Page 79 of A Dragon's Curse

I just had to keep hoping that Cillian had been just as successful as we’d been.

If not, my wolf was about to spill a hell of a lot more blood.

ChapterTwenty-Eight

CILLIAN

Flying away from Dawsyn was hard, but as soon as I shifted, I’d made sure Lykem knew to find her given how certain I felt that she wouldn’t wait for him before running headfirst into those tunnels.

As I took to the skies, I searched for Knox’s dragon, but after ten minutes of looking and keeping an eye on things below, he was nowhere to be seen. Not only did him not coming out to fight like a man frustrate me, but so did the number of dragons working with Knox. I was more than a little disappointed in how many dragons had been hiding out here.

They started to crawl out of the ground, shifting almost immediately. Some of them I knew and most of them I didn’t, but either way, I didn’t understand how they could have decided to work to destroy their own world. Though, they weren’t my problem at the moment. Knox was. I stayed out of the fight as much as I was able until I could find him.

The dragons that had come with us were holding their own. None of the ones supporting Knox seemed to be able to do anything special, but that didn’t mean we could let our guard down.

When it seemed like the numbers had shifted to our benefit, I flew to the ground and decided it was time for me to head inside the tunnel.

As I landed between already demolished trees, my dragon’s head jerked to the right. There were no sounds coming from that way, but there was heavy energy pulsing from the trees that I hadn’t sensed when we’d been higher in the sky.

I shifted back to my human form, because getting through the dense forest as my dragon would only hinder me. Then I ran.

There was no way to know if I was making the right choice moving away from the fight and the tunnels, but I couldn’t ignore the pull toward the power I’d sensed.

It was heavy and most of all familiar. Not because I’d encountered it before, but because it tasted like family.

All blood-related dragons shared a certain scent. My family smelled of the air after a fierce storm. Fresh yet so crisp, it was almost like pins and needles on your skin.

And it was a scent that came directly from my mother’s more powerful family line. Another reason why my gut told me that it was Knox I was suddenly chasing after.

With my uncle dead, there shouldn’t have been anyone else with that scent other than me, and if Knox had it and I hadn’t realized it before because I’d been so concerned with keeping Dawsyn safe, then that meant he was my mother’s child.

Even though I’d had the same thought before, the longer I considered the possibility, the less it made sense.

I could have understood if my dad had fathered a child and didn’t know about it before he met my mother, but there was no scenario in which my mother could have had a baby and didn’t know, nor could I have imagined her abandoning a child.

Yet, that seemed to be exactly what happened to Knox. So, what the hell happened all those years ago?

That was a question that had the possibility of staying with me my whole life. I didn’t suspect Knox was going to be forthcoming with information, and I wasn’t going to allow him to live any longer than it took me to get my claws around his throat.

I came to an abrupt stop when I saw the glow of a tree. A man stepped forward that I shared no similarities with other than our scent.

A smirk grew on his sharp face, making the scar on his cheek stand out. “Cillian. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You never should have touched her,” I snarled. My dragon’s rage at seeing the man who stole our bond with Dawsyn had my own ire increasing by the second.

“I wanted your attention and now I have it,Brother.” His stance was relaxed as he stepped closer, seeming not to care that I was about to rip his throat out.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides and my chest heaved. “I could have been your brother, but you chose differently.”

His haunting laugh echoed around us. “Ichose? Oh, how young and naïve you are, Cillian.”

“You killed my uncles, stole my mate, and burned half the city down while murdering thousands of dragons in the process.” I turned my body, preparing to attack as he got within striking distance. “Unless you’re about to tell me someone else is controlling you,youchose this path, and it ends here.”

Whatever had happened to him, I no longer had the desire to know. The fact he’d touched my mate was already enough to end him. Everything else just proved my motivations weren’t unfounded or selfish.

My right fist connected with his jaw, sending him tumbling back several steps, but I didn’t stop there. I charged forward, hands out and claws extended past my fingertips.

Scales appeared over my skin, giving me an added layer of protection as I reached for Knox’s neck.