Chapter 20
Zane followed Blaze down the huge curved staircase. She was quiet now; it seemed like his offer to help her with that Silas guy had just widened the chasm between them.
Why was she denying their connection? He’d felt it the first time right here on these stairs, when he kissed her. Strong and unmistakable, like a sudden punch in the gut. She must have felt it too. He stopped on the landing, looking up at the arched window that he’d smashed through on his last visit.
It looked like it had never been broken. There was even a little cobweb in the corner of one of the upper panes, looking as if it had been there for weeks.
Zane shivered. How much power did she have, if she could afford to spend so much of it on a huge restoration spell that was so perfect it even restored the dust and cobwebs?
He said, “I was going to offer to pay to fix that, but I guess you don’t need me to.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “I didn’t want awkward questions about how it got broken, so I fixed it myself.”
Just like that, like it was no big deal. Maybe she didn’t need his help after all.
She’s our mate, his dragon said stubbornly. Mates need each other.
Yeah. Until one of us dies from our respective impossible quests.
Maybe if you do your impossible quests together, we all won’t have to die, his dragon said.
Good point. Zane just wasn’t sure Blaze would be on board with that.
She’d gone silent again, leading him down the hall to her artifact room. He was looking forward to seeing it again. The other night, he’d been so distracted by the other thief in the vault he’d barely looked at the rest of the room. Dragons knew that the things people collected and treasured told you who they were, and he wanted to know who Blaze was.
They entered the room and she flipped the lights on, standing by the door as he walked from display stand to display stand, glass case to glass case, staring at all the treasures.
And falling in love.
She specialized in sculpture, ancient and modern, especially pieces incorporating gems and precious metals. She didn’t have a huge number of objects, but each one was full of life and beauty.
It was breathtaking. A hoard worthy of a dragon.
The pieces were not just beautiful but well-loved, and they fit together in harmony. As he walked around the room, he could feel them responding to his dragon, waking up and starting to sing.
He wondered, suddenly, what she’d think of his hoard. If it would sing to her, and if she would hear and appreciate its song.
He suddenly, desperately wanted to show it to her.
She led him to a locked case in the center of the back wall. “These are my dragonflies.”
Zane was stunned. There were dragonflies of all sizes, made of gold, silver, and semiprecious stones like jade and malachite and lapis lazuli, or translucent stones like amethyst and fluorite. Greens, purples, blues, pinks, and reds shimmered among the precious metals. Some of the pieces were jeweled, some were enameled, and one had wings of gemstones shaved so thin they were almost transparent.
Zane fell in love all over again.
Watching his face, Blaze slowly unlocked the case and opened the doors. Zane lost himself in the song of the dragonflies, running his fingers lightly over them, picking them up and cupping them in his hands, closing his eyes and letting their beauty wash through him.
He could almost feel himself glowing.
He heard a startled intake of breath, and opened his eyes. Shit. He was glowing, and so were the dragonflies. That whole section of the room was lit up, dragonflies shimmering and sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow.
Blaze was staring at him in awe. “What are you?” she breathed.
He smiled at her, high on the dragonflies’ song. “Listen,” he said.
He could tell when she heard it. A smile spread across her face, lighting up her eyes. She looked so beautiful, strong and fragile at the same time, like dragonflies’ wings. And the song made her happy.
He’d made her happy.
They stared at each other, the sound of gold and jewels and shimmering wings washing through them.
Then, slowly, he let the song fade.
Blaze let out her breath. “What was that?” she asked. “Wild magic?”
“Something like that.”
She waited, but her eyes grew guarded when he didn’t tell her anything more. He hated seeing that look, but he couldn’t share his true nature with her yet.
She said, “So, you want me to trust you, but you’re not willing to trust me?”
“It’s not that.” He reached out, touched her lightly on her wrist. The lingering vibration of the song shivered through them.
“It’s not just my secret to tell.” And it was a big one. There weren’t supposed to be any dragons left in this world—not even hybrids like the Wild Dragons. The Draken had made a deal with the Shifter Council, and the Guardians had been the only exception.
If anyone found out about Zane and the others, they’d be hunted down. But he couldn’t explain this to Blaze—at least, not yet.
“Right,” she said. “Your brothers.” But her eyes were dark, and they wouldn’t meet his.
“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I wish I could.”
She nodded, still without looking at him, and reached into the middle of the case to one of the largest pieces. “This is the Dragonfly of Morocco,” she said.
Zane recognized it immediately from the description and drawings Thorne had shown him. There were no photographs—the owners had kept it off the internet and out of the books. How ironic that it had been right here in this case all along—he’d never needed to go in the vault last night at all.
He took it from her now, cradled it in his hands, but he already knew what he would find. He’d listened to all the dragonflies in the case a few minutes ago, heard their songs, and he would have known if one of them was the Seal.
This one wasn’t. None of them were.
Nonetheless, his stomach dropped, and it was hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “It’s exquisite,” he said. “But it’s not the piece we’re looking for.”
But the disappointment settled in his chest, weighing down his heart. If Blaze didn’t have the Dragonfly Seal, then she wasn’t one of the Three.
They were back to square one. The Seals might never be found.
And if she wasn’t one of the Three, was she even really his mate? Or was Thorne right, and the Three were a myth, or a prophecy that could never apply to Wild Dragons?
Blaze’s face had fallen too. She wanted to help, he realized. Somehow, they’d gone from adversaries to… he didn’t know what. But prophecy or not, he wanted it to be more. “I don’t suppose you have any other dragonflies?” he said hopefully.
Blaze shook her head. “Just a cheap music box my mother gave me,” she said. “It’s pretty, but it’s not magical. At least, not that I ever knew. It’s not even valuable.”
He knew he was grasping at straws, but he had to check every possibility. He couldn’t go back to Thorne and Tyr empty-handed. They were running out of time.
And he wanted so badly for her to be the one.
“Can I see it?”
Blaze hesitated, and he held his breath. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get it.”