. I was a big girl. I could handle it.

I had to.

“How do you feel about a little trip this summer?”

Dylan looked even more surprised. “What? Where?”

“Let’s go spend a few weeks with your grandmother. I think the change of scenery would be good for us both.”

“We’re going to Lakeview?”

“I think we will,” I said with a nod. “What do you think?”

“I think those wolves at school will be glad I’m gone,” Dylan muttered.

I reached over and tousled his hair. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure wolves are the least cool of all the shifters. There are too many of them!”

That got an almost-laugh out of Dylan. I considered it a win as I turned into the driveway of our bungalow-style home in a quiet neighborhood.

I’d worked my butt off to get us here. It was a small home, but it had a little yard and a tree that could hold a swing and a platform treehouse.

There were two bedrooms, and we ate in the kitchen, so the tiny dining room was my office when I worked remotely.

It wasn’t easy raising a kid alone, but I’d managed to make it work so far.

I thought I had it all under control. And maybe I did, until Dylan’s dragon began to rumble awake.

“Go upstairs. I’ve got to wrap up some work stuff,” I said. “I’ll order dinner.”

“Can we get wings?”

“Do you promise to eat a real salad with it if we do?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Fine.”

“Deal.” We shook on it, then Dylan loped upstairs to his room and his beloved video game setup.

I sat down at the dining room table, booted up my laptop, and skimmed my email. I couldn’t focus on anything in my inbox—and there was no annual report from my earlier client—so I grabbed my phone.

Cassidy answered on the first ring. “You got him? I figured you did when the school didn’t call me again, but?—”

“Yeah, I got him. Thanks for fielding the school’s calls. Sorry I didn’t text you.”

“What happened?”

I glanced at the ceiling. The familiar sound of Dylan’s current fantasy game obsession was just audible enough that I knew he wouldn’t hear me. “He got into a fight. I think his dragon is making things hard for him. His outbursts are getting worse, and this was the first violent one.”

“Shit,” Cassidy muttered. “What’d Suri say?”

“That he needs his sire .”

There was a long pause. Then Cassidy said, “Sire? Dragon shifters are always so weird about stuff like that. What happens if his sire isn’t in the picture?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Suri made it sound like it could be pretty bad. More outbursts, more uncontrolled emotions… And then there’s the question of his actual shifting. I don’t want him to be alone when that happens. And God knows I’m not prepared to walk him through that.”

“Suri can’t help?”

“He said Dylan might want to be with his clan. If he’s with a dragon he’s not related to, it could make it worse.”

“Clan!” Cassidy said. “These dragons talk like they’re from the 1400s!”

“Some of them probably are,” I muttered.

“What are you going to do?”

I said nothing.

Cassidy, my best friend since we were teenagers, expertly translated my silence. “You’re taking him to Lakeview.”

“I don’t see any other option.”

Cassidy was the only other person in Atlanta who knew Lakeview the way I did.

She had been with me that fateful summer ten years ago, when I had fallen hard for the hot older guy who worked at the auto shop.

It was supposed to be a summer fling, a little happenstance rendezvous to keep me occupied.

Plus, hanging out with Stephan and his friends had been way more fun than dealing with my troubled mom.

What had started out as fun had quickly become something intense.

At least, my feelings for Stephan were intense.

Strong. Sometimes overwhelming. I’d thought he’d felt the same way about me, but at the end of the summer, he’d made it clear that wasn’t the case.

I was angry for a long, long time. But at the end of the day, it was a single summer, a decade—and a lifetime—ago.

Cassidy had been with me through everything. The pregnancy, the birth, those rough first few years. Cassidy was more than my friend. She was my sister.

“You already know how I feel about Ace,” Cassidy said.

The nickname almost made me smile. To everyone around him, he was Ace. To me, he’d always been Stephan. “Right. You think he’s a raging tool.”

“Well, am I wrong?”

“No, but if he’s the only one who can help Dylan through this transition, I can’t keep him from that, right? I can’t let my own anger get in the way of what Dylan needs.”

“Ace is really the only one who can help?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Ugh. I hate this.”

“Join the club.”

Cassidy sighed. “But, if that’s the best solution for Dylan, I think you’re right. I love that kid. I know he’s been having a hard time at school. If Ace can help him manage his dragon, I think it’s worth it.”

I blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Don’t sound so shocked. Obviously, I’ll gut him if he hurts you or Dylan.”

“I’d gut him first,” I said with a smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I like it when you go protective mama-bear mode. Or should I say mama-dragon?”

“I’m not the dragon in the picture,” I said. “Sometimes I wish I was. It’d make this whole process a lot easier.”

“I know. But I think you’re making the right call, all things considered.”

“Thanks, Cass.” Upstairs, the music cut off, and I heard Dylan shuffling around. “I’ve got to run. I need to order some wings and try to get this kid to eat a vegetable.”

Cassidy laughed and wished me luck. I felt better after talking to her, but the reality still loomed over me like a thundercloud. A summer back in Lakeview. A place I hadn’t been in a decade.

Would I ever be ready to see Stephan again?