Page 33 of A Dragon's Curse
Cillian must have sensed the shift in my mood, because in the next second, his hands were cupping my face and his eyes were level with mine. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never done that before today,” I admitted. “I’d always wondered if I had inherited powers from my mother, but nobody could tell me if it was even possible.”
“Powers? What can your mother do?”
“She’s Luna Marked,” I said, as if that should make sense to him. “It’s a longer story than we should get into right now, but her wolf is stronger than nearly any other. At least when she’s in danger. The power doesn’t seem to always stay with her.”
“And the glow around you earlier is something she can also do?” he asked hesitantly.
I shrugged. “Yes and no. Her wolf is sometimes this stunning purple color, but it was less the glow of earlier than the rush of energy I’d felt.”
My wolf had been rather quiet on the subject, but since I’d been so distracted with Cillian, I assumed she’d been distracted by his dragon as well.
We need to update the dragons before we worry about us, she finally said.
At least she wasn’t completely ignoring me in favor of our mate.
Fair enough, I said to her then nudged Cillian forward. “I’m good. I promise. It was just a surprise and I’ll need to talk to my mom about it tomorrow when we see them.”
Thankfully, he dropped the subject, and we continued through the narrow path until it opened up into a smaller room with more pathways.
Lykem was standing there with another man about his height. Both of them were grinning. “Penn fixed the portal,” Lykem said.
I tilted my head and looked at Cillian. “What was wrong with it?”
“Technically, nothing,” he answered. “But we told your family that we’d try to figure out a way to get them into Drago without having to be bonded to a dragon. Though, they don’t really have a reason to come here now.”
“They absolutely do,” I said. “The fight here is far from over. You’re going to need help, and they can do that.”
“I can’t ask your family to fight for our people,” he replied just as Lykem said, “That’s the best idea anyone has had yet.”
The two friends stared each other down, and the other dragon approached me. He looked about the same age as Lykem and Cillian, somewhere in their twenties. He had light-brown hair that was shaved short at the sides and green eyes that seemed to shimmer with a layer of blue under the flickering light of the fire torches on the walls around us.
“I’m Penn.” He reached a hand to me. “You must be Dawsyn.”
“Yep. Nice to meet you.” My stare held his, but he quickly looked away and released my hand as Cillian towered over me from behind.
“Who knows that the portal has been opened to more than dragons?” Cillian asked.
“I only just told Lykem,” Penn answered.
“Keep it that way,” Cillian said gruffly. “We won’t be bringing anyone else here unless we have to, and we don’t need others thinking they can come and go as they please with new guests until we sort this mess out.”
Mentioning others had me second-guessing the portal being open at all. “Knox was working with a warlock. I don’t know what his plans are, but if he figures out that he can bring others here, you might have an even bigger fight on your hands.”
Cillian glared at Lykem. “Do you understand now?”
The other dragon turned to Penn. “Can you put a blocker over it that only we can open and close?”
“Possibly. It was a complicated spell to undo,” he answered. “I’ll need to head back out there to try a few things.”
“Go with him,” Cillian said to Lykem. “We don’t know how quickly there might be another attack now that we have Dawsyn. Nobody should be going out alone.”
It was interesting to see the dynamic here. Not once had Cillian given me the idea that he was any sort of leader, but Lykem nodded without further question and the two dragons headed toward a different tunnel than we’d come from.
“What now?” I asked him once we were alone.
“Now, I introduce you to a few more dragons and we tell them what you learned while you were locked up.” His shoulders tensed and jaw twitched.