Wordlessly, Minach flew them to the cottage near Land’s End, escaping the surreal experience they’d just shared. Perhaps the escape would calm her, would help her. Perhaps it would even begin to heal her mind and soul, if not her body.

But as the rocky coast revealed itself below, a grim reminder punched him in the stomach like a hard blow. For all her pain and torment, Amara was less damaged than he was. What might sooth her—the coast, the lapping waves—might drive him mad.

Surrounded by tall, willowy grasses and lichen-coated rocks, the house should have been charming, inviting and warm. But a frost formed inside of Minach’s chest the moment his Dragon set eyes on it, some deep part of him clenching like a powerful, unrelenting fist, grabbing hold of his breath and refusing to let go.

When they’d landed, he shifted into his human form, the sea air catching in his throat as the horrid feeling consumed him. The cottage was pretty, of course; a small stone hideaway with a strong slate roof, its windows decorated with unused flower boxes. But the shifter couldn’t begin to see its charms as anything other than a cruel taunt. An all-too-familiar scene, marred by the incident that had destroyed his life long ago.

Fuck it all, why had he agreed to come to this bloody place?

“What’s wrong?” Amara asked, immediately seeming to sense his panic.

Always thinking of the other person, she was. The woman walked through life knowing that she’d gotten the short end of every stick, yet here she was, worrying about him. She was a beautiful, generous saint, but he didn’t deserve her kindness.

“Nothing,” he replied, turning his eyes to the front door. “Just—this place reminds me of somewhere I used to know. Come, let’s go inside.” Hopefully the cottage’s interior wouldn’t stir up old memories as much as the landscape around it did. Perhaps he could start breathing again once he’d closed the door behind him.

Amara extracted the key that Bertie had given her from her bag and stepped towards the door, opening it and slipping inside. Minach trudged in behind her, his abdomen clenching with apprehension.

The interior, thankfully, set him a little at ease. A man’s hideaway to be sure, its furnishings were various shades of beige and brown, not at all like the joyful colour scheme that his mother had used to decorate their cottage in Dover. An old rifle hung before a stone fireplace in the living room, and above that was a set of deer’s antlers. No doubt the poor creature had been killed by Bertie’s brother.

“Dead animal bits. Charming,” muttered Minach.

“Truly,” said Amara, who’d already begun to head towards the stairs to scope out the sleeping arrangements. A moment later she’d come back down. “There are two bedrooms upstairs,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to go up and lie down a little.”

“Are you all right?” Minach wasn’t sure if he was asking out of kindness or out of pure selfishness. The truth was that he didn’t want her to leave him, not yet. He needed to get his mind off his memories.

“Fine. Just tired,” she said, but he could tell that she wasn’t being entirely honest with him as she turned to head up the staircase. They were two liars, two people too frightened to admit their deepest fears or to acknowledge their true desires. Maybe it was up to Minach to rectify the situation.

“Amara, wait,” he said, following her. But when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he found himself at a loss for words. What could he possibly say, anyhow? That he wanted to spend another night by her side? She would only tell him that she thought it best that she remain alone. God, their entire relationship had been dictated by a giant, invisible rubber band between them. Each time they pulled apart, an invisible force dragged them back together.

Theirs was a twisted dependency. The problem was that it sure didn’t feel twisted, not to Minach. It was the healthiest relationship he’d ever had. But perhaps that was an indication of just how fucked up he was.

“I’ll walk you up,” he said, “to have a look at the rooms.”

She nodded, and he followed her up to the second storey, where Amara turned and headed into the first bedroom on the right. Turning back to him she looked into his eyes. “This is the smaller of the two.” Her face showed signs of emotional exhaustion, but of something far deeper as well. “Good night,” she said, moving to shut herself away from him.

He pressed his hand flat against the door, stopping her. “Just a moment. May I come in?”

“What?”

“Just…for a little.”

She turned wordlessly and slipped into the room, leaving the door open. Minach followed her, eyeing the space around him. “Nice bedroom,” he said. “I believe they refer to this size as ‘cozy’.”

It was true; the space housed nothing more than a narrow bed, a night stand and a small wooden chair.

“It’ll do fine,” she replied. “You should take the larger one. You’re…larger.”

“That’s true. I’m huge. Parts of me are enormous, in fact.”

The suggestive observation drew a smile from Amara, and a sense of satisfaction pulsed through Minach for his small triumph.

“Enormous. As is your flat,” she said. “I suppose that not everything can be as gigantic as your exquisitely decorated bachelor pad.”

“Also true.” Minach threw himself onto her bed, which bounced up and down with a series of loud squeaks. “Nice bed, this. Lots of give. You ought to come try it.”

“I will. All night, in fact,” she replied, lowering her chin to glare at him. “Alone.”

Minach thrust himself into a sitting position and stared at her. “I’m joking, of course. I would never want to spend more time wrapped around such a woman as you. Except for last night on the couch, but I think that must have been an accident. I believe you tripped and fell onto me. I had no choice but to hold onto you like grim death all night long.”

Amara’s smile faded as he spoke, and she turned her gaze away. “You’re quite right, I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize.”

“It’s all right. I enjoyed it.”

He watched her walk over to the window to peer out, the sunlight outlining her lovely features. She was so beautiful, so refined, so elegant. He could all but feel her phantom Wolf pacing along the floor, silent and powerful. For the first time he felt her pain, her loneliness at the loss of her déor.

“What was it like?” he asked softly.

Amara turned to look at him, brows arched. “What was what like?”

“To lose her. Your Wolf.”

For a moment he wondered if he’d erred by asking such a personal question. Amara could have told him to fuck off, to get out and leave her alone. But instead she simply shrugged.

“I don’t really know how to explain it. She left me for good recently, but the truth is that I suppose I really lost her long ago. She’s a ghost, lurking somewhere inside me, but I can’t find her in there. It didn’t happen all at once, so it’s difficult to describe. She was so alive, so powerful when I was young.”

“When we spoke under the Tor, you told me that your déor was strong.”

“Yes, I probably did,” she replied. “I wanted to believe it. I feel her, always, like a spectre haunting me. She hides somewhere far behind the hunger that consumes me day and night.”

“I can’t imagine losing my Dragon,” he said, turning the subject to himself if only for her sake. He knew that she didn’t like to speak of the affliction that never stopped consuming her, reminding her of what she was, of what she could never be. “My déor is so much part of me. I’m probably more Dragon than man by now. I spent so much of my youth escaping into his body to get away from my feelings. He protected me from my weak human self.” Minach surprised himself with his earnest confession; he’d never talked to anyone about this, not even his brother.

Amara sat down on the opposite side of the bed. “Tell me about it,” she said, as though reading his need to let it out.

Pulling himself back against the headboard, Minach crossed his arms over his broad chest and exhaled, shutting his eyes. “After Lyre’s…accident…I…” he stopped.

“What is it?” she asked. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her body was leaning in towards his, as though trying to reassure him. It’s okay, she seemed to be saying. We’re all vulnerable.

“I spent the bulk of my life trying to prove that I was just as horrid a person as I thought I was. Prone to bouts of rage, to burning, trashing things like a juvenile delinquent.” He turned away as he said the words; he couldn’t look at her, not just now. Part of him wanted her to know what he really was, but another part was ashamed of it. He wasn’t worthy to spend time in the presence of such a woman, let alone expect her to care a whit about him.

“We’ve all made mistakes, Minach,” she said. “We’ve all done things we regret.”

He shook his head and met her gaze. “Not you. You’re perfect.”

Amara let out a cynical, quiet snicker. “Hardly. I’m as imperfect as they come.”

“No, I’m serious. You have exactly one weakness. Which, by the way, is genetic. Yet you’ve never given in to it, never allowed your illness to overpower you. You are as strong as they come. I, on the other hand, have shown nothing but weakness all my life. It was my weakness that led to Lyre’s deafness. Then weakness that ruined my relationship with him. He was a strong boy who grew into a strong man; he was willing to forgive me for what I did.”

Amara looked down at her fingers, which were digging into the quilt that covered the bed. “You know, it’s strange. After all this time, I still don’t entirely know what you did that was so awful, Minach. You never told me about it. The details, I mean.”

The shifter threw his head back against the hard wooden headboard, preemptively punishing himself for what he was about to say. “There’s nothing to tell. A little bastard Dragon shifter was chasing me. I deliberately led him towards my brother. The bastard mistook Lyre for me, grabbed him and dragged him deep under the sea. Lyre lost his hearing as a result. It was the pressure, you see. Pressure from the depth, and a poorly-timed shift into his Dragon. His ears left him and never came back, all because I was an arse who didn’t know better than to horse around with a cruel psychopath.”

“Now, that’s hardly fair. You were only a child. You had no way of knowing what that other boy might do.”

“It doesn’t matter. I stole my brother’s childhood from him. I should have been the one to suffer. I was a little shit.”

“Now you’re a big shit. So what’s your point?” Amara offered a smile, doubtless trying to lighten his mood.

Minach let out a drawn-out sigh before speaking. “It was at a cottage not unlike this one—my family’s cottage in Dover—that Lyre’s accident occurred.” He dragged fingers through his hair. “For some insane reason, that cottage is still Lyre’s favourite place on earth, you know. He heads out there often, and these days, of course he brings Trix with him. But I have rarely returned since I was a child. I hate the place with every fibre of my being.”

He was trembling like a frightened animal, but it wasn’t fear that he was feeling; it was something far worse. A sort of deep, unrelenting rage. Anger directed inwardly, so powerful that his eyes glowed with yellow flecks, his Dragon rising to his surface in defence of his human form.

Amara reached for him but he pulled away, turning his face away to conceal his tears.

“I can’t…” his voice caught in his throat and he paused, catching his breath before proceeding. “I didn’t think that coming to Cornwall would bring me back to such vivid memories of that place, but I’m a fool. The scent of salt on the air, the cliffs. Everything reminds me of that day. Of the monster that I was then. The monster that I’ll always be.”

“You’re not a monster. I’ve told you that. You need to listen to me, Minach. To believe me.”

He shut his eyes, reaching a hand out across the space between them, and she took it. He grabbed her hard and squeezed, almost to the point of hurting her. But she was strong enough, at least, to bear the pain. “Tell me again how I’m decent,” he said. “Tell me how I’m not a bad person.”

“Of course you’re decent, and so much more, Minach. You’re a Dragon shifter, and an amazing one, at that. You’re also a good brother. So what if you did one foolish thing in your life? I never had siblings, but if I had I’ve no doubt we would have done stupid things together. Children do. I had a friend whose brother put burrs in her hair while she was asleep one night. The next morning her mother had no choice but to chop it all off. She hated him for that, but children are resilient. Within days they were back to playing and laughing together. Her hair grew back.”

“Lyre’s hearing never came back.” Minach opened his eyes and turned her way. His irises had dulled a little, his Dragon retreating to a place deep inside him for the time being. “We never went back to playing. We never really became friends again. We’re civil now, and that’s as much as I could ever ask for.”

“You can’t just let feelings go,” Amara replied. “They need to be dealt with properly. To just peel them away and try and dispose of them is inhuman at best.”

“So what do I do, then?” his eyes were pleading with hers. He loosened his grip on her hand. “How do I fix myself, when I could never fix my brother?”

“You know,” Amara said, “women often end up with broken men—men who mistreat them, abuse them, thinking that it’s the ultimate good deed to ‘fix’ them. But there is no fix for people, or for shifters. We are who we are. The real issue is when we don’t love ourselves because we think we’re unworthy of anyone’s affection, including our own. Perhaps you don’t love yourself. But you should.”

Minach let out a bitter chuckle. “Of course I don’t love myself. I’m an utter jackass.”

“Not utter.” Amara threw another sly smile. “Minach, I’ve seen such generosity from you. Even now you’re here, in this place that makes you miserable, because you want to do good for others. Stop selling yourself short all the time. Stop trying to prove that you don’t deserve anyone’s love. I was so upset with you for how you spoke to Caitlin, because I know you’re better than that. I know you’re not cruel, not deep down. You care deeply about others. Stop pretending you don’t.”

Minach detected the warmth in her voice and forced his gaze to meet her own. She was smiling, still leaning in, still trying to console him with her closeness.

But he couldn’t return the smile. The truth was that his heart was shattering, and there was so much yet to say. He hadn’t yet told her the darkest of his thoughts, the one that had been eating away at his mind for days. “Trix is pregnant, Amara,” he said, his voice trembling.

“Yes, she is. But why should that upset you?”

“You don’t understand.” He knew how weak he looked; knew that tears were forming again, ready to cascade down his cheeks. But he needed to say the words, regardless of how difficult it was for him to confront his worst nightmare. “A Dragon shifter’s child inherits traits from both parents. Their baby will no doubt have red or black hair, like Trix or Lyre. Light eyes, too. It will be strong and stubborn, and probably very kind and generous.”

“Yes? I still don’t understand your concern.”

“No, you don’t, do you?” Minach looked away. “Sweet woman, it so rarely occurs to you to look through a dark lens at the world. You see, their baby could end up deaf. Because of me. Because of what I did all those years ago.”

Amara went silent for a moment, pondering his words before replying. “No, Minach, that’s not how genetics work.”

“Not how human genetics work, you mean. We don’t work on the same evolutionary scale. It doesn’t matter that Lyre’s deafness came later in life. All that matters is that he can’t hear, and neither can his Dragon. For all the power that the Relics have given the Guild members, they will never give him his hearing back. There’s a risk that his child will suffer the same fate.” Nausea overtook him as he thought of it. “I would be robbing his child and that child’s déor of a crucial sense.”

“If it’s a risk, it’s one that Lyre and Trix agreed to take together.” Amara reached for him, pressing her fingers to his arm. “Minach, Lyre is happy now. Deafness isn’t a death sentence. Don’t do your brother the disservice of behaving as though he’s somehow less of a man because of it. His child will be wonderful, and you will be a wonderful uncle.”

“How can you think that? Fuck, how can you even want to spend time with me?” he asked, a familiar scowl returning to his features as his voice deepened into a low growl. “I’m a monster; I’ve always been a monster. I’m a hollow shell of a man with a very angry Dragon inside him.”

“Never say that,” Amara replied, her voice pleading. “It may sound like a mad thing to say, given how annoyed I was with you earlier—but you’re one of the best people I know, not to mention the most honest person I’ve ever met. You never hide behind false attempts at politeness or pretence. You’re…refreshing, I suppose, even though you can be a right arse.”

“Pfft. I’m about as refreshing as a giant plate of burnt sausage.”

No, Minach. You’re so much better than you think.” All the tiredness had left Amara’s face. Her eyes were so kind, so understanding. She was the purest, best person he’d ever known.

And he would never in a million years understand why she tolerated the likes of him.