Page 43 of First Light
All I wanted was to find you and see your face and know that part of her was alive somewhere in the world.
She closed her eyes and sank lower into the heavy wooden tub.
Damn, damn, damn.
“You know I’m right,” Duncan said.
“Shut up.”
“See? That tells me you know.” He let out an audible huff. “He’s not the same man, Carys. Lachlan said your father was a teacher.”
“Yes.”
“Who had a quiet life in California and raised a wonderful daughter. Seren’s father is the king of a small but very powerful country who can speak and bond with living weapons of mass destruction.”
Dragons. She felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. Could she really go back home without seeing a dragon?
She lifted the cup and rinsed her hair. “I know Seren’s father and my father are not the same man.”
“But you want to meet him anyway?”
“Yes.” Her heart softened toward Lachlan because how could it not? She understood his motivation in a fresh way because the idea of even laying her eyes on her father’s face one more time filled her heart with aching hope. “I need to see him, Duncan.”
“Then I suspect you’ll see him. You’ll have to get permission from Lachlan’s father to stay in the castle, but you know I won’t kick you out of the cottage. And the way rumors spread in this place, the king of Cymru might have already heard that his daughter’s twin is in the Shadowlands.”
“Would it take him a long time to get here? Without cars or trains?—”
“Dragons.”
“Right.” She couldn’t stop the grin that spread over her face. “I’m going to see a dragon.”
“I can’t even see your face, but you sound so Welsh right now.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “Are dragons bad?”
“Are dragonsbad? Are you actually asking that question? They fucking breathefire, Carys.”
She didn’t want dragons to be bad. She’d been raised with images of them all over her home. The majestic creatures in her mother’s paintings. The red dragon of the Welsh flag, the Ddraig Goch. Dragons were a part of her childhood dreams. “You said they can bond with humans though. Doesn’t that make them… kind of good?”
“They’re not bad if you’re their friend.” His voice dropped. “Course they’re terrible if you’re their enemy.”
She could be a dragon’s friend. She could definitely be a dragon’s friend.
“Then again,” Duncan continued, “dragons don’t really havefriends. Dragons care for no humans but their lords or ladies. In human or animal form, they are single-minded, fiercely loyal, and absolutely ruthless.Highlydestructive.”
Her sister had been a dragon lord. Dragon lady? How did that work? She was nêrys ddraig according to the portrait in the gallery. “Seren had a dragon.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to… it? Her?”
“Him. I wasn’t here when Seren died.” Duncan’s voice grew softer again. “And Cadell was gone by the time I returned. He left the castle as soon as Seren was gone.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Wait, you saidhumanform? Dragons have a human form?” She sat up straight and blinked the water from her eyes. “Like the unicorns?”
“Yes. They’ll occasionally speak to humans in that form, but only a dragon lord can speak to them while they’re in animal form, and honestly, that’s the body they seem to prefer.”
She smiled. She didn’t care if they were scaly or scary or single-minded or destructive. Her heart raced at the idea of seeing a dragon in the flesh.